Levels of house cleanliness

Here is my hierarchy of house cleanlieness:

1. This isn't my house
2. Just after a major cleaning (1x a year max)
3. Straightened up pretty darn good
4. Presentable enough
5. Well, at least I can see the floor
6. Oh, whatever, just walk around the piles
7. Really awful, only nonjudgemental friends allowed
8. Truly mortifying
9. Truly mortifying, even to me
10. I'd turn away an ambulance crew saving my life

My son, budding thespian

Offspring has a love-hate relationship with school. He hates being there, he loves not being there. I honestly have no clue how to deal with this as I was a people-pleasing-straight-A-even-in-kindergarten kind of kid. My brother was the one who hated school (and we all know how badly he turned out, so maybe I should quit worrying about Offspring). But today was different. A few days ago he started telling me that he COULD NOT BE ABSENT Wed. When I asked why, it was because last week they were assigned in small groups* to write a play then act it out in front of the class today. He was in a group of all boys, and all boys who love Star Wars more than pizza and Wii combined. Of course, they chose to act out Star Wars. Not just Star Wars, but Star Wars the Clone Wars Episode 7, Part B, right before the commercial, you know that part where they fight Bahzoomba the Bad Guy. Approximately. 

He has been jumping up and down all week in excitement over it. He has been practicing at home every night, he made 3 light sabers to use in the play, and has been generally over the moon about it. He leapt out of bed this morning and gleefully informed me that today was THE day!!!!! Mom, I totally can't be absent!!!! So totally, like, don't take my tempenture (another adorable mispronounciation I can't bring myself to correct him on) because I could be 128 degrees and I'm totally GOING! Like totally dude, when did I raise a child who says 'totally', like, totally every 3rd sentence? I dutifully did not take his tempenture, and all the way to school he hummed the Star Wars theme really loud, over and over again. He was bouncing up and down in his seat, waving his paper light saber about and rehearsing his lines. He was R2D2. My kid imitating R2D2 is quite funny. I had to stifle my laugh because he doesn't understand the I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at how cute you are thing. He'll understand when he has an offspring. 

How to Choose a Bed Bag

You know, I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams (or shall I say nightmares) that I would at any point in my life become a connoisseur of indwelling catheter bed bags. But I am. And I can tell you that Bard bed bags SUCK. I will hook his catheter up to a ziploc bag before I use one of those again. Why? Let me count the ways.

See that side entry green thingy? Bard Bed Bag - THEY SUCKThat's the spigot that you use to open and close it so you can drain the urine. Well, it is damn near impossible to open/close it one-handed, which is what one must do because one must be holding the urinal into which the urine drains with one hand. So best case scenario, I end up with urine splashed on the floor and on me in small to medium amounts. But I've been a quad-wife and mom for so long that I don't even care about that. But what I do care about is that the tubing part that connects to the actual catheter is slippery perfect smooth. That means when I put it onto the catheter, it tends to fall off. Kendall bags have a bumpy surface where it connects so that the tubing has something to grab onto and doesn't fall off. 

With that as a backdrop ..... 

One afternoon, I went into the bedroom to give Chad his mid morning meds. For whatever reason, I pulled back the sheet. Oh yeah, I remember now, his stoma has been looking a little funky, so I was checking on it. As I was pulling back the sheet, I glanced down at the bed bag out of habit. The bag was empty. After 12 hours. That can only mean one thing, and one thing only. He is sitting in all of the pee he execreted the previous 12 hours. And urine is very caustic to skin, and his skin is paper thin, particularly on his rump, so I was terrified to see what was in store when I rolled him over to start cleaning him up. Thankfully, he didn't have any skin sores, and even more luckily, I had put down both a big fat sheepskin under him and a heavy duty waterproof bed pad under that, so the urine had not soaked through to the sheet and mattress pads (one waterproof, one regular).

Normally I don't put him on a bed pad, but he has been spasming alot lately because we're trying to down tritate on his baclofen dose, and the increased spasms cause him to wiggle down and around the bed, or twist up sideways. The sheepskin is too stretchy to be an effective draw sheet, so I have been putting pads down under the sheepskin just so I can stand over him in the bed, lean down and hoist his body one way or another, up/down/left/right or some combination thereof. Yes, that scene could be straight out of a porn movie if only it wasn't of a paralyzed man being manhandled by his beleagured tired wife.

I took the sheepskin and bed pad off, tossed them in the hallway and cleaned up every single square inch going from Wheeler's belly button to his knees. I used a water rinse first, then Cetaphil - a heavy application that I gently swabbed off with a moist towel. Then I rinsed him off in water completely again. It took longer than it sounds it would. If I leave even a tiny trace of urine on him anywhere (and conveniently, you can't tell urine from the water when cleaning him), he would potentially get a truly horrendous sore on his skin. As a result, I am verrrrrry careful and thorough when he has urine on him. 

I got him all cleaned up, went to the hallway to pick up the wet sheepskin and bed pad only to find Dogette having sex with them. It was utterly shameless - she was rolling in them, over and over and over and over again, just soaking in the scent as much as possible. She would bury her face and nose in the soiled sheepskin and pads, nuzzle hard into the ground, roll over and over, then start again. She was in dog heaven. She's a dog's dog I tell ya. Dogette is a a filthy, disgusting, rolling in pee dog. Needless to say, I sent her outside straightaway (I might have seen her smoking out there?). 

The moral of the story: don't ever buy Bard Bed Bags.

I hate days like this

... Wheeler is in a pissy mood. And wants 10 things before I'm up and/or as I start to work, or wants to know the status of the 129 things I have to do but haven't gotten to.

Can you rub my eyes (yes), can you empty the bag (no, its not full yet, I'll do it later), can I get something to eat (yes), can you help me reprogram Axel now pleasssssse??? (no, don't be an idiot! that takes forever), can I get a shower (not yet, you know I have a call at 11)? will you get my prescriptions from Walgreens (yes)? Will you call the dr office and get those other Rxs for me (yes, but later)? Is the closet cleared out yet? (duh, what do you think?) can you put in that Santana CD (... sure, I'll shut the door because I HATE that cd more than anything else on the planet), do we have anything besides water or milk? (no, do you remember me going to the grocery store since you asked me this last night?), your frog's water looks terrible, you should call the store and ask what to do (ok, later). Have you done the taxes? (no). FSA? (no). Is my leg hitting the bedrail?(no). Did you feed the dog? (not yet) Is the cat's litter dirty? (yes, so?)

Ergh. Its gonna be a long Monday.

Parking at RBC

When we went to the RBC center on Friday, I did my usual blow-past-security and park in the Premier parking area, which has a van handicapped spot of my dreams: huge, huge, huge white hash mark area next to the space, even on the right side so I don't have to back in to bring the ramp down. And its quite literally the very first parking space in front of the doors at RBC. I started parking there "illegally" last year because the non-premier, regular joe h/c spots a) fill up really quickly and b) none of them have sufficient ramp space anyway. By my cones kept getting stolen, so I had to give up. If I parked in a regular spot, or even a regular h/c spot, then we would have to either wait for everyone around us to leave before I could bring the ramp down for Wheeler, or back halfway out of the space to load him in and block everyone trying to get out - and at the end of the game, people are very impatient. I guess a last option would be lower the lift and crush the car next to us, but I don't suppose that would be very nice. As a result, I decided to help myself to the best h/c spot in the world and I simply ignore all the hysterical people lot staff who insist I can't park there. And in fact, after I started parking there, I mentioned it to the head of security at RBC (the real head of security there, there are many weridos who try to stretch their male anatomy by pretending they are a godtobeobeyed), and he said we could park there anytime. You are supposed to have a hang tag to be in the premiere lot, so when I asked him for one in case we would get towed, he said that to authorized towing, it has to go through him. And no matter what, he'd never tow a handicapped vehicle from a handicapped spot, regardless of premier status or not.

So, with that as the back story, the parking lot attendant Friday was absolutely livid that I blew her off and went through anyway. I told her that Head Guy says we can park there, and she kept telling me I had to park, leave on my flashers, go get a premiere hang tag, then put it in my van. I merely said, no, I'm not going to leave my flashers on, we are just going to park there. I rolled up my window and drove away, up to my perfect dream spot. Not 30 seconds later, some other guy, higher up the parking lot staff food chain came running towards us talking furiously into his radio (cleary, Ms. Leave on Your Flashers) called to report my flagrant violation, so I slowed up, rolled the window down again. He too one look at me, didn't look in the back that I could see, and said "Oh! You're HIM! Park right here" and motioned for us to park in the dream spot.

I was a little puzzled, thinking he'd mistaken me for a visiting dignitary or something (who also happened to drive a great big groovin' red conversion van). So I parked, got the ramp down and sent Wheeler and Dog on their way because we were running really late .... due to me screwing up and taking the wrong route to the arena. And we left late, and even after leaving late, then I had to drive home and get the tickets, which I conveniently had forgotten. As I was stowing the lift, the higher up the food chain guy came running back and said "Oh good! I'm glad you got this spot, because HE can park here anytime, at any event. You ever have trouble, just ask me me. HE can park anywhere he wants, I'm really sorry for the hassle she gave you.". He went on for a bit to say that he gave her a hard time about it, and said that if that spot wasn't open, to park absolutely anywhere we wanted in premier (the lot is 3/4 empty at any given event) for any event.

I went inside and caught up with Wheeler and relayed the story to Head Security Guy who confirmed that we can park anywhere we want, anytime. You know, having a broken neck sucks, but now and then people recognize that its a little more than a mere inconvenience, and are nice to you. I like those days.

I am tired and cranky!

Now its my turn to piss and moan. I am exhausted even though I slept from about midnight to 9 am. Wheeler woke me up so many times last night. Here are the ones I remember, all separate times.

• Can I get some water?
• Is my urine cloudy? 
• Is the bag full?
• Can you turn my heating blanket on to 3?
• Is my leg hitting the bedrail?
• Can you scratch my head?
• Can I get my pills? (at 6:45 which annoyed me most because he knows I give him his pills when Offspring gets here in the AM)

And those are the ones I remember, there were others that I have blocked out of my head as a form of post-traumatic stress coping.

Now I'm tired, cranky and have a headache.

It snowed here again last night. About 3-4 inches I'd say, and school is closed. But Offspring 

is a great kid, he is happily amusing himself while I work (and whine).

.... over and out, as I grab Exedrin migrain and a cup of tea ....