Gary can't sleep. He's so paranoid we won't make it to the 7:20 bus that he wants to be up early. Last night, I convinced him to take his Lactulose solution, and when he wasn't worried about getting to the bus, he was in the bathroom. Kept the whole Lodge awake.
We called home around 6:15AM and talked to mom. Told her to talk to Dr. Kahn. By 7AM we were on the Vancouver bus. Too early. We had to wait for 20 minutes to roll. I got back out and bought a newspaper. Gary was looking for Spurs basketball scores. I was preoccupied with the classifieds and how the state lottery chairman was cheating the state really bad. Finally, the bus takes off. Unfortunately, I don't pull out my video camera and take shots from the bus. I think about it, but then I think that maybe it would embarrass him.
At 8AM, we're on the 4th floor of the hospital, checking in at "short stay care" for the "procedure" that neither of us are certain of. They take Gary in the back and want me to wait in the tiny waiting room, but I ask if I can just come back since other family members (wives, sisters, etc.) seem to be going back with their guys when they call. They let me go back with him, although they're worried they don't have enough room. There's plenty of room when I get back there. They make Gary change clothes, although we haven't agreed to anything. The nurses promise that Dr. Ives (who will actually be performing the "procedure" and the head of liver surgery, Dr. Orloff, will be by to talk with us first).
At 10AM, Dr. Ives shows up. I have a list of questions to ask him. So does Gary. It's clear that he doesn't know all that goes in to a liver transplant. But at the same time, Dr. Ives seems good, and he answers our questions well. We're relatively satisfied. They will do an anthroscopy, and then decide if they can do the chemo. Gary will be awake through all of it. He keeps saying that he'll be able to tell if the guy is "all thumbs" and not capable of the chemo. The chemo is kind of scary; it all depends on the main artery running through the liver. If the cancer is isolated, that is, if it's not near or utilizing the main artery for blood support, they can use the chemo to make it smaller. Gary agrees to sign the consent form to have the procedure done when they take him down to radiology on the 2nd floor.
Then a psychyatrist showed up. She resembled a bird. Some kind of crested water fowl. Anyway, she wanted to move Gary to another private room to talk, but he said talking where he was would be fine. He had no secrets. She asked him about delayed stress syndrome. I noticed at this point she had moved her chair far away from striking distance. He said he couldn't explain it to her. There was a long pause, then she insisted. He said it was as if the hospital blew up, and 3/4 of all the people she knew were dead. He asked her how she would feel. She just bobbed her head. He thought he did fine. I said nothing.
I sat with him for a while after Dr. Ives left, and when they started bringing in IV's and getting him on a gurney, I left and went down to radiology, expecting to meet him there.
I found the place and prepared to camp out. This thing could take a couple of hours. But after 20 minutes or so, he didn't show up. So I went to the desk to ask. The clerk was confused. She said he was scheduled, but he was still on the 4th floor. She didn't know why. So I packed back up and headed up to Short Stay Care. They gave me a particular nurse's name, who I looked up. She took me to Gary, who still thought he was waiting to get up to the 4th floor for the procedure. I told him it wasn't happening, from what I knew was going on. Neither of us could figure out why. Someone came in and told me I had to leave -- this area was only for patients and nurses. I asked where they were taking him. They said they were checking him in to 9D shortly. So that's where I headed.
At 9D, they didn't know he was coming. I waited. Didn't know if they would take him to the fourth floor for the procedure and then to 9D or if they were sending him straight to 9D. I went back to the fourth floor, and they said he wasn't scheduled. So I headed back to 9D and waited some more. At 12:30, he finally showed up in 9D. The rumor is that he refused to consent to the procedure. This is not true. We will discover this later.
Between 1PM and 4:45PM, I shadowed him through procedures all over the hospital. Sometimes, I wasn't sure where he was, they moved him around so fast. Sometime, during this fun, I ate a sandwich and a bag of chips, but Gary had nothing. They took 17 more vials of blood, did a CAT scan, an Echo and a sonogram.
At 4:45, they took him back to a really nice room in 9D, where they finally allowed him to eat. They had brought the food in at noon, but told him he couldn't have any, since he had all these tests to take. So after every test, he'd get to come in, look at it for ten minutes, and then go to another test. At 4:30, this whole thing irritated me, and I went to the canteen before it closed and bought two chicken breasts (skinless and baked) and some mashed potatoes and took them back to his room, placing them on top of the 4 hour old lunch they had left for him. When he arrived, he asked me to hide them in his nightstand. He didn't want to get in trouble for eating unauthorized food.
Emmett, the nurse, took the lunch to the microwave an heated it back up. Gary ate and swore it was wonderful. He told Emmett he really wanted to talk to a doctor. Gary and Emmett really hit it off. Both hunters and fishermen, formerly heavy equipment operators; Emmett had even lived in Texas (a bit north of San Antonio) for a while, so he knew what we were coming from. He paged a doctor, and finally at 6PM, a resident - Dr. Nicole Wheeler - showed up. She talked with us a while and did a perfunctory physical exam. She said things showed up in Gary's levels that made Dr. Ives not want to do the procedure. She said that test he took today would answer a lot of questions he had. She was nice, but almost too kind. Gary was discouraged. And cranky. I don't blame him. He had been through too much today to be positive. Which is the lecture I gave him. He had to remain positive. It is important to everything overall -- the doctors even treat you differently if you have hope. I kissed him and made it to the 6:15 VA bus, even though I thought I would stay longer and just take a cab back to the Lodge.
I made it to the bus though, and sat in the back with a guy that looked a lot like an old friend of mine - Jody Moore - but this guy was much more preoccupied with pop corn. He was like the RainMan of popcorn. All kinds of pop corn -- and things you could put on it. I thought about whipping out the camera, but with popcorn rainman next to me, it would have been too strange. Looking back on it though, it certainly wouldn't have been any stranger than he was.
In any case, I had to get out of that oppressive lodge. It sounds weird, I know, because it was only 2 nights there now, but I couldn't shower and the place and the people gave me the heebie jeebies. Like they were watching me all the time -- it was clear they thought I was arrogant -- with my own phone and all. Plus, we had kept them up all night last night.
They were probably relieved to see me arrive alone. I announced to the folks in the den who were watching TV that Gary had been admitted to the hospital, and I was going to go spend the night with a friend, then I called the Travellodge downtown, made a reservation, and called a cab. I just needed to get out of there. No one protested, that's for sure.
I had the cab stop off at SafeWay to look for food and Lysol (I wanted a CLEAN shower). By 1:45AM, I was in some weird travellodge in downtown, showered, fed, and talking to Joe. Man, I wished he could have come along for this. It's hard alone.
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