Story 4Jan2021: Tuesday

Starting with the most essential item, Susie was better this Tuesday morning. I managed to get to Forest Grove Rehab and Care Center about 9:30 and was in Susie room, 44A, a bit later after the staff got her dressed. The lead nurse for Susie, Pre, told me and some of the nursing aids too that Susie is not going to a sleep study today. Pre informed me the doc had ordered it, but she delayed it. We both agreed more needles and tests were not what we needed.

Returning to Susie’s room, I spent the morning opening Christmas cards; I saved them for now and read them to Susie. I told Susie about the last few days. She could only get a few words out. I got some thickened water, Susie must have only thick liquids now, and the water helped her speech. It was still hard to understand her, but she was more clear.

I called Susie’s mother Leta and Dr. Peter Koper and we did FaceTime. Later, Susie had some food when Zoriada also stopped by. A busy day for Susie. A better day.

Another important detail is that my doctor meeting with the cancer folks is tomorrow in Portland at the Knight Cancer Center branch. There we will decide the next steps for me. Chemo, type of drugs to be used, and all that is Thursday morning at 10:30. I am considering delaying any chemo for a few months to get my strength back and to get hospice started for Susie. I will work with the docs at Knight Cancer Center for all of this.

Lastly, on important items, the Mac I am using totally crashed last night. I had to reload the OS! I am now using Monterey, 12.1, and the computer is currently working (except for the mic). I was up to 11:30 reloading it. I thought I would have to reload all my data from my backup; I have Apple’s Time Machine running using a super-fast solid-state external drive with the MacBook Pro (13″ M1) connected by USB-C to a landing dock from OWC. The OWC landing dock was expensive but supplies seamless access to the backup drive with more USB-C plugs, supplies high watts for the power for the Mac, legacy USB ports, and even a network port. The M1-based new Mac does not support anything except WiFi connections for the network! Returning to the crash, I was surprised that everything recovered, and there was no need to rebuild my Mac. I was able to sleep after running Word and seeing that my documents were still available.

The only scary thing was that the Mac needed to do a complete backup to recover into Monterrey, but that was completed without issue last night. Please note, with the OWC landing doc, I never miss a backup. I just plug in the MacBook Pro into the power from the landing dock and that connects my Time Machine drive and the next backup happens in a few minutes. I do have to manually eject the drive when I unplug the Mac, but I have now developed that habit. Failing to eject the drive gets me a nasty message and can corrupt the backup if in progress and require clearing the Time Machine–had that happen once, not a good thing. Thusly, I eject the backup drive when I grab my Mac.

Starting back, I was up at 6:30ish. I made coffee, had breakfast of low-fat cottage cheese and canned fruit (sticking to my post-surgery diet), and read and cleared my email. I wrote the blog, a bit sad this time with Susie fading, and then showered and cleaned up.

I was fatigued a bit after doing all of that. However, I managed to safely drive to the nursing home. I would need to rest after the trip.

I managed 90 minutes and was relieved when Anne Weld-Martin came in after 11. I also spoke to Pre and will begin hospice for Susie next week. This would likely bring Susie home with lots of reasonable care, Pre suggested. They are happy to care for her in Forest Grove, but hospice seems the next logical step. I agreed with Pre. Pre and I also decided next week would be the soonest to do this; I still am weak from the surgery.

I got home and stripped the bed, and started the wash. I opened a can of clam chowder for lunch, got it hot on the stove, and watched a few videos on YouTube. Finally, I got some blankets, sat in Susie’s favorite chair in the living room, and fell asleep.

I awoke and decided to try a bit more driving and drove to the hobby store and back. I was tired and did not buy anything at Tammy’s Hobby store. The magazine I like, Fine Modeller, was still in the current issue I had already read.

Back to the chair and the sheets now in the dryer. I decided to continue through the pirate movies. So I put on the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. This one, as I remembered from my first viewing it (we used to have a tradition that the Smiths, the Wilds, and Michael Giessner would watch the newest Pirate movie together), was a bit forced with weak transitions, but still fun. I watched the whole film and then fell asleep again.

Dinner was a repeat from Pastaghetti delivered by GrubHub. The chicken breast parmesan is breaded and covered with sauce and cheese and seems to work for me. I also ordered a portion of spaghetti in meat sauce (my diet is beef only ground and broken up). I had only a bit of the spaghetti, saving most for lunch on Wednesday. I also ordered a meal for Corwin as he was in this evening.

I started the third Pirate movie, my fav, in which I think the actors and directors find their footing and introduce more mythology and more pirates. Even the Disney ride’s first drop is sort of explained in the movie; I only manage 1/2 of the film.

I remade the bed; my incisions are now sorer these days, and the stretching required to make the bed was, while not difficult, more painful than usual. I picked up the Agatha Christie book, Murder on the Nile, and almost slept. I then got up, took my last pills, and discovered the Mac was dying.

I remembered rolling over a few times once in bed near 11:30ish, reading more, and then a deep sleep came (until 5:00ish).