Friday update, 9/16; VISITING? Read this.

I went to Stefan for a while today. He was looking good. Tired, yes. Gaunt, yes - he has lost 15 pounds since this all started, so of course he's going to look a bit gaunt and thin in the face. He looks bored to be in the hospital, but it's that kind of bored where you don't have much to do, and what there is to do - you don't want to do. If that makes any sense. He's gotten up and walked around the halls, like his doctor told him he should be doing... but is it something he wants to do? No... not really.

He sighs a lot, and the attitude he expresses is one where he's just resigned to be there and go through all this crap. Obviously, it's not what someone would choose to... But he's got to do it nonetheless - the chemo, the testing, the waiting, the poking, the middle-of-the-night checks... he doesn't really get much say in it all. He's just playing along, letting the doctors and staff do what they need to do.

He's been a good sport about it, at least for the first ten nights at NMH. Tonight will be his tenth night... He asked Daniella if she was keeping track of how many days he's been in the hospital. Me, I don't see how that matters. Counting the days doesn't make them go by any faster or make your stay any shorter. But since he's counting, today was the 9th day there and tonight will be the 10th night. It seems like so much longer, but it hasn't even been two weeks since he was diagnosed.

As far as losing weight... that's to be expected. Stefan hasn't completely lost his appetite... yet. He may, he may not. Since he's not on food restrictions or on a special diet, he can eat what he wants, even if it's junk food. The only thing he has to watch is raw fruits and vegetables... nothing with the skin on (grapes, strawberries, peppers, tomatoes, etc) and nothing raw - cooked veggies (and fruits) are okay for him to eat. He doesn't usually have a "taste" for anything special, but he will wolf down what tastes good to him that day. Wednesday, he scarfed down two roast beef sandwiches for dinner. Yesterday and today he had homemade soup Daniella brought from home. So he's still eating at each meal, just not as much as he used to eat. And that's why he's losing weight - he's not eating as many calories per day as he was, so he's not maintaining his former weight. Dr. Olga said she'd be happy if Stefan consumed 1000 calories a day, so right now, that's what Stefan is striving to reach daily.

I met Dr. Olga Frankfurt today. She's very nice, knowledgable, supportive, and informative. Dr. Olga said Stefan is a healthy, relatively young man who had an active life; she said all his organs are intact (in other words, not affected by the leukemia), so she sees no reason why he can't resume his life the way it was before he was diagnosed. Some things will change, but not too much.

Stefan is slated to stay at NMH another three weeks - one week of waiting, and two weeks of regenerative therapy, assuming he's in remission. Dr. Olga expects him to be in remission, so that's how she speaks when planning the future. Once he's done with that, he can go home. And stay home. He can "visit" the shop... but he can't stay more than an hour or two per day... ummm, "visit." No going back to work till his full strength resumes, I'm guessing when his immune system is no longer out of whack.

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Visitors... Let's make this clear: Yes, Stefan is medically okay to have healthy visitors. BUT... Physically, he needs a period of rest after every "active" time period. If he's up, say... walking, for a half hour, when he's done he'll go back to bed to lay down and rest for a half hour. The same is true when he has visitors. It's physically taxing (not to mention emotionally and spiritually taxing) for Stefan to sit up and talk with his visiting guests. Each time a guest leaves, Stefan needs to rest. Theoretically, a ten minute visit should be followed by a ten minute rest.

There is a growing number of supportive family and friends who want to visit Stefan, and - understandably - they all would like to come visit on the weekend (since that's when they have the time). If he has six families/couples/guests who come to visit him... Do the math: A hypothetical TEN minute visit per guest unit (single, couple, family) is an hour's worth of visiting time. Interspersed with a brief 10 minute rest in between visitors, that's another hour. That's two hours, assuming that all visits are kept to TEN minutes. You and I know that's about as likely to happen as having Chicago turn into the land of the midnight sun... it ain't gonna happen that way. And Stefan isn't about to say "Your 10 minutes is up, please leave now so I can rest." He's gonna want to answer all your questions, and tell his whole story. And you're gonna want to hear it all. So here's what I'm asking...

Each of you, if you go to visit him, please remember he's weak but he's proud - he's not going to let on that he's too tired to visit or that he'd like to rest now. You came all the way to see him - he's not going to tell you that you have to leave. So please take it upon yourselves... Try to limit your visit to 10-15 minutes. Come back after a while, if you have the time to spend. (In other words, make it worth the $8.50 you're going to pay for parking - if you validate your parking ticket.)

Visit with Stefan, but remember that he needs his rest. Also, if it's the weekend, remember that you're probably not his only visitor that day. If it's at all possible to get downtown during the week, you may very well be the only visitor he has that morning or afternoon. Steve and I seem to be getting down to see him on alternating days. Your chances at a longer visit with more time to talk to Stefan are much better if you can go during the week. Make an afternoon of it, like Steve and I do... Go see Stefan for a while; go take Daniella to lunch (or whatever meal it's time for); go back and see Stefan again after he rested for a bit. Splitting the visit up like that lets us visit with Stefan for a longer time, but without tiring him out so much. I know you all want to go see him - I wish I could be down there every day too. But even Daniella leaves his side for short periods of time so he could rest.

Those of you who are planning on visiting Stefan have probably already been in contact with Daniella, either via email or on the phone. If you haven't, please call her (or email her) to let her know - she can tell you if when you're planning is expected to be a busy time or not. And other than what I've already written, I can't think of much else to say. Gee... guess I'll just have to leave a short post today... Ha ha ha. Hope you all have a good weekend!