More facts

I just wanted to say that my recovery with this small chest tube and Heimlich valve has been little short of remarkable. I wake up at an appropriate time. I can do a little work. (The long absences here weren't for Hawaiian vacations, I fear.) I can even stand a little straighter without feeling like I'm going to choke or collapse. The site where they poked in still hurts and the pain sometimes radiates well away from the area into my shoulder. I'm watching that and wondering whether it's inherent to having a tube piercing your chest or whether I just need to heal a little more.

There are no miracles, of course. I'm still dealing with pain and a lot of other stuff. But a procedure both L. and I hadn't anticipated -- we blamed my recent decline on the pneumonia, too many pain-killers, depression, the inexorable progression of the disease, etc. -- has done its job for now proving, yet again, how many mysteries lurk inside. I'm hoping so fiercely the tube can hold on.

We go to New York on Thursday, in the car for once, not by Amtrak. Good news, I think: Those trains, much as I love them, have been my Waterloo more than once. I'm looking forward to the trip: I'm anticipating that the wheelchair that almost jolted me out of my skull in Soho will cruise the wider sidewalks and streets of the Upper West Side (here's one for you, Tom: "the upper West") with aplomb. Given the restaurants we are going to, I may have to torture everyone with long food posts... And at the end, making even the scan seem irrelevant at least for now, I will cry fat, joyous tears and embrace B., T. and my Mom and Dad.