#147 / 2010 Winter: San Destin: Sacred Heart Hospital

OPTIONS ARE LIMITED

#147

More confessions to Steve Klinger my publisher and editor:

Dear Steve, we won't know a lot until after Monday. Joe will get two biopsies. One liver and one pancreas. He can get some services here but IF there is to be any followup radiation or chemo it will most likely have to be in NM.

So actually it would be convenient to be housesitting, but for now we don't know a thing. The doctor said followup chemo and radiation is something this hospital doesn't provide and the sessions are about $2000 apiece, so that won't be happening here. Unless we can set up residency and get Medicaid. A far stretch.

We are overwhelmed by people's response. Our two house-sitting clients in Albuquerque have already offered to fly us home, can you imagine? But we don't really need to do that. My best hope is for Joe to get the pancreas mass removed here, a slight recovery here, and then a slow ride home. I may have to give him shots of blood thinners every day as we travel.

Steve, I am fighting so hard to stay upbeat and positive around Joe. I can't believe he and I are not going to grow old together. Can a miracle happen, I don't know. I'm a realist. Of course there are no guarantees in life. I'm drawing on something very visceral here, down deep inside, something I'm not sure I even had in me. I had to drive back to Panama City to pick up a few things from our friend's place and drove 30A along the beach back to Destin.

All that beauty, palm trees and ocean, I screamed and screamed. All alone in the van. I screamed a primal scream and made sounds I couldn't believe, like some moaning dying beast.

Sorry to be so heavy, I'm just letting a few things out so I don't show them here. I will keep smiling and staying upbeat.

Sincerely

Pamela