Day +2

‘Donor’ Frank here. Tomorrow, I head away in my rented car from City of Hope and Duarte,  driving south and then a bit west towards the centre and west central Los Angeles;  the “there’s no there there” comment by Virginia Woolf about Oakland seems to apply even more so to LA.

The City of Hope does not allow babies or dogs – but no monument on the campus to WC Fields (“Anyone who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad”); it’s because they carry more infectious germs than the rest of us. So it was great to see Una briefly this evening – apart from her considerable charms, she has great scarcity value (I know, I know, econo-speak at its worst); she is accompanied by her parents Nora and Ainate – all three arrived yesterday evening, comprising a changing of the guard, as Eoin headed back north.

The post-donation feeling is odd. Beforehand, I was extra careful crossing streets and driving, knowing that if anything went awry, friends would be saying “the feckin’ egit couldn’t even keep himself alive for a few days to do the donation.” Now that no bus – and they are few and far between in these parts – or other mishap has done me in, do I continue with my super caution, and if not, can I recover to what is ‘normal’?

I motor into the highways of LA with some trepidation – I miss Janet, navigator extraordinaire -  but I am armed with the best that Google maps has to offer in getting me to my destinations – hotel check in at La Quinta Inn and Suites, car drop off National Car Hire, (9020 Aviation Blvd, Inglewood) and then onto Napa Valley Grille, Westwood, Glendon Avenue to lunch with Matt Khan (UCLA) and his student Cong Sun, back to hotel to be picked up by UCD grad Terry McCarthy and his wife Jennifer, and we motor to dine 35 miles south at Huntington Beach with Finbar Hill (Irish Consul General)

This evening I took over from Ainate on ‘Sile watch’; she is doing well in the sense that Dr. Nakamura says what is happening is what is expected to happen. She eats very little, but gets her nutrients intravenously, feels cheerful at times, but needs lots of sleep; her main affliction is nausea, which comes from time to time and has not yet yielded fully to variously iterated medications. A main job for the minder is to get the nurse to come when equipment beeps – which it does relatively frequently – usually means that an IV line is clogging. This is happening as I write….Love to all

F.

Side note from Nora:  when we went to say "goodbye" to Frank, Úna couldn't stop staring in the mirror.  These pictures were the best we could do!)