Phlegm, blood, and pee

Update on illness: It's moved out of my sinuses, and into my ears and chest. I saw the doctor today, and he put me on a prescription cough syrup with decongestant. We're unsure whether or not it's viral, but with the weekend coming up, he wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic. He told me to hang onto it for a couple of days and see if the stuff clears up on its own.

Update on surgery: I have my appointment with the Red Cross to have my blood drawn. I was told by a doctor in the bariatric surgery department that the need for a transfusion for the procedure I'm having is only about 1-2% likely, and even with my medical history and past surgery, the probability is only bumped up to about 3%. She told me that it was still a reasonable precaution to have one unit of blood drawn. So, my appointment is July 13th at 9:15 AM. That gives me plenty of time to recover from this respiratory nastiness, and plenty of time to build new blood after the unit is drawn.

I'm sad that they won't use my blood on someone else if they don't use it on me. I am indefinitely deferred because I've had a splenectomy and because I've had Hodgkin's Disease. It's a shame because I'm the kind of person who would donate regularly.

Update on bathroom ceiling: I don't think I posted about this before, but our bathroom ceiling used to leak massive amounts of water all over the floor because our upstairs neighbors have the shower running All The Time. We called apartment maintenance and they "fixed" it, but we think they just replastered the ceiling. We've been watching the last few months as the same spot has gradually discolored and warped.

Last night, I woke up at 3 AM having to pee. I had to pee because I was dreaming of running water. I was dreaming of running water because our bathroom ceiling was leaking profusely. I grabbed a big heavy towel and threw it on the bathroom floor, used the can while trying to get rained on as little as possible, and then woke my husband up. He looked at the torrential downpour, told me he'd call maintenance in the morning, and went back to sleep. I went upstairs and knocked on our neighbor's door for several minutes, but no one answered. I came back downstairs, knowing that I would not be able to sleep while it was raining in my bathroom, and went to check on the status of the leak. Luckily, it had slowed to the moderate drip that we had seen during the last series of bathroom leaks. I conceded that nothing could be done, and was able to sleep.

Maintenance is coming tomorrow. Damn my upstairs neighbor for putting us in a position to have maintenance in our apartment. Now we have to clean and stuff.