The Waiting Room

I’ve now been sitting in the waiting room at Stanford for 5 hours. We arrived a little after 5:30am. On the wall in the waiting room is a TV screen similar to the arrival and departure screens at the airport where you can track the progress of flights. Only in this case you are assigned a secret code so you can track the progress of your loved one.

Lori started out code orange, which meant she was in the building. A few minutes later she went code yellow, indicating that she was in pre-op. This is where I was supposed to get a chance to see her before the surgery, but the nurse brought her purse out and that was it.

Shortly after 7:30am she went to code green, indicating that she’s in surgery. This status is expected to remain the same for 5 hours. So right now the board is looking pretty boring. There are already other patients who have gone on to red for closing, blue for the recovery room phase 1, purple for the recovery room phase 2, and even grey for discharged.

Here is where my logical mind has a problem with their use of colors. Their use of the yellow, green and red stages sort of make sense if you think of them in the traffic signal sense. But when you throw in the other 6 colors it becomes harder to see the relationship. I would have designed it so that it went in the order of the spectrum starting with purple and ending with red.

You can probably tell that I’m pretty bored at this point.

Transformation

Last night we had dinner with some friends, who, like us, have had their marriage tested by health problems. In their case, one of them has had several strokes and has a hard time speaking. So at dinner we had one person that couldn’t talk, one person that couldn’t hear, and two husbands trying their best to interpret for them.

It did make me realize how lucky I am though. Even though the last couple of years have been a real trial for Lori and I, they are problems that we are working through, and in time we hope we regain some sense of normalcy. As I write this at 9:28pm, we are about 8 hours away from starting the process that will turn mild, docile Lori, into a true bionic woman.

No, she won’t be able to out run freight trains, or lift cars off of people, but early tomorrow morning we will be making our way back to Stanford Hospital, where surgeons will install her two cochlear implants. What a bad little gene took away, modern science will return.

It won’t be instantaneous, and it won’t be back to normal, but I’m looking forward to Lori’s return to the hearing world. I sure thank the scientists who not only dreamed of such a device, but all the researchers and programmers who continually strive to improve their effectiveness.

The Real McCoys

After we left SF we headed across the Bay Bridge to visit Mike McCoy, his wife Nancy, and their two sons, Grayson and Mitchell. The McCoys live in Danville, and again the iPhone was useful, as it helped locate a bakery so we could pick up dessert.

Mike provided a great BBQ steak dinner, which was the fourth night in a row we’ve been treated to BBQ steak. Absolutely no problem there.

It was great catching up on the last 30 years and reminiscing about our high school days. Nancy may have some questions for Mike later. 

Grayson, Nancy, Mitchell, Mike

Chinese Cookies and Pincushions

We came down to San Jose for Lori’s pre-op meeting on Friday, which went well except that a computer mixup meant that she missed getting a bunch of needed tests. So we had to go back to Stanford today so she could complete those. The plan had been to go to the San Francisco Zoo, but by the time we got out of Stanford it was 2pm.

So plan B was to go up to SF and then wander around Chinatown. On the way up there I thought about these almond cookies we used to get in San Jose that we haven’t seen for years. Since they were a Chinese product, we figured we’d make it our mission to find some in Chinatown.

The first grocery store we visited had them, and they are as delicious as we remembered them. But that left us with out a grail to seek.

Then Lori remembered this specific pincushion she wanted. She explained what it looked like but I was at a loss trying to picture it. We went into store after store and didn’t see any sign of Chinese pincushions. I figured since people don’t sew anymore, there’s really little need to be stocking pincushions these days.

It was just about getting time to return to our truck before it would get ticketed or towed when in the last store I noticed they had a clearance section down in the basement. Thinking that maybe they might have them hidden down in the stuff that nobody wants anymore I wandered down there. I had covered most of the items down there and was about to give up when I heard a lady on the other side of the store say, “Oh look at these pincushions, my mom had one just like it.” I rushed over to where she was standing and asked, “Did you say pincushions?” She pointed to the barrel filled with pincushions and I instantly recognized the grail of pincushions, they were exactly what Lori was looking for.

Lori finally wandered down stairs and I rushed her over to the barrel, where she picked out a pretty purple pincushion.

We got back to the truck with 7 minutes to spare and both missions accomplished. The iPhone made it a lot easier to navigate SF streets, and we made it out of the city with my blood pressure only slightly elevated.