06:57 – I’m still working heads-down on the forensics book, putting together consolidated equipment/chemicals/specimens lists from all of the lab sessions. I should finish that up today or tomorrow, which means the manuscript is complete. I’ll then go back and do a quick clean-up pass, shoot more images, and so on.
10:01 – Barbara took her dad to an early appointment this morning with his doctor. She called about 9:00 to say that the doctor wanted her dad to go to the hospital. He has problems with fluid accumulation, which they’ve been treating by limiting his fluid intake and having him on a regimen of Lasix or some other loop diuretic. This morning, the edema was bad enough that the doctor thought IV diuretics were needed, so Barbara took her dad over to the hospital. I’m not sure if they’ll admit him or just treat him and release him. Barbara and her sister have been run ragged recently dealing with medical emergencies. I hope the hospital sends Dutch home today. Hospital stays are very hard on their parents, of course, but they’re also hard on Barbara and Frances. It’s fortunate that there are two of them to share the hospital visits and running around on errands for their parents.
13:41 – Barbara called to say they’ve admitted her dad to the hospital and he’ll be there several days. I guess their mom is going to stay with Barbara’s sister. It doesn’t sound like Dutch is in any real danger, but they have to get him dried out before they can send him home. He has a lot of fluids accumulated in his tissues, particularly his legs. The real worry, of course, is that the edema also occurs around the heart, causing congestive heart failure.
Here’s something weird. I just shipped a kit to California, which is in USPS zone 8, the most expensive zone. The kit, as all of them are, was in a USPS Priority Mail Regional Rate Box B. It cost $14.62 to ship. The weird part is that I could have used a USPS Priority Mail Large Flat-Rate Box–which is larger than the RR Box B and also has a weight limit of 75 pounds versus 20 pounds for the RR box–and it would have cost $14.61, a penny less. Very strange.
16:19 – The reason we assembled only 18 chemistry kits last weekend is that we ran out of one component, the 10 mL oral syringe. I’d been ordering those in bags of 100, and was just about to reorder two bags when I realized that was foolish. So I ordered a case of 500 instead. It’ll be a while before I need to reorder those. Our stock of chemistry kits is already dwindling fast, so we need to get more assembled in the next week or two. Other than the syringes, we have everything needed to assemble another dozen in a few minutes, but that’s not going to keep us for long. Once I get this forensics book put to bed, I’m going to order components for another 90 or 120 (we print labels in sheets of 30) chemistry kits and the same number of biology kits and get to work on making up and bottling the chemicals for them. While I’m at it, I’ll order components for 60 or 90 forensic science kits. Or maybe more.