Out-and-about

We have this extra childcare on Saturdays now.  Somehow the waiver that Edda just got on won’t help pay for our existing childcare, but we need to use some of their childcare or else we get kicked out of the program – so a very nice woman comes on Saturdays to help take care of Edda for a few hours.  (There is hope that somehow I can get my act together and move over fully to the waiver childcare, but it’s complicated and kind of inflexible and I’m not ready to face that yet with our crazy schedules.)

Anyhow, I thought I’d use this extra childcare to 1) plan some weekend getaways or 2) hang out with Vince and either do a) quiet things or b) physical things.  This weekend, we decided to play basketball with the dogs.  We are poor, poor basketball players.  We are quite good at sitting around with basketballs and chasing basketballs, but putting basketballs into nets is difficult for us.

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Vince wanted to show you that he could spin a ball on the tip of his finger.  Kind of.

Basketball playing quickly devolved into errand running, bubble tea and a game of connect four.

Today.

Well if you want to see Jeremy in action in local politics, here you go:

 


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I spent my day in a conference room.  I have never written so many papers or given so many presentations or done so much group work as I have in nursing school.  Ten page papers used to be my nemesis.  Now I can type them out in an afternoon with one hand tied behind my back.  The hardest part is the formatting.  (I’m totally jinxing myself here…)  Actually, the rubrics for the papers are so exacting, so precise, deliniating each particular paragraph, that the essay itself feels like solving a math problem.

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I admired this today.  I just might have to buy this.  Will I be brave enough to wear it?  I’m not so sure….

KOREA

Korea is a very clean place.  I wish China will learn from them.

I notice that, their economy depends on China a lot.  Commercially, their dependence on USA is seldom noticeable along their main streets and resort areas. I guess this is a sign that we are slipping away from our dominance in the world gradually.  Of course,  Several wars in the Arabic world have not helped us economically also, not even militarily.

We (USA) should think more about economical solutions, instead of military ones.  It is really bad for us to let immigrants fight wars for us.  If all politicians think it is good for us to fight, then their sons and daughters should be in the front together with mine.  If they think Obamacare is a good recipe for us, they shall join without exception.  If they think Social Security is working, they shall join too.

Day is done.

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Edda’s a little mysterious these days – her teacher went and had his first baby last week and has been out of the classroom – so the daily notes have not updated.  Hmmm, we wonder what she’s so happy about when she is laughing getting off of the bus in the afternoon.

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Vince is learning exponents in school.  I’m still able to help out with the math without looking anything up.  I don’t count looking up trig functions – but he’s not there yet.

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Someone sent me pencils with my name on them!

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Jeremy is out on the town tonight, he’s fighting the good fight in local politics.

Today.

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I was at the track today running around in circles when I found that a ladybug had stopped by to say hello on my water bottle.  It’s a good sign, right?  Luck is on my side.

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I noticed I hadn’t put up much information about Edda recently on the blog.  Edda is well and moving into puberty before I’m ready and enjoying middle school.  She remains healthy and happy.

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The past month, with all my happy birthing experiences at the hosptial, I have spent many hours thinking about Edda.  All the good things and all the sad things.  When I’m strong and happy, I feel like – as a very good friend always tells me – I’m living the life I’m meant to live.  When I’m weak and sad, I resent every accomodation I’ve made on behalf of Edda’s disability.  I very rarely feel sorry for Edda, although sometimes I think I should feel that way.  Edda, herself, is pure joy and living in the moment.  There is very little suffering, she is very happy with her life.  She has fun, she has people who love her, she loves other people.  I don’t think she thinks much about her limitations, she is making the best of her situation.  My own sadness is a selfish one, one in which I want all the things that I can not have.

A few months ago, I was upset at some arrangment that needed to be made to take into Edda’s various limitations and I was crying to Jeremy about the two clear choices and that I wanted neither of the two.  Jeremy took me aside and gently told me that what I wanted was for Edda to not have Rett Syndrome and that that was just not possible.

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I’m sure I’ll jinx it now, but I think I can say that Edda is finally sleeping through the night.  At age 11.5, we now both find ourselves in the same spot we fell asleep in more nights than not.

I haven’t posted this before, but look at Edda’s graduation class picture from 5th grade last year.  They did a great job, not just sticking Edda in her wheelchair on the side totally away from the other kids.  They put her in a chair in the middle of the crowd!  Look at that!  Sure, the kiddos next to her are leaning ever so slightly away from her and she’s a little grump-faced, but I’ll take what I can get.  I mean this more kindly than snarky, so hopefully, you’ll read it that way.

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SHOPPING DIPLOMACY

Rena and I have been in Korea for two days.  Everywhere we went, there were a lot of
Chinese shoppers.  Properly, more than all other nationalities combined.  Their buying power is unimaginable.  Just wondering that recent stocks drop in their markets properly has been overflown.  The effect was seldom felt at least here.

A lot of stores even advertise that they have Chinese speaking clerks ready to help.  There are not a whole lot of advertisement of foreign language here.  But, Chinese is probably an exception.

After they reformed their written language, not using Chinese characters, they pick it up at their schools.  I guess $$$ talks more effectively than anything else. 

All things Chinese

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I’ve had some upper back pain for a few weeks now and I’ve been trying to ignore it.  I didn’t really notice it most of the time, until I tried to change lanes on the freeway (during the day) or I wanted to see what time it was on the clock located behind my head (in the middle of the night) and then a sharp pain would radiate down my neck and along the right edge of my spine.

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I went to see George, the acupuncturist, who in the span of ten minutes quickly twisted my back into at least six different configurations and levered his bodyweight against my spine.  It was incredibly painful.  He just kept repeating, don’t be scared, don’t be scared.  I was scared.   But today I feel much better.

I’m trying not to be scared, but sometimes I just am.

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We used to have a smaller neighborhood Chinese grocery market until the Great Wall mega-supermarket moved a couple blocks away from it.  I did the not-so-Chinese thing and kept shopping at the old market even though I knew it was being sucked dry by the new-shiny market.  My excuse was that the small store still had my favorite frozen dumplings and the big store didn’t carry my favorite brand, I had looked.  The small store is gone now. And I had been mistaken, the big store does carry the good dumpling brand, I guess I didn’t look hard enough before.

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First OB exam.

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I think if youtube existed when I was in college, I would have managed to solve some differential equation problems.  Lecture was all theory, problem sets were not and I didn’t understand and didn’t care about the theory.  I just wanted someone to show me how to do the problems; I probably should have asked someone how to do the problems, but I was shyer than I am now, more embarrassed to admit I don’t understand something.  But I will say this now:  I do not know differential equations.  And I blame it all on those damn theory based lectures which I slept through. I’m sure the khan academy has a whole series of videos with people solving all kinds of differential equation questions.

I spent the day learning about fetal circulation.  My clinical OB experience has been good, but it’s left me melancholy.   So many lectures about preterm labor, fetal screening, maternal blood screening which I thought I wouldn’t be sad about, but I am.   Why is an amino done at 16-18 weeks gestation? The reason given in class is because that’s when there is enough amniotic fluid to pull out without damaging the fetus.  Which is true, but why not at 21 weeks?  Not a whisper about how one would be pressing up against the legal limit in many states for a late term abortion.  We are traveling through all of OB class without talking about abortion which amazes me.

My hospital clinical rotation is essentially over.  Labor and delivery is a very desirable placement for new nursing grads and I can see why.  It’s not only because babies are so cute and lovable which is why I initially thought so many people are drawn to it.  It’s because it’s really easy to take care of women in the prime of their lives doing something that is suppose to happen pretty naturally.  It’s a world away from the floor below where I did my med-surg rotation where the patient load was higher and there were drug-seekers, people who needed 14 meds every 2-4 hours and one had to know all the drugs for cardiac, renal, respiratory, etc.  and the patients were heavy, stinky and rude because they are scared.

First exam tomorrow.  Wish me luck!