Colleen[11]:

Sometime this afternoon we're going to move Colleen to a skilled nursing facility, White Blossom Care Center on Fruitdale Ave. in San Jose. It's a short walk from the Younger Daughter's school.

She's staying on IV antibiotics for another two weeks, and next week she'll be seeing a specialist in San Francisco. It is currently suspected that the fistula is not due to her Crohn's disease but more likely a consequence of either her hernia operation two years ago, or her bout with diverticulitis 15 years ago. A previous surgery, in any case. So Remicade is on hold, but things still look hopeful. More so, because if it isn't Crohn's there wouldn't be any reason not to fix it surgically.

More news, including contact info, as it comes in. Meanwhile, her cell phone still works.

Colleen[12]: A moving experience

Colleen is now residing at the White Blossom Care Center, 1990 Fruitdale Ave., San Jose, CA 95128; room 104B. The phone number of the center is (408) 998-8447. Her cell phone is still the best way to reach her, though: you'll find the number on the Starport web page as usual. There's no WiFi for patients, but if I can get an access point to their IT guy (currently offsite, apparently) there's a good chance he can hook it up. Yay! I have one sitting at work, left over from a recent upgrade.

Kaiser botched the hand-off. Grump. So although they knew we were coming, there was nobody there to meet us or to tell Kaiser that we'd arrived, and her meds will be an hour late getting to her this evening.

On the other hand, we had a pleasant drive together, and I was there to make sure that she was getting taken care of. (They had to swap places with her roommate, because Colleen is sinister and so has her PICC line in her right arm. Without the swap she would have had no space for the IV pole on that side. We also made sure they knew she was ambulatory, and preferred to use a commode rather than a bedpan.

The staff seems friendly and competent; their head of nursing was suitably apologetic and suitably annoyed at Kaiser over the screw-up. The place is several decades old, a little shabby but, I think, basically sound. (E.g., the wallpaper looks old, but isn't peeling.)

Not clear that Colleen will have access in the room by the weekend, but she may at least be able to get to a public computer and try to catch up. One way or another, we'll have her online by this time next week.