REPORTING FROM CALIFORNIA

As you know, Colleen has taken up temporary residence in a small hospital, Inspira Medical Center, located only a few hundred yards down the same road as the rehab center she entered exactly a week ago today. Johns Hopkins and Baltimore feel so much further away than that now.

Col is staying a second night at the hospital tonight. She says it's quiet and she seems in no hurry to leave. I think she's feeling a measure of peace there. Kind of makes me want to check-in myself.

The issue that brought her to yet another hospital stay is water retention. Always water retention--since last December, that is. Sounds so benign, doesn't it? What's the big deal about a little extra fluid? But it can be quite a big deal. At minimum, it makes breathing even harder and delivering oxygenated blood throughout the body becomes even harder as well. 

Presumably, the hospital will release Col back to  rehab tomorrow. As her advocate, two days ago I pushed the decision-makers at the rehab facility until they agreed to keep Colleen for her fully entitled two weeks. Once her case manager, in particular, stopped pushing back, things began to right themselves. A few hours later, Col's supervising doctor returned my call and said he couldn't agree more that Colleen would benefit from staying longer to receive more PT.(So why did it require 3 separate phone calls to the doctor, the director of nursing, and the case manager?)

.....

The ten tall, vigorous palm trees outside my large, open, third-story living room windows sway from today's onshore breezes, their thick fronds rustling lightly but audibly enough that I can tune in to listen from my spot on the couch. These palms and I have born witness to each other as the years have ticked by, they watching over me as I've grown older, me watching over them as they've grown ever closer to the sky. Lured by whatever was west of the Rockies, I left the east coast when I was twenty. I'd never been further west than Youngstown, Ohio; never been as far west as the Mississippi, let alone on the other side of it. Had to cross the Mississippi. Had to cross the Rockies. Once across, had to stay.