Flypaper

Tuesday 8 May

"Can you please change the channel?"

Last night we had Lara walk over to our den and hooked her up to the smaller oxygen machine, the Baxter at her side. As we sat down on the couch together, the TV was showing Grey's Anatomy; but a hospital series was the last thing Lara cared to watch at this point.

We had some supper and picked a movie, a comedy: two gangs robbing the same bank at the same time (Flypaper, with Patrick Dempsey and Ashley Judd, one of my favorite faces); quite funny actually. Between being tired and the morphine, Lara repeatedly asked me if I was getting it all. She wasn't, but enjoyed the moments she caught it.

Breakfast and lunch at the table today and a visit by Liza Kroger in between the two. She is a friend of other friends, whom Lara got to meet in New York in 2005. She had come in Frankfurt by car and stayed overnight at the Warwick, next door. Lara was happy to exchange stories and news.

At 11:00AM, to our surprise two impressive ambulanciers showed at our front door, ready to take Lara to Saint Luc. It turns out someone had gotten the date wrong, since as far as we were aware, Lara was due on Wednesday 9 May. I checked whether an arrival time of 11:30AM was still OK for the hematology clinic, and sure enough, it was not. Ultimo 10:00AM. By that time it was after 4:00PM and offices and call centres were rapidly closing. Still we managed after frustrating phone calls to arrange for an ambulance at 9:30AM tormorrow morning.  This may not seem much of a story, and it isn't. But what it does perhaps give you a taste of, is the string of minutiae that saps your energy during any given day.

Similarly, Lara was determined to wear a particular outfit during her trip to the hospital, and wouldn't budge. For 45 minutes I had to shuttle back and forth between her bedside and various wardrobes to find what she wanted. It is the kind of thing, dear female readers, that drives men nuts, for they don't see the point. I am just one of them.

Then the kine came by around 2:30PM, having set up an appointment through me. He wanted to work on Lara's lungs. The first (and last) time he was here, she had allowed him, under duress, to hook her up to a breathing machine, but even then stipulated she didn't want to do this any more. So when the man showed up at her bedside unannounced to her, she simply refused to cooperate and didn't even take her mask off. The kine shrugged and left; he understood.

The hospice pointed to the fact that we didn't have a clean set of single sheets ready in case of a mindnight accident, so I had to do a wash and the hospice will do the ironing. Life is not complicated necessarily, but it certainly can be, especially now that I offered to fix a meal. Which reminds me a need to do some shopping.

Tons of medciation and materials were brought in this morning, to sustain the frail little figure in the hospital bed; frail but somehow wily, too. remarkable how time and again she finds extra pockets of energy and bounces back. I admire this broad. I chose well. She can still make me melt a little with her smile.

I have hardly looked at the headlines this morning.