Early Tuesday Entry

Well, it’s been a long while since I wrote something for my blog, mea culpa entirely.  Things have been spiraling out of control for awhile but I’m now trying to take the reins back into my hands.  Hard to believe this has been going on since the end of March!!  And I’m still bedridden, still sick, still suffering complications.

I thought things were straightening out last weekend when I kept an appointment with my infectious disease doctor who totally blindsided me by announcing that she was putting me back into the hospital because I was in renal failure.  Funny, I didn’t feel sick.  But I sure was, spent a very interesting hallucinatory night dreaming of fountains.  I was released two days later, advised to drink lots and lots of fluids.  So I brought a twelve-pack of bottled water with me back to the nursing home, along with a twelve-pack of Atkins chocolate shakes (eat protein!) and I’ve been drinking and drinking until I get the all-clear on my kidneys.

One mistake I made was thinking I was getting better more quickly than I really was and found myself on the floor of the bathroom late Friday night unable to rise – “help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” is a joke until it’s you on the cold tile floor, having neglected to follow instructions to press the red call button and wait for help.  They give you a sedative and bring in a complex rattling canvas contraption that they can push and lift and press and tilt under you, and you find you have more arms and legs on you than you thought – it’s like you’ve grown a knee out your nose and where did that elbow come from? - until suddenly you are lifted gently into the air like a circus act. Amusing and embarrassing.   But I promise now to wait now for assistance.

I have finished the notated ms of Knit Your Own Murder, and it should go in the mail today.  Look for it in August.

Meanwhile, check with the Hopkins Public Library web site to see what time I will be there tomorrow, April 26, to give a talk on being a sick mystery author.  Ellen thinks I should cancel, but I’m going to try to make it.  I’ll be groggy but with a good enough hat I should be able to carry it off.