Bob Massie

It has been a week since I wrote and I feel I am slipping as a correspondent.  This morning at 10:30, Bob is still sleeping which is good.  We had a lovely evening out last night for the first time –and only two weeks from surgery! We felt confident going out because we had dinner with our doctor, Stuart Knechtle at his home.  It was a long and lovely evening full of lots of talk of family and medicine and all our trials and hopes. He and his wife Mary Banks are wonderful new friends.  We all agreed that the whole experience had an aligning of the stars quality. In an email exchange with Gwen Feder this morning, she told me that our first discussion of contacting our Princeton class took place on July 9 2008. The transplant happened one year later, July 10, 2009.

In addition, we are very much looking forward to having our daughter Katie with us next week.  She is getting tired of the Maine family scene and misses her parents, as we miss her.  We are making plans to go to the Atlanta Aquarium together, I will take her to the zoo and she wants us to all go out to lots of movies together.  Her brother John has been checking in with her regularly and that has been great.

The days are quiet here, with some moving around the guest house, a little email catching up and a visit from Jon or Allan or Nancy. Jon and his wife Karin have twice brought us delicious dinners and Jon has come by to talk ethics and economics with Bob in the afternoon.  I get in a swim or some errands.  Bob is clearly recovering, able to sit longer and walk more each day. He does “laps” around the guest house first floor and walks me down the path as I go to swim.  He marvels that the bouts of cloudiness are gone now. He alternates between being up and around and sleeping, which seems just right.

But a few days ago was typical of another kind of day for me. We had a clinic visit all morning. Then I went to fill a prescription for pain medicine at one of the local CVS stores. The ‘scrip was written in a dose the pharmacy did not carry and since it is narcotic pain medicine one needs an exactly correct written ‘scrip to get it filled.  This meant calling the clinic pharmacy nurse and having him track down the doctor and making a trip back to the clinic, all before people left for the day. Bob was at the very end of his supply of this critical med so it could not wait until another day. I accomplished all this and left the clinic with the valuable piece of paper and zipped to the closest CVS where they confirmed they had the medication. But…there was a problem with the insurance. The pharmacist called me over to say the insurance company would not authorize the medication until… the next day. I was so relieved he did not say next week!  I also knew this was a 24 hour pharmacy from having had to make a similar ridiculous medication run a few days earlier. So, I asked, when exactly does tomorrow start?  Home again, and then back to the pharmacy to be there just after midnight to finally get the needed medication so that Bob could sleep through the night. That was my pharmacy day.

Today I hope we can take a small jaunt to see an exhibit in the art museum next to the hospital, where they have a collection of photographs of the initial discovery of King Tut’s tomb.  We are avid fans of the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters including a fictionalized account of the discovery of the tomb.  It will be fun to see the actual photos of that event.

Even while we are rejoicing in the return of energy and returning to real life we are reminded that it might not have turned out this way. Sadly our dear friend, Michael Ryan, succumbed to his own liver disease last weekend while still waiting for a transplant. Michael found us through this page and shared many issues and interests with Bob, symptoms of liver disease, the trials of waiting, interest in theology, and discernment about what to do with the gifts of this life.  Michael, while tired and quite sick, was applying to divinity school when he fell and broke his hip, went into the hospital and began a steep decline.  Our thoughts are with his wife Debora.

Lots of love to all of you