Another Team Tim Update

Tim, in better times. Photo from an anonymous friend, posted on Viva San Carlos

Christmas traffic in Hermosillo (Sonora's biggest city, where every big box store in Mexico can be found) is not for the faint of heart. Yesterday my friend Vera and I drove there to visit Tim, and found there are a whole new array of construction detours to make the trip even more adventurous.


Because there are so many different people coming in to see Tim, his name is well-known at the check-in table where visitors surrender their drivers' licenses and get directions to his room. Martin, a friendly guard, walked me to the new room, a much cleaner and better-equipped space directly across from the nurses' station, where the bed has a remote control instead of the old style crank that had to be operated by a nurse or visitor.


I have never seen a living person as thin as Tim is now. He has bedsores, which are making it even harder for him to sleep. Because of the tumors, he has difficulty swallowing, and doesn't even touch the solid food the hospital serves. He is living on juice and Ensure (smuggled in by visitors) and whatever nutrition he's getting via IV. He was promised a diagnosis by Thursday afternoon but is still waiting. His doctors have all but stopped coming around, so it's difficult for us to get a chance to talk with them about his treatment. We can't help but wonder if they've just given up on him.


Although visitors are limited to one at a time until 3pm, Vera somehow sweet-talked the guards into letting her come up to his room too, and together we devised a pad out of an extra sheet that he said was more comfortable than the bandages the nurses had been taping onto his backside for the bedsores. We checked his supplies of Ensure, bottled water and juice and made sure he could reach what he needs. There is no call button, so he has to shout if he needs a nurse, and shouting is no longer an option for Tim. We made a quick trip to the pharmacy and bought some baby powder, hoping it would help keep him more comfortable. When we got back to his room he was asleep at last, so we wrote him a note and tiptoed out.


The good news: A large contribution to his medication and hospitalization account came in yesterday on the PayPal account, which gives us hope that when the time comes we'll be able to pay his bill, check him out of General Hospital and buy his medications. One of his friends has offered the use of his house, and will pay for a nurse to take care of him if he no longer needs to be in the hospital. 


I just finished the first pass at editing Tim's book, Maya Gold, so I can go back and get to work on rewrites. Yesterday when we talked about a particularly action-packed passage in his novel, Tim's eyes lit up. For just a moment his pain and boredom and discouragement were forgotten.