time flies

This has been a busy week for me, reminding me that time flies whether you are having fun or not. My platelet count was low on Tuesday so I got a platelet transfusion. An i.v. bag of platelets looks look a bag of oatmeal, not pretty, but platelets are "transfused" faster than blood. I also had atrial fibrillation and low blood pressure, so I went to the ER and spent Tuesday night and too much of Wednesday in the hospital.

On Friday, my cardiologist told me that a nuclear stress test I had a week ago shows that I have an 80-90 percent blockage in an artery close to the heart. He knows I'm going to Moffitt for testing this coming week. The following week, he will put me in the hospital for angioplasty and a stent. This will be an overnight stay, and I probably won't care that the hospital's TV system does not include the network that carries Rays games.

To his credit, he didn't call the procedure routine, but he did call it a treatable condition. That's been my magic word for nearly a year. If it's treatable, I believe in better living through chemistry. But, I'm beginning to feel like the guy who took his old car in for an oil change and ended up with new tires, shocks, and a rebuilt carburetor.

My blood work on Friday showed some improvement in white cells - 2.0 compared with 0.6 on Tuesday. My platelet count on Friday was even lower than it was on Tuesday, so I went back for another platelet transfusion. I believe Moffitt will do more blood work Monday morning, so we will see if any of those platelets stuck around long enough to be counted.

Thinking ahead to my long stay in Tampa in September-October after leaving Moffitt, I have an idea for a project to keep me busy. A story in today's paper described how a woman scanned all her old photographs - or, rather, sent them off to be scanned. I'd rather scan the negatives than the prints, because the negatives have more information than the prints, the prints are mostly fair or worse, and the scanned images will look a lot better if made from the negatives. I could have the negatives scanned at 39 cents per frame, but a rough estimate tells me that could easily cost me $1,000 or more. However, if I had five weeks to spare with nothing else to do, and if my scanner will work connected to my laptop, and if I round up all my old negatives and take them with me . . . I'll be $1,000 or more ahead and will have a time-consuming hobby to take my mind off of other things. I (almost) can't wait!