Just a quick update before I go to the hospital this morning -- I spoke to the First Mate, and she wants me to thank everyone who has kept her in their prayers and thoughts. She still has a fever, but it's down just a bit to 101.1, and her cough unfortunately remains bad. I'll be there in an hour and will update this post throughout the day. I plan on taking some DVDs with me so that we can watch movies off the laptop instead of the college football games she, er, loves so much.

More later ...

UPDATE: Well, it looks like pneumonia, but it's controllable and it doesn't appear to have affected the transplants. She'll be in the hospital for at least a couple of days while they run all the necessary tests. They have her in a private room, but it's on the far side of the hospital where the wireless connections are all proprietary (locked out from weaselly folks such as me!). The guest lobby has a signal I can use, so I'll be updating irregularly as I can.

UPDATE II, 3:00 pm CT: I should note that the diagnosis is somewhat preliminary, but they're pretty sure about it. It's not critical; they don't have the FM in Intensive Care or on a respirator, or even an oxygen feed. They want to do a bronchoscopy to make sure of the diagnosis later today, but we're still waiting. In the meantime, she's drifting in and out of a nap this afternoon, so I'm watching football after all.

UPDATE III, 4:47 PM: She's going in for her bronchoscopy now, after getting the first of two units of blood. Her hemoglobin level was down to 7.8 (13.5 is considered the lower end of normal). Even with the serious anemia, though, her oxygenation level looks good. They want to confirm the diagnosis and find the specific bug that's causing the pneumonia. I'm eating an early dinner and staring out the window in the lobby where the signal seems passable.

UPDATE IV, 5:11 PM - I'll have Mitch know that I'm not wearing the Irish jersey today -- Notre Dame has a bye week. So there. But I appreciate his thoughts and prayers.

While I'm updating, I'll throw in a minor bleg - if anyone knows how I can get a login for the Fairview University wireless networks, it would be mucho appreciado.

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