Black light poster on ceiling

Last night, I idled noted how cool it would be to put Offspring's black light active poster on the ceiling of his room over his bed so he could gaze at it from bed. Of course, that turned into a promise to do it. Tonight, he remembered that I said I would. Rut roh. I am not handy. I don't really "do" ladders. 

I decided to be brave. Went to the garage. Got the ladder. Carried it (with his help) up the stairs. Pulled the bed out from the wall. Climbed up. Hyperventilated. Climbed back down. Collected myself....

Tried again. Taped poster to ceiling, which involved a great deal more balance and nerve than I normally have. Or I ever have really. Moved bed back, carried ladder down stairs, put back in garage.

Mom is a hero now. It was worth it. 

Sylvia

Whenever Wheeler has a UTI, we take in a sample of his urine after he finishes the course of the prescribed antibiotic to make sure (or not) that the infection has cleared (or not).  He has been fighting a UTI for about 8 weeks now, and this is his 3rd course of antibiotics - the last 2 which has failed - which we know because each time we took the sample in after the 2 courses, his urine was still dirty. He just finished his 3rd round of antibiotics, so today I took a sample in.

But, to get a sample run, you have to get past evil Sylvia at the front desk of the urologist's office.  She is a rip roaring pain in my ass, and she truly enjoys being a pain in the butt.  EVERY time I take in a sample, I tell her that I am merely there to drop a sample off to the lab, that the specimen cup is clearly labeled with his name, birthdate and that it needs a C&S (culture and sensitivity) run.  She then looks ever so puzzled in a syrupy sweet southern way, and says with sugar "Does he have an appointment with Dr. B today?", knowing full well he doesn't since I JUST SAID I WAS DROPPING OFF A SAMPLE ... that and HE'S NOT WITH ME.  So I say, no, I am just here to drop off the sample after the prescribed course of antibiotics, as per Dr. B's instructions.  Then she says "Well, I'm sorry, he has to have an appointment with the doctor in order to do that".

NO HE DOESN'T!!!!!!  I then argue with her for 5 minutes that no, he doesn't need a FRIGGIN' APPOINTMENT to drop off a sample.  The entire time, she acts as if no one has EVER in the course of her ENTIRE employment at a UROLOGIST'S office has come to drop off a urine sample without an appointment.  She then says that he at least has to have a nurse's visit scheduled, then she pulls up the calendar and suggests a date in the next decade.

I AM DROPPING THE SAMPLE OFF TODAY LADY.

She then insists again that I just cannot drop a sample off like this, and I will tell her, yes, I can.  I tell her to ask Dr. B's nurse.  She SIGHED LOUDLY, and told me to sit down and wait.  She then tended to her fingernails, answered the phone, filed charts and chit chatted for 20 minutes before going back to ask Dr. B's nurse.  As soon as she came back from the back, she said "Oh, yes, Dr. B said you can drop that off, the lab is just through that door".

Gee thanks.

And the dance will continue the next time.  I wish they would fire that wench.

Gay marriage

5 Decisions Away

Do you watch the A&E show "Hoarders"?  If you do, you probably will recognize the name Matt Paxton; he is one of the extreme cleaner guys - the dude who shovels shit (literally) and cleans up the worst hoarding houses.  Well, as it turns out he has a podcast (iTunes) and a website - both named "5 Decisions Away".  The premise behind the name is that one is always just 5 decisions away from a life changing event - good or bad (if you watch the show, you know what the "bad outcome" he refers to is... I'll not gross you out and write it out here). His podcast is about 90 mins long weekly and this week's is episode 27 or 28 I think.  Usually the first half is just shooting the breeze and various stories, and the second half is generally about hoarding - although not always.  He is a natural born storyteller, a true raconteur, and I enjoy listening to his podcasts.  I have gone back and listened to about 15 of them so far, and plan to listen to all of them (goodbye 38 hours of my life....).  Warning: the humor is raunchy, raw and not G-rated in the slightest. But if you lean towards that kind of humor .... go listen - its hilarious, disgusting, touching, and informative. 

How much my insurance company loves me

Wheeler has a urinary tract infection that is resistant to every single oral antibiotic out there, and to every single IM/IV abx as well, all except one (called Invanz for the curious).  But it has to be given as an injection and so the choice was to go to the doctor's office every day for 10 days (with it being unclear what we would do over the weekends for injections) or I could do the injections at home myself.  Given that our copay for a specialist is $70 PER visit (we have sucky insurance), and that the insurance company absolutely requires that the doctor's office charge it, that would have been $700 out of pocket for us just to have the injections done by their office.  .... Uh, I don't think so.  So we decided - as we have done before - to do the injections at home.

Problem: I am anaphylatically allergic to penicillin. And this drug cross reacts in 50% of people with pcn allergies.  Solution: send an email to our 700 member neighborhood email list to see if anyone with medical training would be willing to give him the injections here at home for 10 days.  Within 15 minutes, I had an offer to help - hooray!  A retired plastic surgeon who lives a few blocks over comes over every day to administer his injection.  Its a real pain though because it comes in powder form in a vial, and has to be reconstituted with vicious lidocaine.  So you have to draw up 3.2 mL of lidocaine, inject the lidocaine in the powder vial, shake it like crazy for a couple of minutes (it is very difficult to dissolve), draw it up into the syringe, change needles (since its no longer very sharp from being poked into two vials), then inject him.  Just in case I get exposed though, we have an "adult allergy emergency kit" prominently on the kitchen counter: EpiPen, prednisone, benadryl, zantac (little known allergy rescue, as an H2 inhibitor it suppresses allergic reactions), albuterol, and strict instructions to call 911 if I start wheezing or if my tongue swells.

Also part of the solution is that I have to treat Wheeler as if he is biohazardous waste.  38% of the drug is excreted in urine unchanged, and 10% in, lets call it 'other ways', so I can't do his personal care at all.  I have been getting him up in his chair and back in bed, but anything involving more personal care, Uncle Air Force has to do.  This means that he had to stay here last weekend and next weekend since the 10 days is straddling two weekends, which he is very unhappy about.  He said "thanks for all the advance warning" .... AS IF SOMEHOW WE COULD HAVE PLANNED THIS?!?!?  That makes me nuts.  "hello yes?  I'd like to plan an infection for next month... yes, let's say the 5th, and let's plan for a drug that she can't handle for 10 days, and make it only straddle one weekend please .... yes, thank you, we'll be sure to be ready for the infection".  AS IF?!?!?!  Grrrrr.  I get pissed when people get pissed at ME for  things I can't control.

Anyway, let's hope for the best.  And in the meantime, I had two claims for my foot go through and both were denied because I am "not a plan member".  WHAT?  So now I have to call them and get it all figured out and assure them that yes, we do pay $617 a month faithfully for me to have their shitty insurance so please PAY my doctor's bill.  Argh....

How much I love that boy....

More than I am tall ... 

More than I love raspberries ... 

More than I am funny ...
More than the number of leaves on the trees in a forest ...
More than the stars in the sky ...
More than air in the room ...
More than water in the oceans ...
More than my heart can hold ...
And lastly, more than I can possibly explain.

I just look at him, sleeping, in his bed, at his beautiful little face, and wonder how I got this lucky.

Dinner tonight

Chop and seed 4 small Roma tomatoes, add to cooked pasta, add handful of shredded parmesan cheese, add a generous squirt of olive oil, add pinch of salt, grind black pepper.  Eat!

Summer camp

For summer camp?  One week overnight summer camp through the YMCA is $710 for the week.  If you want your child to have horseback riding too, its an extra $170, and canoeing is an extra $67 on top of that.  So we're talking $1000 for a single week of summer camp.  Holy crap!

Good lord, kids are expensive.  Thank god I only have one.

Yellow tree pollen

This stuff is the bane of my existence.  It doesn't make me sneeze so much as it gives me a big time headache.  Both Wheeler and I woke up with gonzo big headaches this morning.  Blick.

On the positive side, said trees and shrubs that generate pollen are beautiful.  Taken with my iPhone around the neighborhood the other day:

Reason #3,109 not to break your neck

#3,109: Pressure sores. 

[ highly disturbing graphic gory photo not pasted in here since its a G-rated blog and all ]

[ but trust me its U-G-L-Y ]

[ and scary ]

[ and disGUSTing]

Wheeler has a pressure sore on an existing flap surgery* site, right on the ischial bones (the "sit" bones on your butt).  Right now, he's looking at a minimum of 4-6 weeks in bed, keeping 100% pressure off of that sore, IF absolutely NOTHING goes wrong in the healing process.  (pardon me while I go laugh hysterically at the thought of nothing going wrong)

Sigh.  Poor Wheeler.

* if you are not spinal cord injury initiated, and don't know what flap surgery is, here is an article with photos.  But be prepared before you click that link.  Its gross.  And Wheeler has had two of these surgeries, one on each side (each leg/sit bone side).  Flap surgery is reason #3,108 not to break your neck.

A case of over-engineering

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day, mid 80s, sunshine, light breeze.  Offspring and I were outside in the yard, having just gotten back from the neighborhood park.  My dad then drove by in his red convertible Corvette..... top down, music playing.

He stopped in our driveway and asked if we wanted to take the car for a spin.  Hell yes!

We drove around the neighborhood for a bit and then decided to go get ice cream at our favorite place.  We parked, and I pushed the button to turn the car off.  Yes, you push a button to turn the car off, there is no key.  I was worried right then because I realized that I would need the key fob to turn the car back on and my cursory inspection of the car turned up no key fob.  I hastily pushed the button and to my relief, the car turned back on.  Ahhh, problem solved.  Either the fob was indeed somewhere in the car, or it didn't need to be in the car to start it.

We got out of the car and I didn't bother trying to lock the car because its a convertible for Pete's sake - you could just reach in and take anything you wanted.  We walked up and got our ice cream.  My was pistachio ice cream - and there must have been $15 worth of pistachios in my serving, holy crap there were a lot of pistachios in that!  Offspring got his usual "N & Ns and sminkles", but they were out of "sminkles" so it was just M&Ms in vanilla.  Despite being able to pronounce M&Ms and sprinkles now, he still says it the other way because he knows I find it endearing.

Walked back to the car, got in, pushed button.  Nothing.

Great.

Pushed it again.  Nothing.  Kept pushing it, kept doing nothing.  ARGH!!!!

So I was forced to call my dad, who was actually mowing my lawn at that moment, so my mom answered his phone, to come rescue us.  She drove down, gave us the key fob and we were able to then start the car.

RANT.  Why the hell would anyone NOT want a key????  Just having a fob leads to this sort of problem.  And it has led to this exact problem on more than one occasion for me, in both the Corvette and their Cadillac.  It makes me insane.  Is a key really that big of an inconvenience that they had to engineer it completely out of the picture?  REALLY?  I think not!  Give me a key any day.  And if you have a fob, LEAVE IT IN THE *#@&(*%#& CAR, NOT YOUR POCKET!!!  Then when you get out and let someone else drive it, you won't leave them stranded.  RANT OVER.

Hands down the scariest flight I have ever been on

I took a quick business trip to Phoenix and the way back was a bit exciting.  And not the kind of excitement that I like.  I flew from PHX to Las Vegas, where I was to connect home to Raleigh.  Am connecting to Raleigh I should say, because I am actually posting this from the air.  There is WiFi on the flight from Las Vegas to Raleigh.  So I have given away the punch line of this story: I live.

The pilot came on near the end of the flight from Phoenix, at about 10,000 feet, to tell us the approach and landing in Las Vegas would be bumpy.  OK, no biggie, that happens all the time, <insert jersey girl here> whatevah.  As we got closer though, it became rapidly obvious that to even this exceptionally experienced and blasé flyer that he was not kidding about bumpy.  He came on again and said that winds were nearing 40 mph, and to be sure to fasten our seatbelts tightly. I cinched up my belt.

Down, down, down we went, and the plane lurched and skated, skittered side to side with truly frightening moves.  The wings were dipping up and down wildly, tilting us up and down 45 degrees at least each direction and then flopping us 45 degrees the other direction - all the way, doing that skating on ice sort of thing were it feels like the plane is sliding, which is from cross winds.  The luggage bins started popping open and bags fell out.  My backpack and other people's things dislodged from under our seats and slid all over the place.  I kept hoping and hoping and hoping and HOPING that we would swing around and try a different approach or return to Phoenix or go ANYWHERE but windy Las Vegas, but the plane continued to get lower and lower.  This went on for a good 7-8 minutes.  Trust me, this is a very long time.  Try timing it and see how long it is and then imagine lurching like that for 7-8 minutes.

I was sitting in an exit row and realized 'holy crap, I may have to USE this exit door!'.  As we got closer to the ground, the winds and turbulence only got worse, not better.  When the runway was in sight, I was absolutely petrified.  I was afraid for my life, and I am not kidding.  I was literally afraid the plane was going to crash, and I had good reason to be scared.  The wings were still tilting at alarming angles and I (and pretty much everyone else) was afraid one would slam into the ground before the wheels would hit the ground.  The flight attendant came on and said "Hold on everybody!".  I have never heard that from a fight attendant in all of my years of flying.

I braced myself, staring out the window at the wings, hoping and hoping and hoping that they wouldn't hit the runway when BANG, we slammed into the runway like an elephant onto a china cup, which of course caused even more bags to fall out and scatter.  But we were down, safe, and I could have kissed the ground. The flight attendant got on again and said "We're all still here!".  And I absolutely have never heard anything remotely like that from a flight attendant.   Navigating all of the bins and bags was interesting, trying to match bags to people as we tried to exit.  People were holding up bags and hollering "whose bag is this?" but we all managed to get our bags and luckily, no one was hit on the head by a falling bag.  

As it turns out, the winds were exactly 1 mph lower than the limit for closing the airport, so I did have good reason to fear for my life.  They did close the airport for 50 minutes shortly after our flight because the Raleigh flight was delayed on takeoff.  Trust me, that was one delay I was MORE than happy to tolerate.

Now let's hope for no wind in Raleigh, eh?

Coffee

So this morning Dogley took a great big slurp of my coffee.  He licked his lips forever and was poised to take another drink when I called a halt to such nonsense.  Wuzzup with THAT?!!!!  

Under my desk is where I kick off my shoes

Can you tell?

HOW much did you say???

I dropped our external hard drive about a year ago, and I didn't bother getting it fixed because we couldn't afford it at the time and also, it wasn't really pressing that we fix it right away.  I mean, I knew we'd have to fix it eventually because it has gobs of photos on it that are not anywhere else, but it wasn't at the top of the spend-money-on priority list.  But, this new consulting gig I have, I really need some templates of stuff I've done in the past and they are on that hard drive.  So I called around today and did some investigating ... and get this: it is going to cost between $700-$2400 to fix it.  OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

< insert me falling over here >

I think I'm going to stand on a street corner tonight with a low cut shirt and stillettos.

I am a consultant

And I just love this poster.  It is so true.  Check out House of Lies on Showtime, its about management consultants (the worst of the worst in terms of consultants) - it utterly HILARIOUS.  Raunchy, but hilarious

The Elegant Universe

We have been listening to The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, an acclaimed theoretical physicist.  It is about string theory, and how it relates to Einstein's general relativity (the laws of the very very large) and quantum mechanics (the laws of the very very small). These two sets of laws rule our universe - but hold on, get this! These two sets of laws conflict.  Its as if we were living in a city with one set of traffic laws for bikes and pedestrians and one set of laws for cars and trucks.  Bottom line, that just doesn't work.  And the fact that general relativity and quantum mechanics mix like oil and water is somewhat of an embarrassment to the physics establishment.  Furthermore, there are four forces in the universe: the gravitational force, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.  Physicists in the 80s and 90s won Noble prizes for unifying 3 of the 4 forces: all but gravity.  But yet gravity has yet to be incorporated into the fundamental forces of the universe.  Into that, and with that embarrassing little traffic problem I described, comes string theory. String theory, at its heart, says that point particle physics is not the way to look at the world - that the world does not come down to a set of billiard balls that can be infinitely subdivided.  But rather, the smallest unit in the universe is a vibrating strand of energy called a string.  String theory, if correct, requires 11 dimensions (10 regular dimensions + time), but unifies general relativity and quantum mechanics.  If I told you any more, I'd have to charge you tuition. 

We listen to it at night, at bedtime.  It is tough listening though, it is not easy stuff to understand by any stretch.  We have learned about quarks, bosons, selections, kalabee-yow shapes, mirror spaces, flip transformations, and all other manner of strange mathematical gyrations.  I actually tried to read the book, several times, but my eyes kept crossing in front of me and I couldn't get through it, but I was determined to learn it, so I downloaded it and started listening on audio.  I figured I would have Offspring listen with me, and I have been shocked that he understands it just as well, sometimes better, as his multi-math degreed mother. As in dude, I have a PhD in a quantitative science, a masters in a math field and an undergrad in math.  Its then amazing to hear him say "mom, turn it off because it is SO interesting that I can't fall asleep, its too exciting!".  I took electromag, quantum mechanics and lots of physics classes in college and yet I still find it difficult to follow, but my 5th grader is keeping right up with me.  Several times as we listen, I will say "huh?" out loud, only to have him succinctly summarize for me what I was confused about (often just before the narrator then summarizes it, and says precisely the same thing that Offspring just said).  

I love that kid.  Me thinks he's gonna be a smart one. 

Letter Offspring sent in the snail mail to Lego yesterday

Offspring Lastname

Our address

Our city, state

Our zip code

Lego

555 Taylor Road


P.O. Box 1138


Enfield, CT

06083-1138
USA

Dear Lego City,

My name is Offspring. I am eleven years old, and I love Legos. I have some advice for Lego City.I think that Lego City should sell more medical things like, hospitals, or ambulances, or paramedics. I think that Lego City would make more money and those sets would be fun to play with.

From,

Offspring Last Name 

A funny thing happened on the way to the theatre......

Offspring has been looking forward to Feb 10th, 2012 forever because that's the day Star Wars Episode I in 3D comes out.  I figured it would be jammed packed at the theatre, so I bought tickets online in advance, and we left at 6:15 for a 7 pm movie, because I wanted to have plenty of time to snag the h/c seats.  We went outside and as we have done gad zillions of times before, we got Wheeler onto the ramp.  Here's how it usually goes:

Instead, when he rolled into the van, he hit his head on the top of the door jam going in.  This was strange because, well, he never hits his head there.  I have to back up a bit though to give some background.  Wheeler's chair is so tall that he cannot fit into the opening of the van on the ramp unless he reclines some.  As such, he reclines and rolls in, then sits up and finishes rolling into the van and positioning himself so that I can tie down the wheelchair. So when he hit his head, I figured that he must have forgotten to recline and that's why he was too tall to fit in the van.

So now he's chin to chest, pinned down pretty much, and stuck.  He obviously can't roll backwards, that would chop his head off. He is pinned so tightly that I don't think he can even roll forwards, so we sit there and think.  I decide that the best thing to do would be for me to climb through the front seat, get out, disengage the chair so that I can roll it (when he is driving it, its not possible to just pull it, you have to move a lever on the bottom so that it can roll freely) out enough for him to recline further.

But he says that he thinks he can drive forward, so stupidly, I agree.  This is what resulted:

His chair CLIMBED up and OVER one of the flip-up guards at the end of the ramp (not pictured because I suck at drawing) that are supposed to stop him from falling off the ramp.  Well, they would have except that the chair climbed over it.  The picture is simplified (see suck at drawing comment), but what happened is that his left front tire was dangling in space, hanging over the side of the ramp.  The left front tire was driven up about half way over the flip guard, but wasn't totally over the flip guard.  That was what saved his life - that that 2nd tire didn't go completely over.  Somehow he managed to stop the chair and we all just froze in place with his chair dangling over the edge, crooked. Realizing just how close to death he came (<---- not hyperbole, if he'd gone face first onto the concrete, in a 350 pound wheelchair, he would have died).

Now we had to figure out how to get him down.  Because his front wheel was totally over the flip-up guard, and it was wedged under his wheel, so if I let the ramp down, it was wedge even further.  But there wasn't really any other choice but to lower the ramp, so I did, and as I thought, it wedged on the ground.  At that point, I disengaged the chair and pushed with all my might and to my utter shock, I was able to push his wheel up and over the guard and his chair was now back on the ramp.  I raised the lift up some, then lowered it all the way to the ground, where the flip guards laid down flat to allow him to roll off the ramp, just as they are supposed to.  Which he did.  

Then we all stood there and looked at each other.  

Eventually we figured out what had happened.  Earlier in the day, Wheeler had been at his desk, playing on his computer.  To do so, he has to raise the seat of his chair up a little, so that he is at the right height for the desk.  Unfortunately, he forgot to lower his chair and that's why he got wedged in the door jam when he got in the van.  So he lowered his chair, we tried it again, all went well and we went to the movies. 

But as Wheeler summarized once we got all situated in the van finally, "Anyone need a change of pants?"

Downward Facing Dog

Dogs on a yoga mat.  One in corpse pose, one in sitting dog position.