Everything Fred – Part 458

21 October 2024

Today was iron infusion day. Pat, bless her, was my nurse again and she hooked me up early. It must be the Tootsie Rolls.

Pat neatly inserted the IV and hung up the bag of iron and I noticed she didn’t put a bag of saline up. They use saline to flush the line to make sure all of the iron goes into me. Apparently the saline dilemma has hit Holy Cross. Pat said that 80% of the saline produced in the U.S. is by that company in N.C. that got hit by the flood. She was reduced to using to saline syringes to flush the rest of the iron into me.

AJ texted and wanted to drop my Christmas goodies off today and I told him only if after 4 pm. I got home at 3 and told him it would be OK to come early but we both decided to postpone until Wednesday. I can just imagine 40 boxes of stuff and no where to store it.

Tom called with the anticipation he would be discharged on Tuesday. After that, I think he changed his mind and was going to contest their letting him go too early. It now looks like he will come home on Thursday. I’ll pick him up and drive him home. His Jeep is already there compliments of Holley and Jim. We seem to have a tight healthcare network going on here.

Michel had a birthday today. I quickly informed her she was older than me – by 11 days. I moved into my house in 1995 and Michel lived kitty-cornered across the street from me. It took us a while to warm up to each other – about 5 minutes. Michel is like having an older sister. She and I both share a cautious gene where we look around to see what things might go wrong. Saying she is a good friend is an inadequate description of what she means to me.

We went in together to have a 60th birthday party and we both were asked to speak. I’ve never had anyone say the wonderful things she said to me. It almost brought me to tears.

You can’t saw we weren’t cute kids!

The party was at the Hi-Life Cafe and they closed it for our party. We each invited a select number of friends and had a ball! Sadly, the Hi-Life went out of business (but not because of our party).

I also had the privilege of introducing Michel to her wife, Nancy. It wasn’t hard. Nancy was my book rep at the college and I’ve known her since 1985. Michel, very simply, is good people. Happy Birthday from your younger brother.

Tomorrow, Kurt and I will go to lunch at Spencers in Wilton Manors. He’s Jonesing for a corned beef sandwich.

Stay tuned!