Less Medical News, More Living

Jon's health has improved bit by bit. Compared to a week ago, he is more energetic, less dour, more likely to try to get something done. He is also showing signs of a new cold, so there may be some more of that, unfortunately. With Jon there is no such thing as a normal cold. His blood counts went up some after the red blood cell transfusion and that certainly helps his overall sense of well-being. 

On Monday, Jon and I made one of those ambitious trips to Pennsylvania to get some farm supplies and drop off our car that has multiple organ failure by now. We decided that the problems with the car were getting complicated enough that we wanted to take it back to the place where we bought it in New Holland. It was a multi-step process just to get organized to get the car there -- first we had to have someone replace a recently broken window in the big pickup truck and that meant Stephen had to bring that truck back from the other farm, then I had to take that truck back to the farm so Stephen could bring the trailer back because my original plan suddenly fell into place when the fertilizer factory called to say our order was ready unexpectedly early. Stephen helped us load the VW onto the trailer, driving it on without power steering (one of the cascading list of breaking things -- I knew it wasn't just a dead battery in Baltimore and I was so right). 

Over a year ago when Jon was getting really frail and tired, Rebecca said he wasn't allowed to do the PA trips anymore. He always came back completely exhausted. That rule didn't feel good to him so I said I would go with him on every trip until he got his weight up to a certain point. I have dusted off my long ago trailer driving skills and have now hauled tractors and random equipment and many tons of fertilizer while Jon sleeps in the passenger seat. He drives the first and last parts and I seem to end up doing the driving on all the winding, narrow roads in Lancaster County, avoiding the horse and buggy folks. It is not like driving across Kansas.

Anyway, it was a 10 1/2 hour day and he survived it well. He has three very important roles on these trips: navigating, tying down the load with straps, and identifying where we are going to buy lunch. When we are both awake, we talk about all the things that don't come up in everyday life, like a recent Mark Furstenberg blog about growing up celebrating Christmas, in a Jewish family. Jon has lots of opinions, no surprise.

All of this detail is meant to show that Jon is gradually leaving his identity as a full time patient behind. He has a ways to go before he has strength and stamina but hospital life takes it out of you for a very long time. He can hold Thalia now, and she is getting heavier by the day. He has resumed working for his other boss, something we weren't sure he would ever do again, but he is back on the computer at night.

Tomorrow we go back to Hopkins for a bone marrow biopsy, which is basically another checkup but kind of a yucky experience. It will be interesting to find out what is happening though. Maybe by next week we will have some medical news.


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