Negative Progress

It has been three days since I dropped back to taking only one dose of Vancomycin per day (as opposed to every six hours).  Every day I have more bouts of diarrhea, up to six today. I know:  Too much information! At least I haven’t provided you with the poop scores.  Yes, there really is such a thing.  It was on the wall in the gastroenterologist’s office. Here, I found one on the web. By the way, it was amazing what I found when I Googled “stool chart”. I won’t do that again.

The purpose of this chart is to enable patients to talk to their doctor about poop without getting too embarrassed. Just give a number.

But all that is off topic.  I’m getting worse again. The doc is on vacation for three weeks, but I am going to go see whoever is backing him up for advice on what to do now.

Andy and brother-in-law Tom spent a whole morning trying to figure out why the power was off. Tom read the manual for the inverter and tried a “soft reset”.  Nothing happened.  He tried a “hard reset”.  Nothing happened. They gave up.

Andy and I spent a lot of time in Barbara’s house and on the back deck.  It was evening when Andy went to the motorhome for something and found the lights on.  We have no clue what happened.  Everything electrical worked except the stove (which is propane anyway).  The next morning, Andy and Tom were scratching their heads over that.  Tom asked Andy if he had turned the propane off at the tank, but Andy had not.  He took Tom outside to show him the propane tank in a compartment under the motorhome.  Tom asked about a button and Andy showed him that it is the on/off switch, “see? On. Off.” They came back inside and there was gas flowing to the stove and it lit right up. Apparently, there is a relay that shuts off the propane if the power goes off.

Ah, but like the Clostridium Difficile puzzle, there is some negative progress here too.  Tonight, the lights are blinking again.  Tom and Andy decided that it may be a light switch in the bathroom.  They already replaced the ground fault interrupt outlet.

We had planned to start heading west tomorrow, but now are going to stay here a few more days to attend to my medical issues.  See? I can address it delicately.