All's well that ends well

Had a "fun" time last weekend with the NIH Myeloma service. On Friday they called me to inform me that blood cultures drawn from my central line were positive for gram negative rods (bacteria). These cultures had been fortuitously drawn because they were changing the antifungal medication I was on. I felt completely fine! (People with gram negatives in their blood don't feel fine, they're usually in Intensive Care!). However, being super cautious about their immunosupressed patients, they hauled me into the hospital, did more blood cultures from the line AND from an arm vein, placed me on intravenous antibiotics,and removed the central line. I was never sick, and all cultures from the peripheral(arm) vein were subsequently negative. So they finally concluded that my catheter had become "colonized" with these bugs - actually eventually they identified 4, all in the pseudomonas family - but my body had somehow, even in its immunosuppressed state, kept these virulent bugs contained. There's really no way to know how long those bacteria had been in there. But to be extra safe, when they finally let me go home on Monday they put me on an oral antibiotic, Cipro, for 10 more days. I wouldn't be too upset except this whole circus occurred in the midst of a short visit from our daughter, Sarah. She arrived late Saturday and left Wednesday. However, in the bigger scheme of things, it was certainly no big deal. And, the "silver lining" is they're NOT going to replace the line, which is normally left in until at least day #100. No central line! Yahoo!
While I was an inpatient I kept bugging them for passes to leave the hospital. So I was able to attend a delicious brunch on Sunday at Sharon and Peter's (the wonderful folks we housesat for in Silver Spring) and had dinner at home two of the nights. But I was sure glad to get out of there! This admission spoiled our plans for another trip to the Maryland Seashore - with Sarah. Instead, she and Mary Catherine did some epic walking on Monday taking in two National Museums and a bunch of Monuments on the Capitol Mall. On Tuesday we did a long bicycle ride "loop": down the Capitol Crescent Trail to Georgetown and back up to Bethesda via the Rock Creek Trail - about 25 miles. Georgetown looks like an interesting place to explore more, once it get's cooler! Tuesday night we went to Wolf Trap (an outdoor performing arts center) to see the Hubbard Street Dance Company from Chicago, which was very good. Yesterday we met my Med School classmate Steve Warres in Baltimore for lunch, so Sarah could talk with him about his extensive experience with various Meditation traditions, then we dropped her off at BWI (Baltimore Washington, Int'l) for her return to Idaho via a side trip to visit my parents in Boston. I should mention that Sarah's airline ticket was purchased with Southwest passes from George Weaver, my friend and former Comanche partner in Priest River, and Bram's (who visited last week) with airmiles from our Lewiston/Spokane friends Mary and Tom McFarland. That's the kind of remarkable friends we have!
Natty arrives tomorrow night en route to his traveling teaching/kayak coaching job that starts out in Ottawa. Hopefully we'll get another shot at that Maryland beach. Being free of a central line for the first time in 5 months, it would be ecstasy to jump into that surf!

Phil