Niagara Falls, an intestinal explosion, leftovers from dinner and power naps.

Happy Friday, boys and girls. I’m grieved to announce that I still haven’t been able to shlep myself into the study since I got home from the hospital almost a week ago. For the most part I’ve been eating, sleeping and typing (with my new MacBook Pro laptop) in the family room … morning, noon and night. This isn’t a bad arrangement, per se, but there are lots of projects I can accomplish only when I’m parked at my desk in the study in front of my big iMac, such as: 1) printing envelopes so I can mail birthday cards; 2) designing products for The Howdygram Store; and 3) writing email to addresses that don’t reside on my MacBook.

In my favorite Doris Day movie she finally isn’t a ridiculous, virginal 35-year-old woman.

Listen, I completely forgot to mention something in my last post … so you’ll have to put up with me for a few minutes more. The BIG NEWS? I just finished watching “Project Runway All Stars” (part one of the finale) and now it’s time for The Thrill of It All (1963) starring Doris Day and James Garner! I actually love this Doris Day movie a LOT because for once she isn’t a ridiculous, virginal 35-year-old woman. (In The Thrill of It All she’s a housewife with a couple of offspring and she’s married to an obstetrician.)

Dark urine is caused by dehydration. I need to drink a lot more water.

It’s just past 8 a.m. and we’ve got another dark and dismal morning here, this time with a dense fog advisory. This doesn’t affect my life in the slightest, though, as I’m a handicapped old coot who never leaves the house … unless it’s the occasional ambulance ride when I’m anxious to pay an unexpected visit to the hospital. All that aside, however, I thought I’d share today’s “do” list with you: 1) contact my nurse practitioner (Antonia) at Baylor HouseCalls to discuss the color of my pee; and 2) I can’t think of anything else.

It’s happening! It’s happening!

Know what? My dream came true today, people! I started shlepping around the house again with just my cane ... and without my walker! Now I’m the same handicapped old lady I was two weeks ago before I landed in Baylor Hospital (pictured below) for seven days, bedridden, to recover from sepsis. It’s been a hell of an experience. (Oy.) I would like to extend my thanks to Sam for his never-ending love, support and world class back-scratches, and to Jell-O for their outstanding sugar-free chocolate pudding cups.

There are lots of creeks here. And therefore lots of stupid people.

I woke up this morning feeling yoogely better than yesterday. The pain in my thighs is almost gone and  I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to walk with just my cane — and NOT my walker — by this afternoon. This is a very big deal and I expect to hear some applause. Thank you.

I feel like I’m slowly returning to the land of the living.

Yes, I’m home. At last. I was discharged from Baylor Hospital on Sunday morning — right on schedule! — and came home in my own wheelchair via a Care Flite medi-van. Unfortunately, I have to learn how to walk all over again after a whole week in bed because all my goddamn leg muscles were SHOT. I’m still trying to conquer it, people. Walking has been incredibly painful for years; now it’s even worse. I can’t walk yet using only my cane. Thank God I also have the walker I bought for my birthday a few years ago!

Thank you for putting up with my baloney all week.

SUNDAY, 4:05 A.M., 3/25/2018. Greetings and salutations! I’m pleased to wrap up my week at Baylor Hospital with this friendly “farewell post” from room 204. I just realized how come this morning has already been different from the seven days preceding it … NOBODY STOPPED BY TO DRAW BLOOD. And thank God for that, because my only visible veins are on the tops of my hands and there’s not a single spot left to inject a needle. I’ve also still got an I.V. on the top of my right forearm. (It was installed in the E.R. when I first got here.)

This is my last night at Baylor Hospital!

SATURDAY, 10:45 A.M., 3/24/2018. Wishing y’all a good and happy Saturday, people! I’ve just finished all the usual daily consultations with my doctor, my cardiologist and my kidney specialist. All three tell me I’m completely and thoroughly ready to go home tomorrow, although none of them was around when I got up to use the commode a couple of hours ago. It was a fucking NIGHTMARE. It took forever for me to stand up, forever to turn around (my feet felt like were breaking in half) and I seriously didn’t think I’d be able to walk 36 inches to the commode. I was even crying at one point, and Sam was miserable trying to figure out how to help me. And when I finished my business with the commode and made it back into bed I had a PANIC ATTACK ... I couldn’t catch my breath and started shivering. It took almost half an hour to recover from that!

There’s nothing as unappealing as a bowl of pulverized pancakes.

FRIDAY, 12:53 P.M., 3/23/2018. So here’s the latest from my luxury suite at Baylor Hospital in Sunnyvale, Texas. I found out this morning that I’m not scheduled to go home until Sunday morning, not Saturday. This was the first time anybody had bothered to explain that I’m on a seven-day antibiotics regimen, and since I was admitted last Sunday morning I won’t be able to leave until this Sunday morning. The day after tomorrow. Can I please KICK THE CRAP out of somebody?!

I started running an unexpected fever again today. They’ll never discharge me on Saturday if I have a fever!

THURSDAY, 1:58 P.M., 3/22/2018. A good and happy Thursday to y’all. I’m still hospitalized, day five. About half an hour ago they put me back on an oxygen cannula due to I was gasping to breathe for no apparent reason, (my oxygen level was 96; my saturation was excellent, too). I feel better wearing the cannula for the moment, however. This may be related to the fact that I had an elevated fever this morning (99.8°) that came out of nowhere, especially since I’ve been stuffed full of high-power intravenous antibiotics since Sunday. Please stay tuned for additional developments, okay? I suspect I’ll be taking breathing treatments later today ...

“Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars!”

THURSDAY, 12:14 A.M., 3/22/2018. Howdy-do, people! It’s just past midnight and I’m comfortably settled in a nice fresh bed with my MacBook Pro, a jug of cherry limeade on ice and Turner Classic Movies. Tonight’s entertainment is including The Way We Were (1973) starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, An Affair to Remember (1957) starring Debra Kerr and Cary Grant, Annie Hall (1977) starring Diane Keaton and Woody Allen, and my all-time personal favorite, Now Voyager (1942) starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains. I mean, who could ever forget Bette’s famous line (as Charlotte Vale): “Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars!”

I won’t be going home today after all, so I’m waiting for the nursing staff to find me a portable bariatric commode.

WEDNESDAY, 3:50 P.M., 3/21/2018. You guessed it … I’m not going home today! about an hour ago I found out that I’ll be here three more days because it’ll take 48 hours for my insurance company (the Scott & White Vital Traditions Medicare HMO) to process and approve the PICC-line I.V. and home health aide … and that would mean 48 hours at home with no antibiotics. So I’ll be staying at Baylor Hospital for three additional days and will probably go home on Saturday. Oy!

My overall health is at the stage where I need hospital-level medical care at home.

WEDNESDAY, 10 A.M., 3/21/2018. So here’s the deal for today. Yes, I’m being discharged from Baylor Hospital … but I’ll be going home with a PICC-line I.V. (to be installed shortly) because apparently I’ll need intravenous antibiotics four times a day for three more days. Holy shit, right?! Baylor hospital will arrange for a home health aide to teach Sam how to do this, but the aide will also stop by once a day to check on me and make sure I’m getting enough Chinese food. (I might be kidding about that.)

What every woman wants to hear at 4 o’clock in the morning; “Your tongue sticks out when you sleep.”

TUESDAY NIGHT, 3/20/2018. I don’t have much to write about from my hospital bed tonight so I figured I’d just ramble for a while until I decide what’s what.

I’m not going home today. Fortunately, we’re having rotini with meat sauce for dinner.

Good afternoon, boys and girls. I’m still writing from the second floor (room 204, specifically) of Baylor Hospital in Sunnyvale, Texas, where I’ve been recovering from a variety of ailments since early Sunday morning when I arrived here via ambulance. The official diagnosis has been congestive heart failure (which I already knew I had) combined with a very high fever from a resurgence of a stubborn urinary tract infection. If that’s too much information you’ll just have to deal with it.

I can’t tolerate sodium-free.

It’s a few minutes after 4 p.m. on Monday, March 19, and I’m still at Baylor Hospital in Sunnyvale. Sam was here for a few hours (he just left) so I decided this would be a fine time to work on another Howdygram post even though he thinks I’m taking a nap.

I’m in the hospital.

I’m writing this post from the “friendly confines” of Baylor Hospital in Sunnyvale, Texas, where I arrived at 9:30 Sunday morning following a 911 call from Sam. The official E.R. diagnosis was PNEUMONIA, but I don’t believe it. I’ve had pneumonia before, years ago, and it always involved coughing up a lung. I’m not coughing this time. I think what I actually have is a congestive heart failure episode combined with another urinary tract infection. That would explain the breathing difficulties — my oxygen level was 80 — and the high fever, which was 103° when I arrived at the emergency room.

Freeze-dried Mountain House entrées are ideal for housebound senior citizens like yours truly.

Yo from Howdygram headquarters! It’s a weird Friday night here in north Texas, where I’m multi-tasking with barbecue potato chips, screaming pain in my baby toe and our movie-du-jour, Jersey Boys (2014), the story of the 1960s pop group the Four Seasons, starring — ready for this? — Vincent Piazza, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda and John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli … all were apparently in the original Broadway cast. I never heard of any of them. To tell you the truth, the only familiar face was Christopher Walken’s as a mobster named “Gyp.” But the movie is terrific, and the music is even better!

It’s officially impossible to sit, walk or smile … and I want to strangle somebody.

Howdy, people. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to sit here typing tonight due to having a thoroughly miserable day of pain (details follow) and not feeling especially motivated towards creativity of any kind whatsoever. It started when I woke up this morning at 7, and four hours later I was already too uncomfortable (actually, I was crying) and couldn’t continue to sit in the study. As I write this post: 1) the skin on the back of both thighs feels like a third degree burn; 2) there’s a screaming baby toe on my left foot caused by gout and a massive ingrown corn; 3) neuropathy pain in both heels that’s reminiscent of plantar fasciitis plus shooting sparks on the outside of my right thigh; and last but not least 4) arthritis pain in both knees. Therefore it’s officially impossible to sit, walk or smile ... AND I WANT TO STRANGLE SOMEBODY!

Mentally ill emails, round two.

Good evening, boys and girls. It’s me — Marcy — and I’m writing to you with gleeful hysteria (and two little cups of sugar-free Jell-O) from my new favorite location in the family room ... now that I’ve got my new MacBook Pro! No kidding, this is one of the most wonderful things that’s ever happened to me ... not counting the discovery of pre-cooked pasta in a microwaveable pouch. Don’t forget that I’m a handicapped senior citizen with all kinds of mobility issues, so it’s heaven being able to write a Howdygram post after dinner without shlepping back into the study to use my desktop Mac. (It takes forever to haul myself from room to room around here. You never realize how big your house is until you can’t walk any more.)

It’s always the right time for Nick and Nora.

I’m writing this post from the comfort of our sofa in the family room ... with my brand new MacBook Pro! It arrived late this afternoon right before Sam started to make dinner. I tried to control my rising hysteria but I think he knew that I wanted to skip the meatballs, rip open the carton and start horsing around IMMEDIATELY.

My new MacBook Pro will be here today. Holy crap.

Show of hands! Does everybody love the Howdygram’s NEW LOOK? The biggest change — okay, the only change — is a new text color. I switched it from a neutral taupe to dusty blue, which is actually a lighter version of the color in our cowpoke mascot’s neck scarf. I continue to dick around with the Howdygram’s design features because: 1) I enjoy it; 2) it’s free; and 3) I don’t have anything else to do.

Old pictures and new teeth.

Hi-de-ho, dear readers! It’s 7 o’clock Monday morning and I’m taking pills, reading email and killing time until Elite Mobile Dental shows up with a wax mold of my new lower denture. They’re supposed to be here at 8:30, and I’m thoroughly goddamn excited about this because I’ve had seriously insufficient lower teeth for decades … and no lower teeth at all for the last six weeks! Stay tuned for additional developments but please feel free to resume your normal routine in the meantime. (Thank you.)

Please forgive me for taking such a long break since my last post on February 25.

Here’s wishing y’all a pleasant Sunday from Howdygram headquarters! It’s a peachy-keen spring day here in north Texas with temperatures in the mid-60s and a shitload of sunshine. Sam just got home from a trip to Wal-Mart and I’m parked in the study with a banana. It’s a perfect day. The only thing that could make it better is a nice long nap and a William Powell movie. (Note to self: Schedule a nice long nap and a William Powell movie.)