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!

In any event, I’ll be going home tomorrow morning, and Dr. Belami promised he’d be here by 9:30 to sign my discharge papers. I can’t wait. I miss Sam, I miss my favorite chair and my favorite sofa and my own food … everything. The only thing I haven’t missed, of course, is Turner Classic Movies, because it’s part of Baylor Hospital’s satellite TV lineup. Right now I’m enjoying The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) starring Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney.

At this point I should also include a short list of the movies coming up this afternoon, because they’re FABULOUS. They include: Midnight Lace (1960), a fabulous thriller starring Doris Day and Rex Harrison; The Wrong Man (1956) starring Henry Fonda and Vera Miles; Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple (1968) starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau; and Prisoner of Second Avenue (1974) starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft. I can’t wait to see ALL OF THEM, KATIE!

---

SATURDAY, 4:12 P.M. I just woke up from a pleasant afternoon nap. The fact that it’s already after 4, however, means Sam will be here soon … and that puts an instant smile on my face.

I want to interject here that Sam is beginning his quest for the perfect pair of jeans. He’s been losing weight steadily for the last four months and finally looks like the adorable spindly string bean I first met back in 2002. I’m so proud of him. Buying a pair of perfect-fit jeans is the best reward … and they keep you “honest” in case you accidentally start to add back a few pounds later on.

I’ve got another cute batch of vocabulary words for you today! A landman is someone from your same town; a fellow Jew. Latkes are potato pancakes. Lukshen kugel is a noodle pudding. Lox is smoked salmon. Luch in kop means a hole in the head. A macher is a big shot or an important person. A momzer is a bastard or an illegitimate child. A maven is an expert or a know-it-all. Stay tuned for more Yiddish in upcoming Howdygram posts! (In case you haven’t noticed by now, I’m working my way through the alphabet.)

SATURDAY, 8:50 P.M. Drum roll! This is officially my last night at Baylor Hospital. MY LAST GODDAMN NIGHT! All the nurses have been popping in to say goodbye when they empty my catheter bag, which is often. I’ve been on a high-power dose of a high-power diuretic (Lasix) for the last seven days, and it’s been working like a charm. My kidney specialist says I’ve probably lost 100 pounds. (Let’s do the math: it’s four pounds per bag, the bag is emptied four times a day ... that’s 16 pounds a day times seven days, or 112 pounds!) I don’t exactly feel skinny, though, because I’ve been lying here like a beached whale all week. When I got up this morning to use the commode it was so excruciatingly painful to stand I almost gave up. Tomorrow when I get ready to go home I’ll have to resort to Plan B: DRUGS. (I love drugs.)

---

I’m watching The Odd Couple and waiting for the bedtime snack cart, which usually shows up around 10 p.m. Dinner wasn’t especially memorable or filling tonight … a little bowl of minced roast beef with mystery gravy, a scoop of brown rice, an inedible egg roll and some sugar-free pineapple chunks. Meh. I’m still hungry. The aforementioned bedtime snack cart always includes sugar-free Jell-O cups, sugar-free pudding cups, graham crackers and sandwiches. When I’m hungry like this I always ask for a sandwich and two Jell-O cups. That’s some mighty fine eatin’, people!

A little twit from the respiratory department just stopped by to check my oxygen saturation (it’s 96) and tell me to try taking big deep breaths once in while so I won’t get pneumonia again. The key word here is “again,” which clearly implies that I’ve already had it … and that’s horseshit. I haven’t had pneumonia and I don’t have it now. I wish those pushy little know-it-alls from respiratory would leave me the fuck alone already!

That’s the end of tonight’s rant.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you’ll set aside a couple of minutes to remember the Alamo.