Adventures in Freelance Insanity ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Teenagers Are Stupid Yesterday I went to a meeting called for 12;38. Weird, no? It was a meeting to discuss Terror's progress in school. Last year, if you remember, he went to the same school he'd always gone to, the school I shelled out $5 K a year for that he failed miserably. Failed. All F's. They told me every F was due to not handing in his homework. We move, and he goes to public school. That public school should be surrounded by drum beats. No one in my family has ever gone to public school and dire things were prophesized. I was, as always, the BAD MOTHER. I fought to get him into 7th grade, for them to forget his last year with all F's. They did so. Honor roll every sememster. Alcolades glaore! Yesterday they sopke of mainstreaming him in every subject except math. He is the best in math in his class, but there is a "teaching gap" between what he knows and the mainstream math. They spoke of how proud they were, how encouraged, how Terror was their favorite, so disciplined, so kind, so respectful, so amusing. Music to a mothers ears. I worked hard at not going to former school and demanding my money back. Concentrate on the good. I am filled with pride at my young man, so full of acheivement, on his way to good things. My proudest moments was hearing that while in the beginning of the year he had leaned toward vocational school, he was now set on college, for reasons which he apparently heard from me and parroted back to his teachers. Success!!! Tennagers DO LISTEN!!!! I am overcome. Later, I am in the bedroom when I hear an odd noise. I go to the living room and realize... My son forgot his housekey (for the millionth time). Instead of trekking a few blocks to get the emergency spare, he has been going to the laundry room (shared by the building), standing on the ledge and JUMPING ONTO OUR 2nd STORY BALCONY to come in via the sliding doors. If this teenage thing doesnt kill him, I will. 10:42 a.m. - 2006-05-12 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ten Months Dear Face, I can't believe you are 10 months old. Almost a year! You are so small that people still ask me how many weeks you are, your 6-months clothes still sit in drawers untouched. You and I have worked so hard to train those little muscles. You can stand for a long time holding onto my hands, you can sit for up to 45 seconds without tipping over, and once in a while if I put you on your tummy you will flail around until you land on your back. Sometimes I think you are messing with me, when I see that devilish look in your eyes. You are so much smarter than you can verbalize. You smile at your family now, at me and daddy and Terror and no matter how we feel we cant help but smile back. Which reminds me - will you cut those teeth already? I can see all of them lurking beneath the skin and sometimes your enthusiasm for chomping on my fingers becomes painful. So just cut em already. And what's with your hair? If you think Im being hard on you, well, you're nearly one young man. Although it's not my way to get soppy I just have to say that I stand here in awe of you. We have all been through the wringer this past year, and sometimes your dad and I dont remember how to keep going but all the bad stuff really happened to you. All the surgeries and the intubations, the wires and the scars, the people annoying you with their thermometers and BP cuffs, the days and nights you spent without any of us being able to touch you, the horrid torture that food subjects you to sometimes. Yet every day you wake up and smile at us, every day you can be easily calmed if we will just sing the story of Old McDonald. You want to be held, and fed and changed and you are happy. Content. I try to learn from you as much as I teach you. Thank you so much for being a part of our family. We love you so much. Mom 10:05 a.m. - 2006-05-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That Crazy Girl I have a bog contract that will require 100 hours (not including my regular 40 hour job) by next Wednesday so I dont have time to comment or post (although I have been reading sporadically). Just in case you were wondering where the hell I got to - you and my family will see me next Thursday. I have a weird 5 minutes now, so Ill share my weekend eye roll with you...
She's pretty, but not that pretty. All I can say is she must be fabulous in bed. We tell her all the time but we should talk to the dog for all the good it does us. Except when her madness involves her 6 year old daughter. Not that ehr daughter misses the stream of men or whatever, but we prevent her from say - moving to another state with a guy she's known for a month, or in one case reaming her a new one and threatening her when her theatrics includes threatening to kill herself and her daughter. Basically, she's crazy. But I have no need of soap operas with her in my life. J often says that for a tv show he could sell instantly he should just follow her around for a year. Now I have to say that 99% of her picks are okay - although in practice I am always firmly on her side in theory I feel very bad for most of the guys she's with. So I get an email from this guy she's been dating for TWO WEEKS. He's rented a hall for her 32nd B-day, catered, and invited all her friends to come. EYE ROLL #1 EYE ROLL #2 HE'S a HUGE COCK. THEN, he's talking about his friend and how his friend has a "psycho" girlfriend who got mad at his friend and poured a beer on friend's bed. "I dont care if she's a girl. I would've punched her dead in her face for that. That's ridiculous. She's lucky, I would've punched her." Cause that's a totally reasonable response to having to change your sheets. Yeah, this one's a keeper. EYE ROLL #3
PS I think my eyes are gonna get stuck that way. 12:27 p.m. - 2006-04-26 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Happy Monday Sheryl at Paper Napkin reminded me of a story. When I was a truck driver I used to pick my son up from school and he would do afternoon deliveries with me - he with his homework in the passenger seat. he took his afternoon snack (sprite and a muffin) out of the cooler and, as we spoke, he must've been shaking the bottle. I was chattering and driving when all of a sudden - sprite EVERYWHERE. my hair was covered and I could feel it dripping off the end of my nose as I made sure I kept the rig on the road. I was about to freak when into the silence came my son's thoughtful "a ha" voice. "So THAT'S why it says Do Not Shake." What can you do but laugh? Happy Monday people! Come DOWN from the sugar high, that's it... 10:36 a.m. - 2006-04-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Making An Ass Out of Myself In My Typically Random Musing One of the fun parts about being a part of the theatre scene in NY is watching talented people make it big. I hung around in the same space as Jesse and have to admit I didnt even realize who he was when he became the main guy on L&O. After about two years I was like - OMG, thats Jesse. In my defnse, although we shared the same space I rarely talked to him. When Jay (Jai) hit it big in Queer Eye I was so pleased. He's such a sweetheart, and I have blackmail pics so he's gotta talk to me. I guess showing how credible I am will make me look like an even bigger dork than I already am. One of the things I love about myself is my ability to suspend critical thinking (for the most part) when watching tv, a movie, or reading. So it'll be no surprise to those who know me that when I was watching Conviction the other night the cops caught a hold of the drug dealer's shoulder... he turned... and I cried "Thats not a drug dealer, that's Luther!" all outraged and ready to fight for him. Of course, realizing I was in my living room watching a FICTIONAL tv show caused me to look sheepishly around and be glad no one saw me make an ass out of myself. But a big shout-out to the marvelous Luther anyway! I knew you'd make it in lala land. *********************************** Lest you think I am randomly name-dropping, I know a shitload of people. Im sure if I thought about it, I know a lot more than I think I know. I would be way more impressed with myself if I could actually, like, remember people's names or think that they would remember me in any way (although I know Luther would know and I certainly would hope Jay would know me). What a lot of people would remember about me though is that I am the breakfast lady - I make a mean kick-ass breakfast. A feast that I can cook quickly and tastes wonderful. Cooking a lot of food for a lot of people is a skill (really, try it sometime) and I do it well. I do it in a ratty sweatshirt and little else and I dont eat any breakfast food whatsoever. So although plenty of people would not remember me, they do remember the breakfast lady (arnt I just so wonderful). **************************************** I also realized that I know an awful lot of gay men (and spend a lot of time around gay men) and am never around lesbians (although there are lesbians in my family and no gay men). I blame my sister (kidding! I like the people I hang around with or I wouldnt hang with them). My sister is one of those women gay men fall in love with. I dont really understand that, but it is true. She went through a long period also where she dated 6 guys in a row and as soon as she broke up with them, they came out. It freaked her out, big-time. One of the reasons I love her is times like this - when her last guy came out she called me and asked if I thought she was "making" them gay. "Am I the gay-maker?" She cracks me up. (In case anyone is new to this blog, my sister is bi-sexual and does not believe people are "made into" gay people). *************************************** This brought to mind a little story I'll share with you on this marvelous Friday, hoping it makes you laugh. My sister, prone to dragging me around from club to club till the wee hours drug me to a club (about our 6th that night). Once in the club she took off dancing (I would never dare dance with her - shes not only stunningly beautiful but also a professional dancer and - no. Just no.) I order a drink and try mightily to avoid looking at the bartender who has, at minimum, 50 piercings in his face. I turn to look at the crowd. I cant really see the samll stage at the back, but it looks like contortionists or something... Now, I dont have a great self-image. but I dont think Im hideous, Im wearing a beautiful black cocktail dress, makeup and hair professionally done. But I realize these women! Oh my god these women! They are GORGEOUS. Every last one. They are "done". Every hair in place, every accessory accessorized. Makeup, hair, nails, jewlery, clothes - all perfect. Perfect. I immediatly develop a complex - I have gone immediatly from being an overdressed bar hopper to being under-dressed AND the ugliest girl in the room. I so have to leave. I look around for my sister and I see that the men in this club - these men are... well, they are crap. From the shoddily dressed to the over-slickly dressed to the t-sirth and jeans. These men are nothing special at all. I am bewildered. Why are these gorgeous women even breathing the same AIR as these men? Why are they... And i watch one of these gorgeous women go up to a mirror and adjust her wig and i realize... Im the ONLY woman in the place. I also realize that those contortionists are actually having sex. Live on stage. I had no problem staying after that cause no one there cared what I looked like and my sister... Let's just say hanging out with her is never boring. *************************************** Im feeling very optimistic about what is to come in my life based on nothing whatsoever. Maybe I just feel like we have survived the hardest part of having Face and it can only get better, maybe it's spring which always makes me feel better (except for the whole waking-up-with- swollen eyes deal). Or maybe I can just see my way out right now. In any case, I intend to enjoy the good and have fun and I invite you to do the same! 2:51 p.m. - 2006-04-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hospital Stay High and Low lights of our 12 day hospital stay: ONE She also smiled very big and hunched her shoulders constantly - one of those women who INVITE people to treat them like crap, or inversely, have people bending over backwards to help them because they do look so much like a victim. If that makes any sense. Anyhoo, she was the nurse who admitted us into the cardiac unit. A little more digression - when Face was having "respitory distress" he was breathing quickly and was slightly blue but was sat-ing around 82-87%, pretty damn good. When he was re-admitted for the rotovirus he was breathing fine (and not blue) and it never occured to me that he was compromised - but his sats were in the 60s. Weird. Bad weird. So we're transferred from the ER to the cardiac floor and Face is on 10 litres of blow-by (a mask that wafts oxygen past his nose and mouth) because the nasal canula (a tube delivering oxygen to the nose) at 2.5 litres is having no effect. So he's oxygenated. He's also attached to monitors, the standard kind, and a pulse-ox to measure the 02 in his blood. ER guy wheels Face into a 4-person room. I am happy, yet wary. My son is usually isolated because he has something called a VRE - a serious infection that is resistant to standard antibiotics. We are usually put into a single room to protect the other babies from getting it. Face is what's known as "High Contact" meaning all healtcare professionals who touch him are supposed to glove, gown and face-mask up before touching him. I say to the nurse "Does this mean he's no longer contagious?" She tells me she think this room has all VRE patients in it and yet, she is not gloved and there is no sign on the door. I am skeptical. "Could you make sure this is okay so we dont get all settled in here and then have to move?" Selfish me, what i SHOULD be concerned about is infecting other babies. In my defense, this is so her job. As Im saying this, ER guy is unhooking Face from the monitors/stuff INCLUDING the oxygen. He leaves. She rifles quickly through the papers as if the answer to my question is in them and says "Let me go check to make sure." SHE LEAVES THE ROOM. FACE IS NOT HOOKED UP TO OXYGEN. I roll my eyes, grab the blow-by, attach it and turn on the oxygen. I consider hooking him up to the monitors but decide he probably be fine with just the oxygen. 10 minutes later she comes back in and SAYS NOTHING ABOUT THE OXYGEN. This is my favorite part. Did she think SHE did it? How does she think he got hooked up, or does she not even notice? It's enough to make a person pissy, which I was. Of course, we can't be in this room. It's the wrong room. He needs to be isolated. So now, 10 minutes into admission, my son has already potentially harmed other children, been assigned the wrong type room, and been left without oxygen (or would have been). But Im a monster for being pissy. (See previous hospital-bitch where I offended a hospital worker by being critical). Now, I really dont think anything bad wouldve happened to my son even if he wasnt on oxygen during that time. I highly doubt he would've coded. But the point is he COULD have and she would never had known. In every profession, there are people who are just not good at their jobs. I totally understand the inclination to protect co-workers. Especially ones you like (and this girl IS very likeable). But it brings about situations like this one, where something bad could've happened and EVERYONE in your profession suffers for the incomptence of one. TWO THREE FOUR The truth was, she had issues with me. She had her own ideas about how things should be and I didnt play along and she thought I should just do whatever she wanted. If this sounds like Im a bitch, maybe I am. Mostly it had to do with Ins and Outs. My boy is a snacker. I let him eat whenever he wants and when he's awake, he eats constantly. Nurse have to keep track of what goes in (record formula use) and out (weigh diapers). So normally I designate a place in the room and put all empty bottle and dirty diapers there. So when a nurse comes in, they just pick up the empties and the diapers and voila! no searching, no questions. Easy, peasy. If someone asked me to do it a different way I would but most of the nurses seem grateful and like this system. She did not. Everytime she came in the room (and she came in a lot because she had only a few patients compared to the nurse) she wanted to know how much he drank since the last time she was there. I didnt know, and wasnt about to care. She didnt like that at all. I thought this was rude, as I didnt laugh at her screw-ups while examining Face. She used the wrong cuff - i casually mentioned the other nurses used a different one. Hertrying to listen to his lungs was a joke - she moved the stethescope around in a clearly amatuer manner and never checked his lungs from the back. I felt like pulling her aside and explaining that you could get away with pretending that you know everything already to a normal parent, but for parents of kids with cronic conditions who are frequently hospitalized - they probably know as much if not more than you about their child and his condition. Use it to your advantage. Personaly, I dont think Im an annoying parent. I was in-room with my child for the first 10 days with short breaks for lunch and dinner when he napped. I only called the nurse a few times -when he started crapping blood everywhere, when he threw up everywhere, when I had waited for a doctor or med for over 2 hours. I dont THINK thats an unreasonable waste of a nurse's time but maybe they considered me demanding. FIVE Hello?! That same cardiologist also layed the smackdown on Face's treatment. After 4 days of staying on formula with no change in Face, cardiologist was like "IV fluids, Pedialight only, this is ridiculous." Kinda funny when you think that a virus kept Face in the hospital for 8 days but open-heart surgery only kept him for 4. Of course, as soon as the virus cleared up, the respitory infection started coming back because Face couldn't take his lasiks while he had the rotovirus. Eye roll. This kid cant catch a break. I told him that he's not allowed to be sick for at least 5 months or I will ground him until he's 85. In other News... Problem is, all hospitals locally will intubate him through the mouth and ship him right to Best Hospital on Earth (BHOE). There, they will re-intubate him through his nose. This is not good. BHOE is only about 10 miles further than the closest hospital, but the ambulance probably wont take him there. I also worry that I will have to punch out the ambulance person to keep them from oxygenating Face if his stats are Face-normal (80-93%). Just stuff I have to resolve. J turned 30 yesterday. Happy Birthday baby!!! Face and I were in the hospital, so I missed a chance to write a sappy happy 9 months letter to him. Maybe if I start working on #10 now, it'll get done. Im in a really good mood because I feel like we have all been paroled from prison. Im hoping that if we stay on our best behavior we wont have to go back until Operation #3. Have a great Day Everyone!! 10:11 a.m. - 2006-04-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Temporarily Closed For Repairs While Face and I were in the hospital last Monday we picked up something called a Rotovirus. This is where your insides try to become outsides through every possible orifice simultaneously. The curtains were the only fabric in the room not covered in some kind of bodily fluid. Of course, Face (with me as his very sick nurse) have been in the hospital since last Tuesday. Wednesday Terror and J got the roto, with poor J getting it as bad as Face (Terror and I got "roto light"). J has two black eyes and a face full of broken cappilaries from the force of throwing up for days without end. Face's heart meds conflict with his need for some digestive control, so it's a balancing act for him - wait until he looks like Marl0n Brando and cant breathe, give him a shot of direutic then cross your fingers. Hopefully Face will be out of the hospital soon. If I havent commented on your blog in a while, it's not for lack of love but lack of internet. See ya soon! 7:28 a.m. - 2006-04-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Laugh Till It Hurts Jake spent this past weekend in the CICU stepdown for upper respitory infection and fluid in the lungs. He is better now. He has taken to physical therapy with flying colors - as if his muscles know just what to do and have only been waiting for someone to show them. His PT steps are so slow, and so heartening, I cannot help but laugh as he finds new joys in his small world. Yesterday, Face and I left the hospital with his dad, and both his dad and I started showing syptoms of a raging case of strep throat. So last night, laying next to The Face in bed, he would smack me on the arm and laugh, pleased with his ability to smack me wherever i lay (lie, be). I would laugh at his joy, cough, moan and cry at the throat pain. Then I would get smacked again. I love this kid. 11:56 a.m. - 2006-04-04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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