October 17

Things have normalized to such a degree that I have not felt the need to write things down. Dad is good enough to absorb all my complaints and grumbles and he sympathizes with me and shares all my symptoms. 😊

When we went to the cancer center for my 2^nd cycle of treatments we had an interesting experience.  While the infusion part only lasts about 45 minutes, the required blood draws lasted just about all day. There is a blood draw before the infusion and then half and hour later and then one after the infusion and then once every hour followed by once every 2 hours. So by the time we get to the every two hour blood draw we are free to leave the cancer center and stroll around a bit or walk over to the main hospital where they have a very nice cafeteria.

It was a very nice day so we walked across the parking lot to the hospital cafeteria. We had a nice lunch and on the way back we saw a man crawling in the grass strip that divides the street from the sidewalk.  Dad thought we should check out if the guy needs some help.  It was hard to tell if he was trying to get up or just trying to get comfortable lying in the sunshine.

As we got closer we could see that he was trying to army crawl but kept on falling on his face. He was an old, haggard, tall man. He had fresh bandages on his wrists, no teeth to speak of and a sort of turban on his head that made him look like an Indian fakir.

We asked him if he needed help standing up and he was happy to be helped. We hoisted him up and even slumped over he was taller than us. He said he was trying to walk to the street corner, a couple hundred feet away, so he can catch the bus home.  We walked at a snail’s pace but even so his feet kept buckling up under him and his head hung so low on his chest he could not see where he was going.  

Half way to the street corner was a stone bench and we deposited him there, I had seen an abandoned hospital wheelchair in the parking lot so I went to get it and we helped him into it. There were some nice construction workers how brought him some bottled water and they told us that there is no bus stop at this corner.

What now? Finder’s keepers. We had picked him up and now we didn’t know what to do with him.  Dad started to wheel him towards the street corner and he started to give directions on where to go.

I felt it was better if I returned to the cancer center but Dad was a trooper and wheeled him further down the street. The guy kept telling him just go to the next corner.

Back at the center I waited for Dad to return and after almost an hour I was getting worried so I called Dad. He had by now wheeled the guy a long way around the next block but had not found the right bus stop yet.  Eventually they came to a mental institution where the guard by the front door recognized the guy and Dad was more than happy to turn him over at this point especially since he had started to complain that he needed to use the bathroom and then told it was too late he had already pooped in his pants.  Initially I felt guilty for appropriating the hospital’s wheelchair without permission but on a consequent visit I noticed abandoned wheelchairs, like grocery carts, in several other places also.  I figure they are not going to miss that one.

More than five weeks after our accident we finally got a call from the car repair place that Dad’s car was ready to be picked up.  So Tuesday morning we drove up to Sacramento picked up the car and I immediately headed back home.  Once I got back into Merced I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some sandwiches for dinner and while I was waiting in line at the check-out  I suddenly felt very hot and cold and dizzy and I knew I had to get home fast.  It was the strangest thing it came on so fast.  For the next three days I felt pretty rotten. I had a rash that bloomed all over my legs, my bones and joint were so painful I could barely crawl upstairs and I could not eat anything.  Then by Friday as fast as these symptoms had appeared they subsided again and I was back to my normal self. A little thinner and tired but pain free.  I sure hope that was a one time occurrence and not to be expected every month.