Comfort Man lives!

After a rather tumultuous run-up to the big event, we are definitely scheduled for admission to Club Sunnyside tomorrow at 7:45AM.  My most current labs are pending, but given that they looked great on Sunday, we are confident there will be no surprises. 

A few things we have learned during previous vacations at the Club. First, during consolidation chemotherapy rounds, there is a lot of unoccupied time. Chemotherapy happens on day one about 5PM, that's so the second dose can be given at 5AM the next morning. This arrangement is good for the patient, in that I won't be awakened at, say, 1AM for the second dose, which would be the case if they started therapy at 1PM. It also works out well for the staff. They can get the chemotherapy administration, which takes around two hours, completed before the shift changes at 7:30. 

So, if we do the math, Check-in is at 7:45AM and Chemo starts around 5:00PM. That's about nine hours of unstructured time. Some of it will be occupied by visits from the Nurse Practitioner and/or the Oncologist on duty. My vital signs will be taken a few times. The Vascular Access Team (VAT) will undoubtedly come in to check my PICC line to make sure it is in apple-pie order. All of that together will probably eat up, oh, I don't know, maybe half an hour. Now we are down to eight and a half hours. Heck a guy could do a day's work and even have time for a lunch break. 

In addition, there is then a break in chemotherapy until 5:00PM on the third day of our stay.  So, I don't even need to remember the Calculus I learned in high school (Good thing! I have already forgotten it all) to arrive at the conclusion that there is lots of time available; more than my thumbs can twiddle away. This all goes on for five days, you understand.

The second thing we have learned is that's a lot of time to fill. True, there is a TV in the room; with cable programming. I remember why I cut the cable at home. We were paying a lot of money for 200 channels of nothing to watch. Then I discovered I could get 30 channels of nothing to watch for free, using an antenna. So, we are coming prepared. 

After last month's visit, I copied all of our archived movies and full series TV shows and all of our music library onto a hard drive I can plug into my laptop so we have AV entertainment we really like. We also will bring some books that we have been reading to each other and a few games we enjoy. We never get tired of each other's company, so we do a lot of chatting, as well. 

The third thing we have learned is that the recliner in the hospital room is not, shall we say, the kind  which is likely to win the seal of approval of the Congress on Making Furniture One Really Treasures (COMFORT). Like most modern furniture, it has virtually no lumbar support. It also is designed to fit the largest patient that is likely to need a recliner. The rest of us will need to adapt. But I find stuffing random pillows in random places doesn't quite fill the bill. 

Enter an inflatable (and therefore infinitely adjustable) seat pillow designed for travel in the notoriously uncomfortable seats that the airline industry is so fond of putting in their planes. This is not just a pillow, it is contoured for lumbar and shoulder support as well as seat cushioning. I purchased one for our flight to Hawaii in January of 2020. I'm bringin' it along!

So, I may need to call Bekins to get all this stuff into the room, but the staff at the Club told us to "personalize" our room on the very first day of our very first stay. We're takin' 'em at their word! At the risk of sounding whiny, it's enough to endure having harsh chemicals infused into one's body. Why not make the rest of the time as pleasant as possible. My sister-in-law used to refer to my brother as "comfort man." I'm related to him!

Me and Comfort Man. Which is which?