Because of last week’s bad biopsy results, I had to make another appearance at Northwestern Hospital for ANOTHER biospy.  I also scheduled a few other appointments that I was expected to get taken care of.

6:00 – My good friend, Dave Westergaard came into the room that he had so graciously allowed me to sleep in for the night.  He lives in Highland Park, IL which was only a 20 minute drive to the hospital!  Usually, I have to rely on my family in Rockford to drive me.  But, since it’s a good 1.5 or 2 hour drive, we have to get up extra early in order to get to the cath lab between 6:30 and 7:00am.

7:03am – Dave let me off at the curb on 201 Huron Street at the door that I usually go through, and I dutifully went straight up to the 8th floor.  The check-in nurse, whose desk is so strategically placed right next to the elevator bank so that you can’t avoid you, recognized me immediately!  A very, very cheery woman, the first thing she said to me was, “Where’s your mom?”  (My mom is pretty popular around that place too.)

I had a brand new nurse assigned to me this time, Denise.  She was very, very friendly, but didn’t realize how familiar I was the place, the people, and the procedures.  (I even informed her that she forgot to ask me when the last time I ate was!)

I brought my laptop with me, but just felt so, so drained that I just didn’t have the energy to break it out.  The demands that other people have been placing on me have just been enormous!  It seems as though everywhere I turn, someone is trying to insert a spigot into any available spot on my body.  It’s much like the nurses who have had to scour my arms to find a spot on a vein that fights the needle.  I had to force myself to relax, and to stop thinking/worrying about the stressors that constantly plague me.  I’ve been finding that my life is nothing but a series of crises, one, two, or three at a time connected by life-squeezing wormholes.

So, I just slept until it was time for the biopsy. 

9:30 – Biopsy.  I was escorted into the sub-zero temperature cath lab, stepped right up onto the super skinny table, stripped naked by 2 gorgeous nurses and then sedated.  The next thing I knew, I was back in my parking spot in the holding area. 

12:55 – I had to race over to the 626 building to meet with Dr. Stoser from the infectious disease department.  Evidently, my donor had been exposed to a dangerous virus called CMV, but I had not.   Consequently, I have been taking an anti-viral medicine called Valcyte (which costs nearly $3000 per bottle!).  They would like me to discontinue me from it, but I have to very closely monitor my health and get lab work done every two weeks.

2:00pm – I had to go over to the Galter pavilion in order to have a procedure done that I never had done before.  It was called a “DEXA Scan” — the purpose of which was to measure my bone density.  (Prednisone, one of the powerful steriods I’m on, has a lot of beneficial effects, but also, a lot of negative ones.  Although it’s helping to prevent mst y heart from being rejected, it also likes to erode my bones.)

Luckily, I was able to con my father to drive in to the city to pick me up.  He left at 2:30 and didn’t get there until 5:30.  I just sat in Au Bon Pain restaurant on the second floor and then in the lobby getting some work done.