D-1

(FYI: The title reads "D minus 1.")

A very good night of sleep, with some help from my little friend (Ambien). The usual disruptions, but I got over them quickly. The bloodletting was from the arm this time, but expertly done -- barely felt it.

The nurse is going to work with me to get in the workout. She'll let me know when the bag changeover is coming, with more than an hour's notice, so I'll be able to finish running just before. We're going to look into fixing the water pressure, and it may be possible to detach the shower head from the wall.

Got a note from the editor of an internal medical center publication. She's doing a story about the new president and wants to quote some of the nice things I said about her on the blog. She's also going to give the name of the blog, so maybe some other folks here will take a look. (FYI: If you Google "joe's blasts," the blog is #1.)

Lentils and couscous for lunch. (From my private pantry, of course.)

Excellent run. A little over 2 miles, and by the end I was running at a 13:40 pace. Would have run longer, but my drips end a little ahead of schedule. We're trying to keep the disconnection time to under 20 minutes, so as soon as the pumps stop, I end my run, return to the room, and call the nurse.

She bags up the ports -- I've been doing it myself lately, but it's faster if someone else does it. I have figured out how to remove the shower head from its wall track -- something any two-year-old could do in a few minutes, though it took me seven weeks -- and I'm hoping it helps a lot. It does. In, wet, soaped, rinsed, and out in 5:06! (Finally, a use for my running watch.) Towel off, put on hospital pants (faster than the spatial puzzle that is the hospital gown), call the nurse -- 9:47! She comes in, does some extra housekeeping on the lines and ports, and gets me connected and the pumps on -- 15:49! I didn't get a watch on the initial port-bagging phase, but it was surely less than 4 minutes, so I call it a win. Victory!

Without the extra line/port housekeeping, I think we will lower our time tomorrow.

Doctors come in, ask how I'm doing. Great! The transplant is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. (hospital time). Am I doing anything special for tomorrow's big event? Jan's coming up for a long weekend, but I hadn't been planning anything special.

The attending tells me about a "goofy" lady who was doing some Buddhist sand art during the transfusion. I won't be doing that, but it doesn't sound crazy to me. If you think it helps, there's a good chance that it does, even if not for the reason you think it does. Placebos, for example, are remarkably effective in many circumstances, with no side effects. Our belief that something is helping triggers the release of hormones and other chemicals that actually do help. There's nothing goofy about enlisting our own internal forces, through prayer or sand art or music or meditation or comedy, to assist the medical team. And maybe those methods work for the reasons that we believe they do, even if the doctors don't believe it.

A member of the Infectious Disease Team pops in, partly to see how I'm doing, but also to ask if I have any ideas for making Ensure more palatable. A fellow patient is reduced to drinking that and is having a hard time getting it down. Fortunately (for me, not for the other patient), I have never had Ensure and have no ideas. Anyone? Make sure it's cold?

Another productive day of telecommuting. I build my first iPad prototype. I am slightly hampered by connectivity problems that keep me from reaching my network at work. Coincidentally, IT staff was in the corridor when I emerged from my room to get hot water for my lentils, and they acknowledged they were having problems and would look into it.

I got a call around 5:00 letting me know they didn't see any problems at their end, and that they didn't officially support the kind of VPN access I've been using since I got here, and since it was the end of the day nothing could get fixed until tomorrow. But the woman calling gathered some information about my hardware and software and said she would try to cash in a favor tomorrow.

Five minutes later, my access was restored. Maybe they fixed something, or maybe they stopped fixing things and went home. Either way, I was able to check e-mail and enter my daily activity minutes in the Winter Fitness Challenge. Grand Prize: an iPad!

Dinner will be the Spicy Asian Noodles again, this time a little spicier and with grilled chicken.

Tonight: e-mail, some race web work, calls, a few sitcoms...

Tomorrow: D-0!