From: Anne Greenview <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Feb 28, 20-- at 11:22 AM
Subject: More changes
To: Laura Vance <[email protected]>

Please note the new email address. My old ISP, like the hospital, has been understaffed since the changes and their web email thingy hasn't been working consistently, and of course I haven't been at mine and Dave's house to need to use the DSL line there, so I canceled my account. If you sent me any mail after Tuesday of this week, please send it again.

We decided to change our names, those of us who were here at the hospital on the fourteenth, to reflect how we feel about each other now. I hear the other new families around town are doing the same, but I haven't left the hospital; I just hear news from patients and visitors. They call me Tall Anne when they need to distinguish me from the other women named Anne Greenview, a nurse on the cardiac floor (Short Anne) and a urologist (Blonde Anne).

I did talk to Dave on the phone a few times, and he came to visit me here once. He's hooked up with a marsupial girl from down the street. It doesn't bother me. I mean, I couldn't complain, since I've slept with two guys from security and a respiratory therapist since I wrote you last. Dave sent me half of the money from our accounts; I gave it to Tara, the weekend receptionist, who's been handling our money. I mean the Greenview family money, not the hospital money. It's been awful, the TriStar corporate suits and the local hospital administration people who weren't here during the changes wrangling with the family about control of the hospital, and trying to evict the patients and visitors who were here during the changes, and forbidding us to sleep in the offices and so forth. Some of the staff who weren't on duty then but have been coming in to work anyway (mostly marsupials, and a few who were in Louisville or somewhere on the fourteenth) have taken the administration's side, but most are sympathetic to our plight and have threatened to strike if the administration tries to fire us and replace us.

Dave offered to bring me anything I wanted from the house, and I asked him to bring me any of the books and DVDs he didn't want, and some of my clothes, but not too many because I share a room with other people now. I picked over what he brought and kept the stuff that wasn't too formal for wearing around the hospital when I'm off duty, and told him to give the rest to Goodwill. We had a better visit than before, since I wasn't feeling nervous about being away from my family, and the marsupials apparently don't have that anxiety about being separated from others of their kind.

I picked out a couple of books I wanted to read soon and put the rest of them, and the DVDs, in the hospital library. It's a lot bigger than before, and better organized; one of the former patients is a librarian, and she's taken over the job of keeping it in order and cataloging all the donations it's gotten in the last couple of weeks.

I'm very happy. I hope things will get better for you and Robert soon.