2/16 Day +24. 340 Neuts. Going home tomorrow! Mystery puzzle pieces

Friday marked 4 weeks in the hospital, so if I leave tomorrow it will be 31 days, so pretty accurate to say a month. This is the longest I’ve ever stayed in the hospital. Shoot, the longest had fresh air, seen Alpen, touched a real plant, the list goes on. Long story short, I’m ready to bust out of here.

The days since the last post have just kinda cruised by. Doing my hourly self care of eye drops and chapstick, trying to get my protein at every possible instance, slowly taking my morning pills. Many nights have been long disruptions of IV medicine and blood products. But thankfully, last night, I didn’t need any blood products and all my IV meds have been switched to pills so I had 4 hour chunks of uninterrupted sleep. It felt good. Yet, I’m still tired. Probably fatigued is the right word. Been fun with visitors over this weekend. Zach and Erin came on a night away from the kids to bring me food and hang out! We facetimed with Greg and Hillary to watch the dunk contest. What friends! And today my cousin Kerrie, Jonathan, and Briana came in to finish-up the Seattle Puzzle.

Oh the Seattle puzzle! It was great fun and I recommend it to all puzzle lovers and city planners. I’ve never been able to get Bree interested in a puzzle, but she took right to this one. And turns out she’s a good puzzler! Really no surprise there.She has all the makings: smart, focused, logical. However, she takes an extreme focus that doesn’t allow her to chat during puzzling--a huge part of social puzzling that she’ll need to develop. I won’t critique her any more though cause I’m so happy she’s in the game! But now, back to the puzzle. It’s quite the mystery! (see pic below) I bought it new yet we are missing 3 pieces.  Not any random three, but three that go together in Capitol Hill. So this rules out pieces falling on the floor, or being picked up randomly. This was an active, “I’m going to take these pieces and go sort them somewhere” move. But did someone pocket them by accident or is someone holding them for ransom? Were they stashed away somewhere and I’ll discover them tomorrow or in 1 year? Will someone reach in their pocket next month and go “ohhhh.” I’ve contacted everyone that has worked on the puzzle--which is now 8 people--and nobody says they have the pieces. I’ll keep you posted as the story develops. But as we all know, and especially the more hobby puzzlers of the world, puzzles with missing pieces suck. So hopefully we get those pieces back!

I suppose I’m feeling pretty good if I can write all that about puzzling and not even get to the really great news of going home tomorrow! Gears are in motion, I think it’s really gonna happen. I’m hoping for a boring night and morning, and if I have one, I should be outa here. I’ve been waiting to post cause they’ve been saying Monday discharge, but I’ve learned in this world, I’ll believe it when I see it. But hopefully tomorrow it does all pan out. I guess they’re comfortable sending me home at <500 neutrophils. The docs say, cord blood is a slow engrafment, so I’m in that now. And this last week I haven’t needed any more support than what the SCCA can offer (blood products and magnesium IV). For that reason, I’m switching to outpatient and I get to sleep in my own bed walk somewhere other than than the 2 halls of this ward.  Also food menu will be greatly expanded in allowable times and options! So happy.

Kerrie, Briana, and me working the Seattle puzzle today.

The Seattle Puzzle with the 3 missing pieces. Curious isn't it? 

Each footprint is one mile. I've walked 35 miles!

Typical morning scene in 8256. Hard to be tidy, just got to learn to roll with it and do damage control.