22

I've been without Internet access since I moved rooms, but I'm back at home for a few hours tonight on a day pass to take care of some errands before I head back to the hospital. I'm in a semi-private room, and the ward has had a lot of empty beds for the last week, so I've been fortunate to have the room to myself for the week except for one night on Tuesday.

St. Paul's is the inner city hospital that serves the downtown eastside, and the street people use it as a clinic to get fixed up and to get their antibiotics when they go too far with their addictions. However, this week being welfare Wednesday and also really nice weather, they've all left the hospital to do whatever they do on the street. They really know how to use the social system and how long to stay in the hospital to maximize disability payouts (on top of EI payments). I have stories to tell and will write about them as I get time online.

Many of the street people who came into my room were suffering withdrawal from the drugs or alcohol they were on and were completely delusional. They would turn over on their beds, bending the IV line and causing the alarm on the IV pump to go off. The alarm is loud and they just slept right through it. At times it would go on for half an hour before a nurse came by and fixed the problem. It is so nice being in a room with no interruptions and that is completely dark.

I finished my last plex treatment today. The hemocatheter used to hook me up to the machine was also taken out. I will sleep much better tonight without it dangling from below my shoulder. I fell down two nights ago and thought I had sprained my left ankle. The physiotherapist looked at it the next morning and said it was just a stretched muscle. The pain is still there a bit when I move my ankle in a certain way, but is mostly gone. It was my third fall in the hospital (the first was the day I had the biopsy done on my thigh and the second was getting out of bed).

I'm feeling better and noticing some small improvements. A few weeks ago, I was having trouble raising my arm to wash my shoulder, and now I am able to do that. It's nothing big, but it is promising. Recovery is still not going to be easy and it will take a lot of time. Now we wait and see if I start showing some strength gain or if I go back to losing strength.

The doctors are talking about doing another biopsy. This time it will be both a nerve and muscle biopsy. They want to rule out vasculitis, which is supposed to share some of the symptoms that I have. I really don't want to go through another biopsy, and removing part of a nerve means I lose my sense of sensation wherever they take it from for the rest of my life.