TUESDAY: We headed out for Cincinnati on Tuesday to meet up with my friend Kristin at the Garfield Suites (love this place–it’s old, smells a little bit, but it is spacious and has a full kitchen and a Skyline Chili in walking distance). Literally just as we got to the hotel, I felt something snap under my feet in the van and it felt like the power steering was going. I finished pulling into the garage and got up the first ramp and it was gone–I *had* to get out of the way as it was right as the garage was emptying out. So started a horrid process of tugging and pulling and backing up and inching forward and hanging off the steering wheel, and–yes, Michael–I’ll admit to some yelling and swearing. Car after car after car moved around me when I got it at least enough so that people could get out but not one person stopped. The first guy who was held up for quite a while while I tried to maneuver was in a truck and he literally sat and watched me for 5 minutes, didn’t offer to help, anything. I stepped out towards the truck finally to explain my power steering was gone and see if maybe he could turn it better than I and he saw he could get around and off he went. That was disappointing. I was amazed at how many people, men and women, who edged around the van and not one single person asked if they could help, call someone, offer a “sorry, bad situation”–nothing. Humanity redeemed itself when my husband (and hero, even all the way from Temperance) called the hotel and had them send three men out to help and then he called a tow service to come and get it. These guys were fabulous, they had to work their butts off to get me out of the predicament and backed into a parking space–yanking the wheel in place and having me hold it, then pushing back and forward and repeat over and over until they were just dripping with sweat. They had great attitudes, they were encouraging to me who was frazzled by that point, and stopped me later that night in the lobby to make sure things were taken care of in terms of getting it fixed. The man who came and picked the van up was one who had helped us before and he called the hotel later to let me know he had it, he was very sweet and said he had thought of Michael a lot and that he hoped that everything went well at the hospital and not to worry about the car. It’s fixed now (cheap and easy fix) and they are going to bring it to the hospital for me. Luckily my friend Kristin was driving up from Tennessee for moral support so we had a ride to the hospital on Wednesday and I had someone to laugh about it with. So to all those multitudes that Michael was texting saying I was going crazy and swearing, LOL, I make no apologies, I was throwing everything at that steering wheel to get it to turn. Michael gets very, very stressed under situations like that, but we had a good long talk later in the hotel about the fact that it is okay to flip out a bit and get upset, then you shake it off, laugh at the situation, and move on. We ended up having a nice evening watching Ghostbusters I & II (25 year anniversary), enjoying a great thunderstorm, and spending time with Kristin.

WEDNESDAY: The PICC line went in very well. Once again I was extremely impressed with the team at Cincinnati, they truly went out of their way to make it a smooth, efficient, stress free experience for Michael. While they had one person there just to focus on keeping him relaxed, every one of them was kind, courteous, and gracious. Michael said there were hard pinching feelings and pressure, but that it was so much better than he expected. Kristin had brought a movie for him and they popped that in a portable DVD player and it was great help in having him focus on something else and keep his arm relaxed. Anyway, very impressed, they were a fantastic team and I said so on the “rate your experience” survey.

The rest of the day was mostly waiting as they figured out what they wanted to do in terms of the TPN (the nutrition support). We hit a large snafu when the insurance said they wouldn’t pay for home TPN…which is a little funny given that they pre-approved inserting the PICC line for the purpose of home TPN, that makes a lot of sense. I was stressing about that but one of the GIs came in and said they were “siccing our bureaucrats on their bureaucrats” and would take care of it, so we shall see. They started him on 24 hours of TPN with blood work taken this morning (Thursday) to see what adjustments need to be done–other than going to the bathroom every 2 hours like clockwork, no problems. No one will give me any time frame for being here, the GI we have seen the most just said that Michael was complicated (no surprise there) and they will see–a “few days” is the best I’ve gotten. It was really fantastic having Kristin here, she went above and beyond the call of friendship duty running around (she even ran to where the van was to pick up a bunch of misc. things I forgot to grab before it was towed) and we were sad to see her go last night. So, a day at a time, we’ll see what Thursday brings.