Shoulder Bumped

Yesterday was low key. We had a reprieve from the hospital. We walked to Trader Joe's on a mission to buy some organic coffee but were unsuccessful. Speaking of coffee, the other day I was in Whole Foods by myself and in the coffee department they had 6 large barrels of different types of whole coffee beans. As I rounded the aisle there was a punkish teenage boy with both arms up to his elbows in one of the tubs of coffee beans. He was playing with the beans as if he were a toddler in a sandbox. I stopped my cart directly in front of him and sternly said "Really?"  "That is DISGUSTING!" He was not embarrassed but he did stop. He mumbled some rude utterance under his breath and laughed it off to his buddies. I stood astonished at what I just saw and looked around to see if anyone else was bothered by it. No one paid attention. I did not buy coffee at Whole Foods, not even in the sealed package.

The past couple of days Jim and I have been a little uneasy. On Monday when he was in for blood work his white blood counts were elevated. He had no signs of infection or graft-versus-host-disease but they ran blood cultures on him anyway. Tuesday he had to go back for more blood work to run 4 in-depth tests to find out what may be causing the elevation. Two of the tests had something to do with detecting cancer cells. It was hard to wait those couple of days wondering if the cancer could possibly have returned. Dr. Sauter was out of town but the NP was in touch with him regularly. Last night Shani, the NP, called to let Jim know the tests showed no malignant cells. What a relief. We are still waiting for one more test to come back. This test will show if Jim's bone marrow is 100% donor cells or not. We expect them to be by now, Day 42.

Last night Jim and I sat out on the patio on the 6th floor. Since it was a nice evening there were a lot of residents outside. We sat with Cathy and Kurt, a couple we met when Jim and Cathy were both patients on the transplant floor. Kurt is one of the caregivers I have been out to dinner with previously. They live in upstate New York and are our age. It was nice talking with them.

Today the weather was oppressive. The National Weather Service issued an air quality alert for today. We went out early to find Jim his coffee beans. We ended up buying some organic beans at Stumptown Coffee Roasters. Jim wore his mask and gloves because anywhere within a half mile radius of the Hope Lodge is packed with people. We passed through the Flatiron district, a neighborhood near the Lodge named for the Flatiron Building. It is a 22-story triangular shaped building considered to one of the groundbreaking skyscrapers. Completed in 1902 it was one of the tallest buildings in New York City. Its name "Flatiron" was due to its resemblance to a cast-iron clothes iron.

On our way back from the coffee shop a woman came out of the drugstore in front of us and vomited on the sidewalk. I practically pushed Jimmy over trying to get around her. What are the chances that would happen on our short 20 minute walk outside? Geez. And then we continued on with people walking everywhere which way. There is no such thing as walking on the right side of the sidewalk or staying to the left. People just walk straight on, most of the time they are texting or looking down at their phones instead of watching where they are going. Jim has started to bump people on purpose if they are not paying attention. I walk around or stay behind Jim as not to get in anyone's way. Today was different. Today a young woman was walking straight at me looking down at her phone oblivious to her whereabouts and that is when I had my first shoulder bump. I deliberately said no more. Jim was proud of me.

The rest of the day we stayed in the Lodge. A group of volunteers from Zurich Insurance Company came to the 6th floor and baked cookies. There were even gluten free/dairy free cookies I could eat. We pigged out.