dateline february 10 2013 family house room 603 pittsburgh pa 21:40 hours...

I lie in my single bed and Colleen is tucked into hers next to mine, contentedly watching Downton Abbey...for those of you who don't know me, I am Colleen's sister Mignon...she has authorized me to contribute to her blog, so here I am. Rest assured, however. Colleen is its principal and primary author. I am a companion voice, a scribe, if you will.

we're both exhausted...not from the six-hour drive on the old Pennsylvania Turnpike to get here from the Jersey shore...that was quite glorious with sun, farms, rolling valleys, dramatic mountain tunnels, and rest stops where I got to push Colleen in the wheelchair for the first time and with no forethought whatsoever found myself spinning her around and saying, I confess, "Whee"...so as not to embarrass Colleen I had to restrain myself from bursting at full-throttle wheelchair speed through the double glass doors of the food court...

Colleen wasn't altogether innocent, however. Once inside, where did she direct me to take us?  Straight to the Auntie Annie counter where she ordered a soft pretzel and (listen to this, Kim) a Diet Coke! To be fair, the pretzel was salt free and whole grain, the Diet Coke a "small."  So what was I to do? To the counter girl I said, "Make that two," then added, "But make mine a large Diet Coke."

who's influencing who here? the "nurse" is falling down on her job and joining the "patient" in devil-may-care disobedience to "good healthy choices." 

I've got to say, though, that as we zoomed back onto the highway eating our just-out-of-the-oven whole-grain soft pretzels, we were pretty darn happy and shared back and forth to each other, "Um, these are really good; Yes, these are really good" Um...Um...Um...

so we just cruised on down the open road toward "Deer Hunter" country...few cars...some trucks...no obstacles...

the exhaustion hit after arriving at our destination and having to acclimate to the place where we'll be living for the week, accommodations affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center but a minute away...so there was all the unpacking and so forth...finding our assigned food cubby and refrigerator in the communal kitchen...securing a parking space assignment on the premises...

we ate some lettuce and cookies for dinner, chatting with other residents and a bevy of genuinely cheerful volunteers, many of them fresh-faced pre-med students at the University of Pittsburgh...

our teeth now brushed, Downton Abbey almost over, we'll be turning out the light soon...

we like our room...

our two alarm clocks, for good measure, are set for 6:30 am...the shuttle to Colleen's first appointment leaves at 8:11 am...

as you know, tomorrow is the first day of Colleen's 5-day lung transplant evaluation...

signing off