Update & Hospice Lowdown

08/12/2012 - Well, as I've been told repeatedly, I'm not doing a very good job keeping my "Know Your Walrus" blog project going.  I've had a few things go on recently that have thrown me off track. I haven't forgotten about it but sometimes priorities change.  Such is the case with the last month.

So July started off fantastically. July 1 through July 5, my friend Ryan and I decided to ride our motorcycles to Memphis, TN so that we could visit Graceland. It was five days and four evenings of great rides, good camping, and good company.  Sure, we didn't go the most direct routes and actually ended up riding 500 more miles than we needed to, but the purpose of the trip was more for the ride itself than it was the destination.  Ryan's rigid 1974 Kawasaki KZ400 was a complete champ and aside from the fuel tank being "volumetrically challenged" performed with flying colors.  Impressions: Memphis is kind of a dump and the roads into/out of Memphis are in horrid shape.  The ride down and back was (although really hot) super fun.

After returning from Memphis, I rested up for a day and then was out on the road again.  My friend Pat and I went to Normal, IL on Sunday July 8 so we could go see Drag The River play at Firehouse Pizza.  I'm not going to lie, the turnout for the show was pretty lousy.  That being said, it was a great show because it basically degenerated into Chad Price and Jon Snodgrass trading acoustic duties and taking requests from the audience.  It was a quite the low key intimate affair and I was really glad to have made the trip. Drag The River was one of the only bands that I had never seen live that I REALLY wanted to.  So now, I can scratch that off of my list.

Next came a quick trip with the family focused on baseball.  Laela had hatched up a little scheme to get us to four baseball parks in four days. So on Thursday July 19 we tossed Miranda into the driver's seat and pointed her south as we headed to Bowling Green Kentucky to see the Bowling Green Hot Rods (single A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays). From there we went to St. Louis to see the Cardnials vs. Cubs. We then went to Louisville to see the Bats and followed that up with a stop in Cincinnati on the way home to see the Reds play.  It was a lot of fun (other than the Cardinals winning).

So now fast forward to the following Wednesday.  I'd been grouchy and sore all over for a couple of days and I couldn't seem to not be fatigued.  I took my temperature which was high and by all indications I was coming down with a case of pneumonia.  So I called my oncologist and the next thing you know, BAM I've got hospice care coming to my house to treat me.  I didn't think I was in that bad of shape but apparently I am.  Hospice isn't as awful or as ominous as it sounds.  It just means that I've got some extra equipment in my house to help me cope with some of my symptoms and that I have a nurse that comes and visits me a couple of times a week.  So they brought me a hospital bed, an oxygen machine, a bedside table, a wheelchair, a bunch of portable oxygen tanks, and any meds that I need.  I've now got a new point of contact should I need anything.  If I need meds or for the nurse to visit me I just call hospice and they arrange everything for me.  So I must have nipped the pneumonia in the bud because as soon as my course of anti-biotics was completed I felt much better.  

That's basically hospice care in a nutshell....I just have someone new to call for my primary health care needs.  The sky isn't falling and there is no need to make a big deal out of it.