Patience is a Virtue

Time seems to  stand still when we go to the hospital.  Nothing ever happens as soon as anyone says it will.  if they say “you’re going down for a kidney ultrasound in just a little bit.”  That could mean anywhere from 30 minutes to six hours.  And while I am at the hospital from 6:15 to 8:15 every morning and 5:30 to 9:30 every night, I still have yet to have a conversation with his kidney doctor – the one who has ordered Tony’s dialysis.  One doctor came in and told Tony he would for sure be there through the weekend.  Another one came in and said we won’t know if the dialysis is working until mid to late next week.   Another one came in and asked if we had made a decision on where we wanted to transfer for a transplant.  What?!  So we are just taking it a day at a time.  Easy for me to say because I am not the one lying in a hospital bed, but I know this is getting old for Tony.  I guess if we had a clear path on where we were going it would be easier, but his liver doctor did say last night “healing takes time.  Be patient.”

I had to pick up an extension cord for Tony to plug his phone in.  All the outlets are behind his bed and his charger cord isn’t long enough.  I just stopped by the store on the way to work and ended up picking up donuts for the office – on Fridays at my store they have day old donuts – 4 for $1!

But when I got to the office kitchen, I wondered if they even deserved donuts – my biggest pet peeve at work?  Dishes in the sink when the non full dishwasher is literally right next to the sink.

I had one of my usual breakfasts – egg/spinach/breakfast sausage microwave omelet with cheese and a piece of toast.

Work was so busy, but I actually felt like I was doing the job they are paying me for.  Most of the time it’s slow, I ended up just filing emails, making scratch paper out of leftover print jobs that no one picks up.  It reminded me of how my job used to be back in the day.  At one legal secretary job I had, it was a 24 hour desk.  Three 8 hour shifts.  When my day shift was up, I’d let the next secretary know where I left off – it was that busy that the desk could be manned 24 hours a day!

But now attorneys are so self sufficient.  The young attorneys know Excel better than I do.  Most of the filing is electronic and no one does dictation anymore since there is voice recognition software.  My job is slowly becoming obsolete.   Around 11:30 my boss asked me to pick up lunch before I got my next set of revisions.  Since I fly, she buys, so I ended up getting the pork carnitas flatbread from Panera.

Um, not a fan.  First of all, the inside really didn’t have much flavor – had it not been for the salsa verde, I would have just thrown it out.  Also it said there was corn and black beans mixed with the pork.  At no time did they mention onions, but there were there.

I literally finished what I had to get done at 4:45.  I knew I didn’t want to work late, so whew!  It was a relief to go to the hospital just to sit down.  By the time I got there around 5:20, I had already walked 11,200 steps!

He still had two hours of dialysis to go when I got there.  Two nurses took turns monitoring him.  They were both super nice.   It wears Tony out though.

Around 6:45 I went down to get dinner.  I’ve talked about the cafeteria food before and how it looks and tastes like ass.  So it was my standard two chicken finger salad for dinner.  I have to admit – it’s really tasty.  The beans, banana peppers and craisins make it for me.

I stayed later last night since it was Friday night, and got home about 10:30.  I was so tired I just wanted to crawl into bed, but I checked email, etc. for about 30 minutes before calling it a night.  I did get a badge from Fitbit though – since I’ve been wearing it since March, I’ve walked 750 miles!

And after walking to and from the hospital, I ended up with:

Not bad considering I never made it to the gym yesterday!   I have a yahoo email account that I just use for football picks with Tony, my step-son and his wife.  One of the stories said that Jessica Simpson sold her home for $7 million dollars to actress Jennifer Lawrence.  I died when I saw the picture of the kitchen.  Isn’t Jessica Simpson the one who thought chicken was in a can of tuna because the brand name was “Chicken of the Sea?”  

I haven’t been doing much cooking at all this last week, but got up early to bring some muffins to the nurses.  My store had a coupon the other day, buy two packages of any kind of Hershey morsels, get one free.  So I got dark chocolate, cinnamon chips and peanut butter chips.  Tony is the banana eater in our house, and with him gone this week, they were on their last legs, so banana muffins it was!  But I wanted to make them a bit different, so I decided to make a cinnamon chip streusel to go in between the batter.

My step-son would go ape shit over these muffins because he LOVES all things cinnamon.   Joe, the next time I see you, I’ll be making these for you!

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Since I started with the streusel on the bottom, it had a nice crunch cinnamon bite to the bottom of the muffin.  Light and airy.  I think these are my favorite muffins I’ve made to date.  Well, I don’t bake much so that’s not saying much, but these are a winner, especially if you have a cinnamon lover in your house because this muffin punches you in the face with cinnamon flavor.

Alright, I am off to jump in the shower and head to the hospital.  We will know after morning labs if more dialysis is on the menu today.  Enjoy your weekend!  It’s in the low 20s here and we may get 2-3 inches of snow tonight.  Ugh.  Thanks again for all your comments/emails/facebook messages – I will catch up and respond to them all this weekend.  Hugs!