OK, Deep Breath, Power Down....

Once again, I am boggled by what nice people I know in the blogosphere. Thank you, one and all, for your support and prayers, and your offers to help -- just being here was an enormous help. Thank you.

Jim came home today. His bronchoscopy went well, they were able to biopsy the bit of lung tissue in question, and, as his doctor put it, "It's not an 'Oh my God' matter." (Love that esoteric medical terminology.) However, they still don't know what's causing the clots -- possibly because they only did an ultrasound on half of one leg, not all on both legs -- so he has to go for the gross tests sometime next week.

Of course I am not handling any of this well. Brings back too many memories of last summer. He even has to do the belly shots. He, having been brought up by a nurse, is 100% okay with all of this. I, having been brought up by normal people who only saw doctors for broken bones and DPT boosters, think he's fallen into the hands of ghouls. Oh, to top it all off: the belly shots are costing us around $140.00. And we have a prescription-drug benefit to our health insurance. Jokingly, I said to the pharmacist, "What does it cost without a drug benefit, $5,000?" And she said, "Yes." I hope she was kidding. I thought Jim would have a stroke on the spot.

I'm still trying to figure out what the point is of some hotshot medicine that has to be injected (ewww) into one's gut (EWWWWWWW) by oneself, that costs thousands of dollars. Not to mention the bubbly assurance, "And it doesn't even hurt." Let me tell you -- I had those shots, and I can guarantee you that no one who's prescribing these puppies has ever taken them.

Okay, I'm getting wound up again (ya think?!), so I will just make one further note: the guy I thought was the emergency-room doctor, isn't. He's something called a "hospitallist," and his job is to coordinate all the various medical procedures so that doctors with conflicting agendas don't prescribe conflicting treatments/medications/whatever. I like the idea of a hospitallist. I even somewhat like this particular hospitallist. Great bedside manner, and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt as to knowing his stuff -- he's the one who said the mass in Jim's lung wasn't cancer, and well, holy cow, he was right. What a shock. Okay, okay, for all you medical people, I'll shut up now.

For all you who have read my book, I have a question. I have to break up the two books in order to get the thing published, and I need a title for the first half. I'm kicking around "The Unorthodox Affair" -- does that sound like anything you'd buy? Does it sound like it summarizes the plot? My daughter, who read it faithfully every day when she got home from school (she'd hold out her hand and say, "Give"), thought "An Unorthodox Love" would work. Ideas, suggestions, rotten tomatoes???