Welcome to the Riviera

In front of the hospital

No, I'm not really at the Riviera. I'm actually at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston being treated for double pneumonia.

I am calling it The Rivieria because that's what my mother named the hospital entrance with pretty bushes and flowers around it. We used to sit out there in two wheelchairs and have a Coke. One time when my friend Margie was visiting me she played cocktail waitress and served us our drinks. You gotta have fun where you can find it. Diane and I went down there yesterday and walked down the street a bit. It was good to get some fresh air.

I have felt like I was run over by the proverbial Mack Truck, with shivers and shakes, total weakness and no energy. On a couple of days I haven't been able to eat. Talking on the phone was an effort.

It took them a day to find the right antibiotic, two of them specifically, and yesterday I started to improve. My white count is now normal, 10, while before it was 26, showing that I was fighting one heck of an infection.

At The Riveria

On the bright side, it's been fun to see many of my nurse friends and doctors. It's like old home week. A few who took care of me four years ago are taking care of me now. I feel very safe here. My sister went down yesterday to get a newspaper in front of Au Bon Pan, and the newspaper man, Steve, a character with a ponytail and handlebar mustache, said, "Paper for Ronni, right?"

I have another twist to deal with. The CAT skin which they took to further identify the pneumonia revealed what looks to be a cyst on my kidney. To get a better look at it, they gave me an MRI yesterday. I listened to James Taylor to partially drown out noise the sounded like machine gun fire and drilling. They didn't get much more information.

I am waiting for the kidney people to tell me a plan. They will probably take it out because they couldn't get more information from the MRI.

One of the attending doctors told me I'm already a miracle. If this was just a cyst it would of course be great, but

if it is cancerous it's a miracle finding it early on a scan looking for something else. Kidney cancer is difficult because there is no test for it, and once it's found it usually has gotten bigger. My kidney numbers look good, which is a plus.