<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">A quick note from Joe, still confined to the hospital . . . </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">All the joking about vampires seems to have some justification in fact. The docs saw my red blood-cell count was declining and gave me a couple of units of blood. Half an hour later, I seemed to join the human race. Voice strong, feeling good.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">But I still have to be hooked up to a drip (sounds like some marriages) for at least a month, for antibiotics. Might save me an operation, so I'm all for it, though I suppose I should be altruistic and refuse, to help preserve the microecology. If any bug can get to me after six weeks of intravenous antibiotics, you don't want to be on the same planet with it.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">I'm in very little pain, and not taking any profound drugs for it. Just trying to be patient, reading good books. The only other patient in the room is an overbearing blowhard, and I'm extremely tired of hearing him repeat the same opinions over and over in a voice that has the carrying power of an enervating foghorn. But then I overhear his daughter trying to cope with him -- she's only "able" to come in for an hour every third day or so -- and I guess I can be thankful that I will eventually leave him behind.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">Right now I'm reading Susan Vreeland's LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTY, a historical novel about the Impressionists, which revolves around Renoir's painting of the same name. The painting was meant to be a response to criticism of the group, and the novel is told from the point of view of several of the artists and hangers-on in the picture, which gives the book a delightful in-joke dimension.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">The food at the VA hospital is rarely any good, and a clerical error has given me all kinds of interesting limitations. When I was on a liquid diet, prior to cat scanning, all I could have was variations on high-carb Kool-aid, which sent my blood sugar sideways, but that was just a blip. I would be in a real dietary bind if I had to subsist on the diabetic diet. Much of it is so bad I literally can't swallow it; glottis on strike. Bring back that Kool-aid! But Gay keeps me going by bringing in big sandwiches from home, liquid protein, and microwavable goodies.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">Don't yet know when I'll be able to go home. Might be only a couple of days, but no one wants to commit. (The doctor in charge of my case is in the Bahamas for a couple of weeks.)</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">Right now I only have two antibiotics dripping into my pic line (haven't seen it written down, so that might be PIC or PiC or whatever). I suppose the next four weeks will be rotation of various kinds.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">I've had lots of company. Lore comes by almost every day, and Christina and Brandy almost as often. </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">(Four hours later . . . ) No food or water for four or five hours, and then a fluoroscopic movie while they injected my pancreas with something. Hospital starting to fill up. I'll send this home for Gay to throw into the sky, hoping to hit a carrier pigeon --</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">Joe</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">PS from Gay: No results from the fluoroscopy yet. I got a lesson in taking care of an IV, so I think they're planning to let him go home soon. Hope!</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Chalkboard; ">Our usual New Year's Eve party is still on, with Lore and Tim as hosts, in case Joe and I are at the hospital. So much help is wonderful. Love, Gay</div></body></html>