04Feb26: Andy heard me prepare kitty food….

Andy heard the >clunk< of the kitty food dish hitting the floor in the kitty food place.

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What a mess! Andy needs a good brushing at the moment, but he’s a very clever kitty when it comes to avoiding me when I want to brush and detangle him.

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Uh oh! That isn’t a Tootsie Roll Andy left on the end table. With enough paper towels between me and “it” I was able to sort things out. Andy occasionally has a “hanger”. I’m just happy it fell off where I didn’t discover it by stepping on it.

03Feb26: “What day is it?”

This is where we left Andy yesterday. Or what ever day it was!

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This is where I am, Tuesday, the 3rd of February, but I seem to have lost track of my days. Too much to keep track of these past few days!!

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31Jan26: a slow day…

Andy spent a lot of it watching the scene outside or sleeping in the north bedroom.

Jere, he’s looking at the guest bedroom door. Dougy’s ghost?

Sniffing at the inevitable Greenies before…

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My day was spent waiting for Lincare to pick up three four-packs of empty oxygen cannisters.

By late afternoon, the cannisters were still by the door. Waiting for a pick up, I missed my afternoon nap. I barely could keep my eyes open. I don’t chose to take these naps, my body hits a fatigue wall, a nap happens. I felt the fatigue all. A nap had to happen. So I just took one.

If Lincare shows up for the cannisters, fine. If not, I’ll just have to work around them for another week. They take up lots of room.

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30Jan26: “Happy Face Time”…

“Happy Face Time!” I can’t scratch and rub his face too long or much. It’s one of his favorite things for me to do for him.

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One mystery of the COVID-25 experience has been how I felt while breathing.

I checked my oxygen level with my pulse oximeter. Ninety-nine percent, yet it felt like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

Even with auxiliary oxygen, I was breathing in short, what seemed incomplete breaths. Oddly, the oxygen level in my blood suggested something else. I mentioned it to one of the dialysis nurses.

She checked my last monthly blood test results. My red blood cells count was 8.3 whatever measurement that is, and that is low, close to the 7.0 where I’d need a blood transfusion!

The pulse oximeter reading measured how high the oxygen saturation was in the diminished level of red blood cells, presenting me with the ironic situation of a desirable level of oxygen saturation in a blood cell concentration less able to take sufficient oxygen to my cells.

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Though I got part way to the dialysis room before dialysis, I called in and asked for help with the last half of the distance, a slight “hill” that adds maybe five feet more elevation to the trip from the parking lot to the door.

At the end of dialysis, I didn’t fight a wheelchair trip back to my car.

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Though this 2025 version of COVID isn’t as rough as that earlier one, it still wipes you out long after the infectious stage, which requires 11 days of isolation. I’ve heard a month after the isolation stage is typical!

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I have two things in the air because if COVID-25: possibly the operation on my cancer – I will find out next week at the oncologist’s; the start of therapy to help restore my strength.

29Jan26: Andy knows what he wants…

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I found out this morning that I still have COVID-25. Weird stuff. I cough a lot, but don’t feel that bad. It puts off therapy that I was supposed to set up today. I imagine surgery will be postponed, too, and I will end up in the isolation room at dialysis again.

28Jan26: a busy day…

Andy had the apartment to himself much longer today.

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I had a busy day of being pushed around Box Butte General Hospital on a wheelchair.

To Radiology for two chest X-rays….

To the Laboratory to have one of those nauseating nasal swabs swished in my nasal cavity….

To a new feature of the clinics – a walk-in clinic – for a general examination and interview about when these symptoms- weakness, coughing spells, breathing issues – began and a possible connection to my recent time with COVID-25.

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The X-rays were similar to another set taken recently and showed no change or anything alarming apparently.

The Laboratory stop will reveal its findindings in a day or two.

The walk-in clinic findings will help in the detection of what’s going on with me.

On top of it all, one of the staff’s sons and she were in Scottsbluff today, so they picked up eight oxygen cannisters and delivered them to me since I wasn’t well enough last Friday to do it myself. My supply might not have lasted to the next delivery on Friday….

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Gad! The dialysis nurses, supervisor, and our PA truly came through in ways for me that are staggering! I couldn’t have done all of that walking or setting up procedures on my own. A huge thanks to them all!!