I don't have quite as much privacy at The Manor as I thought I would--the entire staff seems to have keys to my studio apartment.
My day begins at midnight, when one of the nursing staff brings me a dose of vancomycin. She knocks briefly, opens the door with her key, and comes on in. I'm in bed, of course, but I wake up enough to swallow the dose--it's liquid--and then go back to sleep.
This is repeated at 6 a.m., when I get the second dose of the day. This one is problematic, because I have trouble going back to sleep.
I also get vanco at noon and 6 p.m., and various other drugs at different times of day. There really is no alternative to the 6 a.m. wake-up dose, so I just have to put up with it until after the poop transplant. That is two to three weeks out.
Meals are part of the package, but breakfast is from 7:30 to 8:30--too early for me to be hungry. Also too early for me to want to be all showered and dressed. I like to putter in my yukata (an indigo-and-white, casual cotton kimono from Japan) for a couple of hours in the morning. See: yukata
My yukata has a parasol design, similar to this one in its mix of blue and white: yukata fabric. I wear it casually with a narrow belt of the same fabric.
That's what I'm doing right now, in fact, on Sunday morning. I made some good coffee with my little french press and I'm eating a banana as I write this on my bed. I've been keeping bananas and yoghurt in my room; one or the other of those plus a cup of coffee with organic half & half is all I want in the morning.
Lunch is at noon and dinner is at 5. The food is better than you would expect, and the Kitchen Goddess, Kim, is willing to work to accommodate my vegetarian food preference. I don't have an appetite, and my ravaged gut (from the C. diff.) can't tolerate much roughage. But my weight is stable again, and I am gradually adding more foods to the "that went down OK" list.
Kim's homemade vegetable soup is excellent and we have that about once a week. She also ordered some tofu for me and I've had tofu with vegetables a couple of times lately. Maybe I'll ask if they can make that for me for dinner tonight.
Some good things:
* The staff are all great. No problems there.
* The building is clean, bright, and well-maintained. My microwave went out the second day I was here, and I had a replacement within an hour or two.
* My room is cleaned for me once a week. Also, the cleaner washes my bed sheets and puts them back on.
* I am in an interesting part of town--for those of you who don't know Seattle, look up Capitol Hill.
* My table mate at meals is a retired college professor. He must be close to 80 and is in a wheelchair and on oxygen. He likes to talk, and I don't care if he sometimes repeats himself (he knows he does this and he always asks me to stop him if he has told me that story before--I do, sometimes). I guess he is my first friend here.
* Younger Son lives close.
The flip side:
* My days are just too long.
* People are friendly, but I have yet to meet someone I feel like being friends with. Well, maybe one person, besides my table mate. Of course, I have only been here two weeks.
* I wish I hadn't Identified The Manor by name in my earlier posts, because there are some things I'd like to write about but won't since I don't want to upset anyone here--not that any of the other residents know about my blog yet.
What am I talking about? Gossip. Lots of gossip about other residents. Also one scandal. I'd love to write about it, but I won't.
Given this climate, I have not wanted to talk to other residents, or to the staff, about my cancer. Don't want to answer questions. Don't want to hear other people's cancer stories.
But people are curious, and they ask. Questions along the lines of, "Why are you here?"
I'm still honing my answer, but usually I say something like, "I have some medical problems, but I don't like to talk about them."
One woman asked (pushed) me several times, and I caved and said, "I have metastatic cancer, but I don't like to talk about it." After asking me what "metastatic" meant, she burst into tears because her sister has cancer.
Once I've made a good friend or two here, I think I won't mind talking about cancer, just as part of my daily life.
That is my next goal, now that I've figured out the laundry room, where the garbage goes, and how to make a special request to the kitchen--to make one friend.
I have my eye on one person, a guy, in fact. We've talked just briefly about how hard it is to make this transition, and he mentioned having coffee and talking some more. I hope that happens soon--I want to find out how he fills his time day to day. Also, I do need someone here who I can talk to openly. A friend.
The end of the day. I'm usually back in my room and in my yukata again by 6:30. By 7:30 I'm in bed, reading. A staff member brings me my bedtime meds and I'm asleep by 9:30 or so.
My new neighborhood: Capitol Hill
@ Jeanne Sather 2012.
