Home?

It’s a beautiful September day today, azure blue and hopeful. I’m trying to find a comfortable position, but it’s difficult. I’m bruised. My lungs hurt from the atelectsis and effusions still, an audible clicking sound every time I breathe in and out. Doppler equipment tracked down one of the only remaining decent blood vessels I had at this morning’s 5 a.m. blood draw. My thighs are covered in bruises from the twice-daily heparin shots. I drink water by the pitcher full and still can’t get enough. The renal doc said I shed over four pounds in water yesterday alone. Four pounds. Most food still makes me gag, but the thought of pizza and beer kept me up well past midnight last night.

And yet, it is such a good day. I smile to myself. I look up at the neon yellow stuff in the tiny bolus on the IV pole that has saved my life: Tigecycline. I think about how far I’ve come.

I overheard residents rounding in the hallway this morning that I may go home tomorrow. And though they haven’t officially told me, I think this will happen.

Pictures drawn by the hands of little ones who love me are all over the room. So much love. I received a book in the mail yesterday from my good friend Joann – Mitch Seavey’s Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way, and just thinking of running dogs again has me smiling. Those dogs are my life. They’re so much more than dogs to me.

And tomorrow, I am hopeful I will return home to them. I can’t wait to see their little faces. And begin my life again.