Author: Doris

Shall we start with calm Tues morning?  Well – slightly calmer.   As soon as Jeremy left for Portland (after Edda’s brace and surgery confirmation appt which was depressing and a bummer – not that I was under any illusion that back surgery wasn’t going to happen), all heck broke loose.  Vince started melting down about his quarterly grades (which ends tomorrow), and then as I dug deeper into the situation it became more and more clear how much he was off his mark and how far astray he had led me in telling me about the school situation.  No one will ever mistake me for being a helicopter mom, I think the kids have their own lives and should fix their own problems (Edda too, in weird little ways), but it’s clear that I need to hover more next term.  I hate hovering.  I like to hover over my own crap, I don’t want to hover over anyone else’s stuff – though I guess when I hover over Vince, I could reframe the whole situation by telling myself I have the opportunity to learn about the Industrial Revolution and to read The House on Mango Street and teach Vince good study habits at the same time!  I went to bed irritated about the whole thing, but slept the whole night b/c Edda slept until 6 am (see photo above).

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On Wed, Vince and I continue renegotiating various expectations/privileges, getting my dad in on the discussion b/c Vince has been spending an hour a day with dad and those classes are in trouble too.   From Dad’s perspective, all the studying/prep has been going well, so the quarterly results are surprising to him.  This was painful all around – mainly for Vince and second for me.   Dad, I must say, was fantastic with Vince, kind, encouraging emphasizing that they were a crack study team and they would work together to improve – basically my dad was not crazy like me.

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We did manage to go out for a nice dinner, Kiki’s treat, at a sushi restaurant.  I don’t think Vince had eaten all day, so the tuna rolls, miso soup, edamame helped perk him up.  By that time, the general outlines of expectations, grounding, computer/phone privileges had been negotiated, so it was a nice time.

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Then, more craziness.  I took Ruby out for a walk at 9ish?  I had forgotten something and turned back to the house and rushed Ruby up a hill.  She has had trouble breathing for a long time, but this extra hill exertion caused her throat to close up, which has happened before when she overexerts herself.  I stopped and rested Ruby, but after about 30 seconds, I could hear her struggling more and more and I thought, OMG, she’s going to die right here on the street right in front of me.  I will say that I shoved my mouth all the way down Ruby’s throat to try and blow air into her and then I screamed my head off for help and neighbors came out and help me carry Ruby home because (I was determined) if she was going to die, she was going to die in the house and not out on the street.  We got her home – still struggling to breath.  I called Adriana from upstairs – she was giving Edda a shower – I got Vince to watch Edda.  Adriana (fellow nursing student), came rushing downstairs and helped me assess Ruby, we got the emergency vet number.  We were both like – she needs some Albuterol right now, lol. We loaded Ruby into the van and I drove to the vet.  I could hear her struggling to breath and I was still about 5 min from the vet when I couldn’t hear anything from the back – so I thought she was either dead or fine.  Thank goodness she was fine.  By the time I got to the vet, she was lifting her head, wagging her tail.  I didn’t unload Ruby, rather, I drove home because Ruby was well and, frankly, there was a whole family of people outside the emergency vet just bawling their eyes out.  I’ll take her to our regular vet today.

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Nothing like a surge of adrenaline at 10:00 pm to keep you up for hours (well after I got home, checked in with Ruby and all the kids and dogs and Kiki and Adriana – sent Adriana home and talked to Jeremy for 90 min), I went to bed close to 1am.  And then I found Edda stuck like this at 4:30 am. I’m not off to a good day here.  But everyone is still alive and well right this very moment.  So everything is OK.  I’M FINE.  Really.   Ahahahahahaaaaaaaa!

We showed up at Children’s at 7:45 this morning for a follow-up on Edda’s back.  This is the x-ray room.  We did need Kiki’s help to hold Edda’s feet for the full chest x-ray.  She mused that the lead apron protected her reproductive parts (which aren’t that important to her now), but left her noggin exposed to the X-ray.

Edda’s back, unsurprisingly, has gotten worse.   We are going to do the surgery soon – I think in May (which I guess is soon enough – it seemed really soon when I was in the office talking about it, but now as I’m sitting here typing, it seems far away).  She’ll be in the hospital a week, then a month at home (at least) and then three months until she’s back to her regular self.  We’ll get her another refitted brace as we set up the dates for her surgery.  Someone mentioned to me, maybe you can get some free nursing care (like through insurance or Medicaid) and I laughed.  I’ll have my RN degree by then, I’ll be the free nursing care, that’s the only way we’ll be able to get it.

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Jeremy’s off to Portland for a few days.

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I bought a sewing machine.

I need to manufacture a bunch of Edda’s bibs.  For a decade now, I’ve patiently spent an hour or 90 min making each bandana bib by hand, blanket stitch after blanket stitch.  And I’d make a couple a month and for a long time, we had an abundance of bibs. But now, Edda has this habit of chewing her bibs, which makes them degrade faster (so their lives are shorter), soaks them through (which means changing them multiple times a day) and there are many places that she’s going (school, aftercare and home) where she needs a steady supply of them.  So I’m going into manufacturing.  I’ve been assured by an accomplished seamstress that this cheap, computerized sewing machine can take me where I want to go, that I can get the edging pretty much how I want it.  My accomplished seamstress friend was like – do you want me to make 40 for you right now?  I could do that…  I demurred.  She also said I was wasting money buying actual bandanas, that I should just get remnants and go from there.   Right now I’m daunted just looking at the sewing machine.  Will report back later.

We went to Kate and Ateesh’s for Halloween chili – a whole gang of boys went trick or treating.

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We introduced Pip to Cash.

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Vince’s Halloween costume.  He told me, after he went trick or treating, that this was his last year knocking on doors.  He said he got a lot of comments – you’re a big boy, huh?  Yeah….

I took Pip to Sunday night dinner.    He met the three resident pugs and enjoyed some pot roast.  Then he spent some time sharing a chair with Sarah eyeing the whipped cream.

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I lost a diamond today.  Not the main diamond, just one of the three little ones on the inside of the ring.  I will have to mend it.

Pip and I are falling in love with each other.  Although it is in a love triangle with Vince which is a little frustrating to me.  During the day, Pip is mine.  During the nights, Pip snuggles with Vince.  Edda is indifferent, in fact, she almost sat on Pip who is not accustomed to navigating Edda’s rhythms of sitting forcefully on the couch with no warning as the rest of us native residents are used to doing.

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We went to Bert’s 4th birthday party today.  I took over 800 photos and handed the SD card over to Vickey.  It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up the good old huge camera, I’m rusty on the controls.  I took only 2 photos with my phone.

Teenage mutant ninja turtle cake:

It was delicious!

And they are off!

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Mom (and Dad) came by with Chinese takeout.  Everyone’s a little under the weather.

Vince gave Maxi some wasabi.  I think Max didn’t mind it.

Kiki is here!  And she brought some ceramic pots.  And her doggy Pip.  Maxi is very jealous.

It is so cold outside, yet my knockout roses are still blooming.  I should just plant a whole row of these and forget about my garden.  Deer don’t touch these even though it seems like they eat everything else.

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Jeremy’s been working from home this past week because his office is undergoing renovations.  He has turned the guest room into a dorm room of sorts.  Bike, stripped down desk, crap all over the place.  He’s having a good time, though he notices that at 3pm, the house kind of explodes.  Dad comes over for tutoring, Vince crashes through the door, the dogs start barking.  I told Jeremy there is a reason I don’t schedule any attorney interviews past 3pm.  Unfortunately, Jeremy is often on the phone from 2-5pm and he’s tethered by the phone cord to his computer and can’t manage all the dog barking, kid singing, etc…

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Jeremy took my out tonight.  I had a Taiwanese hamburger.

Jeremy took Edda to the dentist today.  We’ve been doing a poor job keeping her teeth clean.  The dentist recommended that we bring her back every three months instead of every six months for a cleaning.  It did take three people to clean Edda’s teeth at the dentist, 2 to hold her steady and 1 for the cleaning.  I think we are going to try a team approach to Edda’s teeth – at least 2 people at a time to do an adequate brushing and flossing.

As it turned out, as I was headed to clinical today, I heard a story on NPR about how hard it is to find dentists willing to do dental work on special needs patients – and the patient they had on the story had Rett Syndrome.  Here’s the story:

I can not thank our pediatric dentist enough.  She looks out for Edda’s teeth, always taking extra time, never charging extra fees.  She’s careful and thorough with Edda’s cleaning even though Edda is flailing and squirming.  She processed all the Medicaid paperwork for us for Edda’s oral surgery, even though she’s not a regular Medicaid provider (which I know must be a mess because it’s a coordination between her, the oral surgeon and the hospital).  He office is always on time, prompt with return phone calls and she always wanting to help.  Sometimes, when Edda is really beside herself with unexplained sorrows, she’ll squeeze us in the same day to check if anything seems wrong with her teeth which might be causing her pain.  She even tells me where to buy the best pistachios.

I went orienteering today.  Such a gorgeous day to be in the woods.  I do want to do trail running, but I’m nervous to go on my own – with orienteering, you are in the woods, mainly on your own, but you pass someone about once every 3 minutes and if you don’t check back in – then they go out looking for you.  Six miles in under this tree canopy.

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I cut Edda’s hair today out on the porch.  I did a pretty good job!.  You’ll have to see it when I post photos later on this week.  Edda’s tripped twice this week.  Once trying to get over a laptop computer cord and once because she stepped on a dog chew bone.  It’s no good.  She’s been so good at balance for years now, to have it happen twice in a weekend is worrisome.  She usually has some weird peripheral vision capabilities, where even though she’s looking straight ahead, she’s able to scan the floor for tripping obstacles.  Usually she’s great at stepping over stuff or moving out of the way.  I know, we should be better at picking up shoes and dog bones, but sometimes you miss stuff.

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Sunday night dinner.  Lasagne!