Lunch with friends

Today I was picked up by a friend, and we went to a Pei Wei in New Jersey, where we met four other friends. It was a wonderful gathering. We had not seen each other (at least I had not seen most of them) in several years.

We all knew each other from singing an a chamber choir called 'Lauda!' which dissembled about three or four years ago. Several of us have kept in touch through facebook, and I did have dinner with Melanie (she who picked me up) about a year and a half ago. The rest of the gathering (Lori-Jo, Luisa, Patti & Mike) I had not seen since our Lauda! days. It really was most enjoyable.

After leaving Moorestown, Melanie was kind enough to stop at a pharmacy for me. I needed a thing or two. After she dropped me off at my sister's house, I went upstairs until dinner time. I turned off my phone and plugged it in to recharge the battery, thus missing a few calls. Meh... no news there.

Mt nephew showed up for dinner, and that was a very pleasant surprise. I had meant to call some of my friends back, but Matthew didn't leave until it was too late to call teachers. Oh, well. There's always tomorrow.

New phone

Today, I bought a new phone. I was due. It's an LG - Optima, I think.
Of course, I left the charger and the USB cable in my friends car.

COMPLAINT

What is it with blogger?
I have followed a series of blogs - among the gay and atheist oriented blogs - and every once in a while I will take notice of the top of the page where it says, "next blog." One would think that Google would direct a person to pages that match their previous viewing, but no. Every page I am directed to is either a jesus page, or some woman's blog about her christian spawn.
I am sensing a little bit of corporate bias here.

Laze

Today, I woke up after 11 a.m.

Actually, I woke up many times throughout the night (as I do every night) with nary a 2 hour stretch of sleep. The reason for this is that  am taking lasix, and this causes me to pee almost constantly and it also makes me very thirsty. So, when I woke up at 7:30 a.m., and did not feel like getting up, I used the toilet and went back to sleep. It was practically the first 3 hour (+) sleep I'd had since Thanksgiving.

I had to make a phone call, and I went downstairs for breakfast, but I've been catching up on my facebook notifications since. Now it's 2:30, and I have to make another phone call, and I need to take a shower and get dressed. If I were in my own home, I would love this, but being in my sister's house makes it a pain in the ass - mainly because she'll get home and I'll have to hear about it from her.

Asus

It took some doing, but I got a new laptop today.

When I was in the hospital, my brother told me that his in-laws decided to contribute $300 toward an iPad for me for Christmas. It was their daughter who died in December. Since she had a special place in her heart for me, they decided that they would contribute the money that they'd had allotted for her Christmas gift. When Christmas rolled around and I was still in a nursing home and nothing else was said about it, I figured it was not to be.

But, the other day my brother sent a message that he'd bought an electronic gift card st Best Buy. Apparently all I needed was the numbers. So I went there and picked out a laptop. However, when I went to pay for it I was told that they needed the physical card. It seems the salesman in Florida misled my brother. After about an hour of trying various things - my brother send a picture of the card in hopes they could scan that - we decided that we'd come back the next day (today.) That is, my brother-in-law and I.

We went back today after my brother used the card to buy the laptop in Florida, so we could pick it up here. The proceedings were very complicated. Still - I got the laptop and it seems to be working just fine.

After we left the store yesterday, my bro-in-law, my sister and I took a ride to visit another brother. I hadn't really spoken with this brother in something like 20 years beyond saying hello at family gatherings, but he seems to have mellowed a bit in recent years, so I figured perhaps I should cut him some slack. We've both been through the surgical mill (he had cancer, and lost much of his intestines) so neither one of us really wants to fight anymore.

Of course, he never answers his phone, checks his messages, or his email, so we had to take the trip without knowing whether he'd be home or not. He was and everything went fine. It was amusing to watch my sister get on his nerves for a while.

Oh, and by he way, I did remember to send a thank you email to the brother's in-laws. I guess I should write to my siblings who I'm told also contributed toward the laptop.

6 months

Anyone who knows me probably knows that I spent more than 2 months in a Florida hospital - from mid October until two days before New Year's. Actually, the last six days were spent in a nursing home/rehab. All I can say about that is that I would rather be dead than have to spend any more time in a nursing home.

What happened is this: In October, my sister-in-law died. She had been sick with ovarian cancer. I and the rest of my siblings all flew down to Florida for the funeral - that was the 16th of October. The viewing was to be the 17th with the mass on the following morning, and they were, except not for me. I spent all of those two days asleep with some kind of fever on my brother's floor. On the 18th, my brother and sister talked me into going into the hospital. I didn't really want to, because I thought I could sweat it out and because I did not want to get stuck in Florida.

My sister, her husband  and their son drove me in to the emergency room (Physician's Regional, Naples, FL.). I remember hearing that I was definitely septic with a pneumococcal infection. I vaguely remember the intake nurse asking about my drug use. My nephew was not surprised to hear me tell the nurse that I'd done everything - except heroin. Of course, I should add that that was more than twenty years ago. I haven't engaged in recreational chemistry since 1989. In any case, that is the last thing I remember until I woke up a day or two before Thanksgiving in the ICU at Shands/U. of Florida hospital.

From what I understand, they removed my spleen at Physician's Regional, but when they found that I needed more serious surgery on my heart, they choppered me up to Shands, where they replaced my aortic valve (the one I had put in last year was damaged by the infection,) repaired the heart wall, and [scraped?] out my lungs.

I have some vague memories of various visits - Mr. O'Connor (my sister-in-law's father,) two of my brother's, and one of my sister's - but I have been told there were many more. What I do (sort of) recall are the various drug-induced dreams I had while I was under sedation. I will spend some time sorting them out and recording them in blogger.

Now I am staying at my sister's house in Pennsylvania until I regain my strength and find a place to live back in South Jersey. Let's hope for a better 2012, shall we?