Nice pair of lungs

I'm not looking at the needle in my chest

I mentioned the pulmonary test a few days ago that I wasn't in position to video.  The doctors walked in to the exam room and were complaining that Heidi had dissed their pulmonary test.  She measured 119% on FVC (forced volume) and 130% on VC (static volume).  I tried to explain to them that she isn't good at acting the cancer patient.  Then Heidi started explaining her run up Capital Hill the previous day across Broadway (still no posse) and back.  I could see the universal deer-in-the-headlights look around the room as Heidi expounded.

This was right after the nurse was grumbling because her blood pressure machine was showing a pulse of only 36bpm.  She re-measured with an old-fashioned watch and recorded 40bpm.  I told them it was a little elevated because we had walked up the stairs to the sixth floor. 



At Flying Fish restaurant with Robin & Tony



Every day she has an appointment we walk the ~1 mile from our apartment to the clinic, past REI, along Eastlake, turning on Aloha and arriving at the clinic to walk up the stairs to the sixth floor.  We used to walk to the seventh story, but that's another story.  I usually cart two laptop computers in my pack, one for work and one for home, a laptop charger, sometimes a camera or video camera, and on the last trip a geiger counter.  Heidi had some radioactive tracer injected for a MUGA test but it didn't register on my cold-war era ebay-purhased counter.  Damn!  Heidi thinks it's funny to point out that we brought 4 computers with us on this trip, but in my defense one of them is hers.

One way Heidi is acting the cancer patient is by becoming neutropenic.  Her immune system neutrophils were low in the blood drawn in the photo above.  This might be from the Vidaza chemotherapy she endured four weeks ago or maybe from the Sulfa antibiotic she's been taking.  They took her off the sulfa and will be measuring blood counts again tomorrow.  Hopefully they'll be down soon so we can have sushi.  Once serious treatment begins she'll be seriously neutropenic seriously limiting all sushi off the menu.  Seriously.