The Journey Home

We are heading for home today.

We are going to return on highway 101, that more or less follows the shoreline all the way up the coast. We would like to make it to Crescent City, way up at the top of California.

One problem we are having is we don’t have a room for tonight. They want at least $200.00 a night and there doesn’t seem to be a lot available.

We are going to try and find something on the road. Susan is not very excited by this prospect and I know I’ll be getting some “I told you so” glares if we can’t find anything. But, come on! This is America. There’s got to be a room out there.

The on line maps tell me we are driving 355 miles today and it will take about six hours. We hope to be on the road in a couple of hours and I’ll update here when we reach the end of our travel day.

8:14PM: It turned out to be a 10 hour day. Left San Fran at 9:30 and got out of the car at 7:30. We made it to Grants Pass, Oregon. Four hundred and forty mile, ten hour day…but more like nine since we stopped at In n’ Out in Eureka and stopped again to look at Redwoods.

Here are a couple of photos.

Stanford Day Three

Today was our third day at Stanford. Yesterday was a mess. They had a couple of appointments too close together so we were scrambling between appointments.

Then I left glasses and pens behind, couldn’t find my watch when I took it off during a blood draw, and just generally created undue grief on the situation.

Today we only had one appointment with the lung transplant peoples. We had a brief consult with one of the Doctor’s P.A.’s about my health history. I walked to hell and gone for a chest X-ray.

We finally met with Dr. Shravani Pasupneti. She told us that she thinks I need a new heart. She’s not so sure I need lungs. 

The other problem she threw into the mix was there is something weird going on with my pancreas. Here’s what it says in the report.

This report is listed under CT CHEST, ABDOMEN PELVIS WITH IV CONTRAST.

Pancreas: Diffuse fatty atrophy. More prominent than prior examinations, there is a region of relatively increased density and enhancement at the midline pancreatic body (Series 11, Image 70) that persists on the delayed sequences (Series 13, Image 66) with mild surrounding fat stranding. No ductal dilatation.

What it means is we are going to run a bunch of tests back up in Spokane and then return to Stanford in a couple of months.

We were hoping we would hear about getting on the transplant list by next week but that is not going to happen.

Right now, we are about to enjoy a nice barbecued pork chop dinner her at Arnie’s.

The Start of the Week

It’s going to be an interesting week.

We have arrived in San Francisco at the home of my lifelong friend, Arnie. We are here for a week of testing and meetings to see if I qualify for a heart/lung transplant.

We spent last night in the hills above Sacramento with my sister and her husband Craig. It was very hot when we arrived, a stark contrast to the winter we seem to driven in to here in the city by the Bay.

Arnie lives in an area of town that likes to cling to the fog. I stupidly forgot to pack any kind of a jacket. I’m going to be freezing my ass off.

We left Spokane on Friday and drove all day to Klamath Falls. We spent the night there in a Super 8 Motel that was less than stellar. Had to get an extra set of towels and thank the Lord we didn’t run out of toilet paper. The roll was low and there was no backup.

Saturday was a pretty straight shot to Pilot Hill where Stacey and Craig live. We went out to this great little open air bar for beer and flat bread. The place was jumping and the band was rocking.

What should have been a two and half hour drive to Arnie’s took four hours. An hour of that was spent covering about a two or three mile stretch that just crept along forever.

This California traffic is crazy and I am not a fan.

Tomorrow, our first appointment at Stanford is a 8:00 AM. Arnie says it’s about 45 minutes away. We want to be sure and be on time so we’re leaving at 6:30.