So Here's What Happened

The reason I disappeared from the blog is that I was in the hospital, quite unexpectedly. I went to the cardiologist for a consult on Wednesday afternoon. He ordered a chest x-ray and a blood test. I left, stopped at the grocery for some fruit, and was on my way home when the phone rang and a nurse said that she was from the doctor's office, that my hemoglobin was dangerously low and I needed to go to the emergency room RIGHT NOW. Okay. So I drove over to the nearest hospital, parked as close as I could get to the door, and went in. They put me in a wheelchair and ran me into a treatment room where they had me undress, they stuck an IV in my left forearm, and started pumping in fluids. They whisked me up to the 5th floor, installed me in a room, and started giving me units of blood packed with red blood cells. Seems I was the wonder of the floor since my hemoglobin was 3.5 and it's supposed to be around 12.  Everyone was impressed that I was still walking around. In all they gave me 4 units and my level rose to 8.7. Much better. They did an endoscopy and 2 (count 'em, 2) colonoscopies (which meant drinking two giant jugs of that nasty prep stuff) to see if I was bleeding there. Nope. So they sent me home with orders to see my primary doc to arrange a test with a GI specialist where I swallow a tiny camera so they can check my small intestine. If that shows nothing, then I get to see a hematologist. They sent me home around lunchtime today and I'm feeling much much MUCH better. Whew.

They would have sent me home late in the day on Friday but we were having a blizzard. Blizzard Bennett, I think they called it. It was snowing like crazy and blowing like a hurricane. I think we got around 8" or 9" of snow. It was treacherous out there so I was glad to be in my safe little hospital room. Wanna know how hard the wind blew? Look at the windchime. One of the tubes blew so high that it got stuck in a crook hook. Crazy.

One brave little Sparrow showed up at the tube feeder this afternoon. He didn't stay long but you can see how deep the snow is on top of the feeder. When I got home I slipped on my big boots and went out to top up the birdbath and didn't get out of breath. That's when I realized how much better I felt.

Then a Red-bellied Woodpecker came to land on the suet pellets and I managed to snap this slightly blurry picture of him.

On Wednesday before I went to the doc I drew Lesson 9 in the new drawing book. It's supposed to be wind, clouds, and rain. I like it. It's very light. I hope you can see it.

Then this afternoon I drew another picture from Lesson 9. It's supposed to be an homage to Van Gogh's Starry Night, I think.

And just for good measure, I flipped open the Zentangle book and tried my hand at a couple tangles that I haven't had much luck drawing so far.

I have to say how lucky I am to live where I live. The security guard at the hospital came out to my car with me and brushed off all the snow and kicked away the drift that was on the driver's side so I could get in and come home. And my tenants and two neighbors with snowblowers cleared my driveway and walk to the porch. I had asked the tenants to handle the snow removal since I couldn't breathe and I asked my other neighbor if he'd handle the plow drift with his snowblower. Such nice people. How can I ever repay them?

I'm so excited that I get to sleep in my own bed tonight without someone coming into the room every hour or so. I spent Wednesday night awake drinking the first jug of prep and running to the bathroom every 5 minutes. Thursday night was a little better; I slept off and on until the nurse woke me at 5:30am to finish the second jug of prep. And last night the nurse kept peeking in to check on me and woke me at 5:30am to take my blood pressure. How am I supposed to sleep through all that? Sheesh. It's a wonder people get better in the hospital. Everyone's a sleep-deprived zombie.

--Barbara