Day 16

Vlad survived his second day of outpatient infusion therapy. His numbers are stable; the white cells are edging back down, which is normal and good news. The daily drill now is to go to the clinic, have blood drawn, then report to the outpatient IT clinic where he has a little room with a bed, phone and TV. They load him up on saline and magnesium (he's always low) and they wait for the blood test results to see what else needs infusing. Then about 3-4 hours later, they let him go. So I drop him off down there in the morning, head downtown to the office and a few hours later I go pick him up and head home to finish my shift from home.

After a couple of weeks of this, and if he's still healthy enough to stay out of the hospital, they will assess whether he needs more of this, or whether he can get some of it at home. Eventually, he'll be weaned off the IVs.

I don't know if they expect me to handle the IVs at home or whether a home-health nurse must do it. We'll just wait and see. Home-health trained me to do IV antibiotics in October after his chemo. But daily and multiple IVs may be more complicated.

After the hospital, we were going to swing by the Russian store, which is not far from the hospital, to get something for New Year's Eve. We decided to stop by Spec's and it turned out to be the one my friend Pat works at. We ran into him and he was a little surprised to see Vlad. We then hit 3 Brothers Bakery, then the Russian store and came home. I'm getting back to work after about a 3-hour break.

We can't go to our friends, the Nezhinskys, for New Year's because Sasha has a cold and Vlad can't be around that. Vlad's very bummed about it. But we're going to have a special dinner. And he got special dispensation to have a glass of champagne, though he'll probably drink a shot of vodka instead.

Tonight is a blue moon. It's the first blue moon on New Year's Eve since 1990. So enjoy it. And Happy New Year!