my surgery is scheduled for December 8.  My neighbor will probably go down with me and then bring me home.

brother went over to The Ohio State University James Cancer Center yesterday.  They did screening, and he is on the list for a stem cell transplant.  They figure within a month or so.  I am not eligible to donate, as the cutoff at the James is 60.  Besides, I'll be recovering from surgery and I doubt they want to add stress to my body's healing processes. 

Hospital called and asked me for blood work, EKG, and a COVID test.  Since the hospital is over 50 miles away, I wasn't driving that far to give them blood work and the EKG, so they faxed the orders up to my local hospital, 5 minutes away.  Except they didn't fax them.....the local hospital had to call and ask for the order, and then when they came an hour later, they didn't send the EKG order.  Argh.  Okay, it took about 15 minutes for it to get there, so now I have both those tests done, took the COVID test, and it's negative, and I'm ready to go to surgery Wednesday.  I hope the nurse who gives me the IV doesn't have any problems.  The last two times, they've either rolled the vein, or there was something wrong with the IV at the access point of the line where it failed to lock the catheter in place.  Once that's done, though, I'm all right, and can relax.  At least, I can't see them when they're sticking the spike into the vein, as my hand is hanging down over the side of the bed, out of sight.  Once they start with the happy juices, who cares, right? 

good luck, joe

Surgery apparently went well, although I heard there were issues, either with the implant, or something else. Procedure took about 4 hours, I believe. Could not sleep last night, can't sleep now. The pain medication, oxycodone, gives me hiccups. Although I should have eaten something before I took the 5:00AM tablet, because they started about 20 minutes after I took it.  Now, the nerve block has been wearing off and one pain pill isn't holding off the pain. I'm not going to take a second one, the instructions say I can, but I'll wait and see how I feel at the 5:00 PM mark.