HUGS

Last night I stayed at Sheena's place for the third time this week. It is just so nice to have the company of someone who is a little more removed from the situation, ie. not in the family. :) Plus, I like being close to the hospital. As always she was the perfect host...although we stayed up a little too late, having some girl talk. We were literally running on fumes, and were acting quite loopy. It was great to have that release though. Some other sweeties who live near the hospital like Myra and Neeta have offered to let me sleep over as well. I may have to take them up on their offers soon before a)They change their minds! and b)I wear out my welcome at Sheena's. :)

I got to the hospital early, and visited Lilly. She is such a doll, and has been very helpful in helping us figure out stuff like insurance and other things that are important but don't come to mind immediately when someone you love is sick. Well, while we were having our nice little chat, Shalin walked in and joined us. Then the next thing I knew, most of the radiology residents were in the room. Of course they were all asking about Joe, which made me feel good. Everybody loves him!

When I went to see Joe, he was smiling and eating his breakfast. He looked even better today. It's exciting, because he started the week pretty miserable (understandably!), but each day he looks a little bit more relaxed, and a little bit more positive. YAY. After breakfast, he was immediately wheeled down to see the dentist again. They decide the didn't want to risk doing anything with his gums since his platelets are so low. So he was just told to continue to use the special rinse and use a nifty little gadget to irrigate the area.

Joe's rash looked better today. Yay! However, he is still febrile - but no more shaking chills. We keep praying that fever comes down!!!!!!

Kitty, Dr. B., and Brian stopped by for a visit. Vince also came to visit. Keep praying for him, because that boy has boards in a week. Joe's mom brought some lunch for Joe, and he ate almost all of it. YAY! I got to eat Joe's lunch. hehehe. In the afternoon, Joe felt well enough to roam the halls with me. It was the first time he felt good enough to venture out of his room just for fun.

(hmmmm...i don't remember if i mentioned this...but in case i didn't before. joe's back on the "better" floor. he was transferred there on wednesday. yippeee! also, we're still trying to limit visitors as best we can...but it's hard to turn away all the cool people who work at West Penn with Joe! and they are good and just come one or two at a time. the nice thing is no more gloves and masks necessary. but it is "no" to coughers and other sick people and "YES" to washing your hands!!!!)

After the walk, Joe and I both took a little nap. Ariel came to visit and brought some soup for Joe! So Joe ate some clam chowder for dinner. Much better than the pureed beets that silly boy ordered. They smelled so awful, he immediately slammed the cover back down and refused to lift it up again. Ariel also brought a "card" from the breast center. It was really cute, and also came with the message that a case of these special shakes have been reserved in his name! (healthyshakes.com) Too sweet. Myra and Sheru stopped by in the evening. Poor Myra got paged a million times in 2 minutes.

Now for the true highlight of our day. Since Joe is feeling better, and gloves and masks aren't necessary, he asked the doctor, "is it okay for me to hold my wife's hand?" Joe asked about hugs too. And we got the green light! So today, I got the biggest and best hug EVER. Honestly. It was definitely a "swipe away a tear" kinda moment. :) It has been so hard not to give Joe a million hugs a day when he's been going through all of this scary stuff that seems to warrant the need for EXTRA hugs. So yippeeeee for hugs!!!!! We're still being cautious of course. But my boy needs some hugs from me!

So today was the best day yet. We're hoping to get him home very soon so that he can rest properly, and get stronger before real treatments begin. Special shout out goes to "Student Nurse" Erin. She's not technically a student anymore. But in any case, she took care of Joe all day yesterday and today, and she was SO very sweet and careful and attentive. Also...Joe's door had been SUPER squeaky, which was SUPER annoying. It was especially awful at night when he was trying to sleep and the nurses needed to take his vitals. Well, today maintenance came up, and the door squeaks no more. ALSO, the DVD player in Joe's room wasn't working so we couldn't watch brainless movies to distract us. (Everybody Loves Raymond proved faithful though.) Well, that was fixed today as well. Lots of yays today.

Keep up those prayers and happy vibes, because they are definitely working. :) We need Joe's fever to come down and stay down so he can go HOME!!!!!!!! *****HUGS***** for everybody. Tomorrow is a new day. :)