President’s Day snow. Vince was at a sleepover last night – pulled an all nighter and got busted playing Cards Against Humanity – which means I got busted too. Sigh.
Vince came home and shoveled our walk and driveway. Later in the afternoon, he mined for ice. I don’t get it either.
Late afternoon violin lesson. Turned out the late-night practicing was in preparation for the HS honors orchestra. Ten kids (all Asian) tried out and only one kid got in and it wasn’t Vincie. Oh well. Next time…..
Happy Valentine’s Day – I hope that you got to spend time being with or thinking about people you love and people who love you.
It’s been a quiet weekend. Colder than a witch’s tit as the saying goes. The upstairs heater is having a bit of trouble keeping up, but it’s not too bad. We’ve spent the day inside, keeping warm.
I’m having trouble finding a good book to read, I’ve started many and haven’t finished a single one this year. This includes two books which I got more than 50% of the way through and then I abandoned.
Katherine sent us this chocolate dessert from Poland with instructions to serve it at Sunday night dinner.
And serve it we did! Though it had a lot of competition – this being Valentine’s Day. We also had chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate/mousse cake, ice cream and a box of chocolates.
Originally, I would like to take Mom out for Valentine’s dinner. But, Mom suggested to eat at home and, tomorrow evening, we can go out together with less traffic. She has magic touch, I should say. With very, very primitive cooking facility, she can prepare such a delicious dinner with less than 30 minutes 🙂
Mom flew down last night. She has a big smile on her face this morning.
Happy Valentine’s Day to every one.
I was at the hospital all day today taking care of a patient with sickle cell anemia. I learned that if Edda was to have the spinal fusion done at Children’s, she’d end up on the exact floor that I’m doing my clinical rotation. A helpful nurse said – oh, you should talk to (nurse) Emily! She just got a fresh spinal yesterday. Hmmmm, I did not follow through on that suggestion, because, really, how much do I need to know before I will know? It takes some willpower for me to function at clinical – fumbling with people/paperwork/medications/documentation/machinery I’m not familiar with, and just gathering enough confidence to walk into a patient’s room with the parent by his side with no real purpose except to “check-in”. I really didn’t want to pile my own (or Edda’s own) medical stressors into my day. Maybe next time. Speaking of things to know, I now know the super-secret code to get into the non-ending supply of grape Popsicles on the ortho post-op recovery floor.
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Jeremy and Vince ended up spending the day with my mother. They went to see the Rockville Chinese New Year celebration – complete with Monkey king and the crazy feathers that come out of his head. Jeremy was thoroughly amused. Vince enjoyed hearing my mom try to explain things.
The celebration indicated that there was to be free food after the performance, but my mother found out that it was going to be some lame sandwiches and the line was long – so instead of that, they went to A&Js and celebrated with real Chinese noodles.
We had a nice dinner at my mom’s house tonight. We talked about gravitational waves, Einstein’s riddles, and Schrodinger’s cat. Vince has been watching youtube TED talks (?) with riddles in them, so they are fun to think about and solve.
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Edda, again, has kicked ass in school. I expect nothing less from her now. Vince took a look at her report card and groaned (again).
Why? Let us (ordinary, silent and average American) get rid of those so-called elites from Ivy League School graduates, economists from Chicago University?, balanced and fair media (all medias including New York Times, Washington Post) and Wall Street. They have had their chance to govern for a long, long time, but with disastrous results. Why? With political correctness and nice, soothing words prepared for every one, nothing, nothing gets done this way. No pain no gain. It is about time to be governed by the Main Street, with majority, and above all, using common sense instead.
I would rather tell those poor, advantageous kids that their chance for success is just 1/10 of those on the other side of social spectrum. Don’t accept any free hand-out, just working extremely hard. Good days are coming.
If our kids have a little bit of marijuana and they get caught, they certainly have this criminal record with them in their whole life time. The Wall Street screwed everyone up and, yet, they got US$800 billions BONUS from all of us. And mind you, no one, absolute no one goes to jail. Why? It is the Wall Street and and Government Complex at its best. Who care big banks fail? The more the better.
In these days, be a talker (e.g., Marco Rubio) is much better than a doer (e.g., John Kasich, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush & Dr. Ben Carson). You can talk your way to prosperity. All establishment and their followers are. All leeches of society are too.
Marco Rubio can’t even manage his own 401K accounts. And, yet, he says he can manage all ours successfully. Nothing but B.S.
Two cuties in the backseat asleep while we were on our way to Hopkins this morning. As we pulled up to Hopkins, Keyla asked if this was where Ben Carson had practiced as a neurosurgeon. I’m impressed she’s keeping up with US politics. A few years ago, I met a woman whose five-year-old son about to half his brain removed by Carson. It’s called a hemispherectomy and it’s to treat uncontrollable seizures. I’m glad I didn’t have to make that particular parenting decision.
The doctor we saw today was recommended to us by a number of DC area Rett families that have had various ortho ailments surgically treated (spine & hip). This surgeon said that he thought Edda’s back was already far too curved to benefit much from the brace, that it’s already past the “tipping point” and will steadily get worse with age and gravity. It’s fine for now, not causing pain or unbalancing her mobility. But the outcome of the surgery is much better when the curve is not as severe – the surgery is less complicated, the recovery is smoother. He recommended finding a time within the next year that we can, as a family, manage the extra care Edda will need for about two months. The surgery will mean about a week for recovery in the hospital and about 6-8 weeks recuperating at home. I guess the good thing about orthopedics is that you can always try to fix something with hammers, nails, screws and cement.
I will lead with the “ins” tonight.
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Jeremy’s report published today! It’s an exciting day even though Jeremy’s a bit of a non-celebratory (aka exhausted) mood.
You can read the full report here.
And an article on Vox – here.
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Jeremy was at our town meeting last night where Rockville decided to not accept the northern-most confederate statue. Nice. You can read about it here.
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Now with the “outs”:
We took Edda to Children’s today to get an opinion on her curving spine. The doc did a visual exam, her back didn’t look too bad. We went down to the x-ray room which was very cute. Children’s knows how to make everything look like the inside of a Disney movie. The x-ray machine is dressed up like a furry snake (?) with a money hanging from it.
So this is the x-ray of her back. There is a greater than 50 degree “S” curve in her spine. The doctor was surprised when he saw it, apparently Edda carries herself pretty well. The plan is to see if we can try and brace it to keep it from getting worse as she grows. She might tolerate the brace, she might not. He estimates about 2 more years of growing. He thinks, most likely, it’ll probably get worse as she ages and if it does, he would recommend surgery to straighten it. But maybe it won’t get worse. I guess I could always hope. We’ll see someone at Hopkins on Thursday, but I suspect it’ll be the same suggestion.
The last “out”? Vince shattered the screen on his phone. AGAIN!
Party #1: excellent artichoke dip & chili
Party #2: excellent meatballs & cookies
If football ever falls by the wayside, what sporting event will take its place? Where will we see all our talking animal commercials?
