Hello on Wednesday morning

Dear Friends,

Linda made it through Tuesday okay. The doctors ordered a third CAT Scan Tuesday afternoon. The positive is that the scan showed improvement. The negative is that the surgeon is going into Linda's body once again to remove some fluid on Wednesday morning. The removal of the fluid should help with the healing, and it will keep the antibiotics working like they are supposed to.
Another positive is that her white blood cell numbers continue to improve.

Linda is going to call me when the procedure is over. I will then go to the hospital to visit her.

The guy who was fighting an infection like Linda has returned to the hospital. He had gotten a little stir crazy, and left the hospital. He popped a couple of staples in his incision while at home, and he was back in the hospital yesterday. He has taken a liking to Linda and me since he has seen us every day for two weeks. He stopped in to see Linda when I was on a bathroom break. He wanted to lift up his gown and show Linda his even larger incision in his stomach area. Linda asked him not to show her his incision. I saw it the other day, and one look was good enough for me.

I brought the day shift at the hospital some of my Irish Soda Bread. They loved it!

I also dropped a loaf off at our friend who is the radio show on host WBRK 1340 on the AM dial who has a live program Monday through Friday from 10 AM until 1 PM. I called his house on Curley time yesterday morning, and I woke him up from a deep sleep. He said that he had some of the Irish Soda Bread for breakfast when he finally did get up.

Talking about radio show hosts, the other day I was going home from the hospital one evening, and I said "Hello" to a former radio host who used to have an hour long program on the same radio station. He was going in the hospital as I was leaving. When I arrived at my car, I saw a huge yellow suburban like vehicle which was parked next to my car. The car belonged to this radio show host that I just said "Hello" to. He was parked so close to my vehicle that I struggled to get my large body into my car. My clothes rubbed against both cars, and my clothes ended up covered with salt and dirt from each car. There was much more room on my passenger side, and I did have thoughts of climbing over the passenger seat to get to the driver's side. Since I am not as nimble as I once was, I started to visualize myself impaled on the shift. I didn't want the hospital staff to find a body in a car when they arrived at work the following day.

The City of Pittsfield has started to patch up potholes. The street that I have been traveling on to get to and from the hospital finally got patched up. You would have thought that I was a drunk driver the way that I swerved to avoid the potholes on my daily trips.

When Linda had her CAT Scan yesterday, a person from the Medical Staff called her "Miss Penta", which was Linda's maiden name. The male student had Linda as her biology teacher, and I was his Geometry teacher at Taconic High School. I am pretty sure this student was in our classes in 1970, a year before Linda and I got married. Biology and Geometry were 10th grade subjects during the 1970's. This means that the student was 15 or 16 years old, and we were 23 years old at the time. Our student must be 56 or 57 years old right now.
Linda and I have changed the way that we discuss former students of ours. We now say that "we were in school together."
Linda's Nurse Assistant was a former student of mine.

Talking about some of our now mature students, I met one of Linda's former students at the Art Show the other day. She liked Linda so much as her Biology teacher that she went off to college and majored in Biology. She works for one of those private Health Care services based in Pittsfield. When I got back to the hospital, and told Linda the maiden name of this former student, she remembered exactly who this student was. Linda was sad that she was stuck in the hospital as I was chatting with this woman.

Social Calendar -- I will be representing the Curley family at tonight's social gathering. We will be meeting our Ballina, Ireland guests for dinner at a local restaurant, and then heading off to another restaurant to hear a local band play some mostly Irish Songs. We might even have the opportunity to hear a few songs sung by one of our guests who will be performing at the Colonial Theater on St. Patrick's Day. This concert goes from 7 PM until 9 PM.
Linda was pretty much in tears knowing that she will not be able to attend these activities.

I did go to bed a happy man because my Boston Bruins won their overtime game in a shoot out, but it was sad to go to bed without my partner for the 14th consecutive day.

The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter each day. I hope that the procedure that she has done this morning gets her out of this tunnel even sooner.

I just went out to get the local newspaper. Our driveway has a layer of ice on it just like when I fell in 2006 and torn my quadriceps tendon. The forecast is for rain, but I hope everyone from the Berkshires who reads this email is extra careful on the way to work or school today until the rains arrive.

I will keep you informed after I visit Linda during the mid morning.
Today is day 15 of this long ordeal.

Have a great Wednesday.
Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad