Another unscheduled trip to San Francisco

Today I'm thinking about...
The limited time we all have in this life
How great my first 44 years have been
Lucky to be married to this woman
How great my health is

Well what can I say? Here I sit next to my lovely, strong wife in a hospital room wondering what is next? There's an IV sticking out of Lulu's arm where she is getting strong antibiotics to combat the infection that recently started in her breast and seems to be trying to escape to other places. The doctors were concerned enough about the extent of the infection to recommend that Lulu gets admitted for two or three days for intravenous antibiotic drug treatment. When we drove down to UCSF this Friday morning after the surgeon examined a recent iPhone photo of Lulu's breast, we didn't expect her to be spending the first three days of October in a hospital bed.

I have seen my wife go through more in this last 14 months then most people live through in an entire lifetime. I've seen her strong, determined, and confident dealing with the daily life of a Stage III breast cancer patient, but today the foundation is cracking and the tower is falling. It's heartbreaking to see her struggle with these new circumstances. This is truly the first time I've really seen Lulu battered by the disease. How can anybody know what she's internally dealing with?

After sitting for what seemed like hours waiting for the surgeon (which we were notified he was in surgery since 7 in the morning), we conferred with the nurse and then the plastic surgeon about Lulu's breast infection, her feeling sick, and the discharge from her healing incision. After a week taking two oral antibiotics the cellulitis in her right breast (and arm now); it isn't improving, and if the infection persists much longer the implant that was just placed three ago could be lost? That's all Lulu and I needed to hear, we wanted to tackle this with he most aggressive therapy possible. The next thing we knew Lulu was assigned a room on the fourth floor of the hospital, getting an IV by a newbie nurse and some unpronounceable antibiotics names pumping through the tubes.

We'll make the best of the situation, and Lulu will fight the infection with all her faith and determination she can.