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Category: health

trainwreck day

Posted on September 2, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i really loathe long weekends. i know; i should look forward to time spent with family or friends. but somehow, it never ever works out the way i would have liked.

take today.

today actually starts as last night. see, on the same weekend before BC starts at a new school [READ: stressful, teary nights ahead], i also decided to start night training jools (who will hate me for writing about this one day.) last night, BC fought bedtime due to fears; jools had nightmares from 1-2 a.m.; BC had nightmares from 2-3 a.m.; jools started right back up at 3 until i don’t know. and then, he awoke for good at 6:15.

when people are tired, they respond to exhaustion differently. me, i get weepy and sick. others might get angry or psychotic. but it’s hard for me to fathom why the day just kept getting worse and worser, so to speak.

my usually brave and intensely independent jools is currently terrified of his own shadow. apparently, his nightmares involved “knights, scarlet knights, (something else) knights.” he refuses to go into detail beyond that. [maybe it has to do with all the Rutgers paraphenalia that BS and i, both alums, have. i dunno.] he doesn’t want to sleep alone; he doesn’t want to visit the bathroom alone; he doesn’t even want to go to his room alone. i tried to show him some funny knights, but nothin’s doin’. is it because of the nighttime potty training? or something else?

meanwhile, back at the neurosis ranch, BC is freaked out about, well, basically everything. bullies. mean people. hell, give her some time and she’ll be freaking over knights, too, i guess. she won’t sleep.

and BS is way overtired, too.

i took the kids out this afternoon to the pool so that BS could attempt a nap. we returned, and the world seemed calmer. then, while getting groceries at harris-teeter, something happened while i was at the meat counter. BS and the kids were going after a smaller kids cart for the kids to push. i saw BC walking with a kids cart but with no one else. she had lost BS. so we went to the front of the store, where i saw BS, who mouthed at me: “where’s julian?”

my heart fell into my feet.

teary and bleary, i grabbed BC and we walked in the fruit and veg section, parallel to BS, who was walking over to the area by the carts at the front door. then, when we walked back, i saw BS with a dazed-looking jools. long story short, jools decided he wanted out and started for the door. on his own. at least he was safe and sound.

so we’ve had dinner and baths and books. jools wanted someone to sleep with him (which won’t happen), then promptly crashed. meanwhile, BC is still up and asking me to stay up until she falls asleep. ironically, i think i’m the person with the least amount of sleep in this house, and i’m too upset to sleep.

pleasepleaseplease be a better day tomorrow.

please.

vacation. all i ever wanted.

Posted on August 30, 2007 by wrekehavoc

we went on a magical mystery tour of sorts over the past week. i’ve got a ton to say about a lot of things, but i suspect it will come over a few days, as i also planned brilliantly and have an IVIG treatment today. yep, i’ve been home a grand total of 14 hours, and i’m off to fun and frolic all over again. if you can call being hooked up to an IV for 5 hours fun and frolic. yippee.

but some of the places we went, in no particular order:

fire museum of maryland;

please touch museum (with apologies to my dear roommate from college — we didn’t quite get it together to go together for lots of reasons. major bummer.);

hersheypark, including the new Boardwalk waterpark, which was a lesson in how not to be prepared for consumer demand;

a visit to allaire state park and a ride on the train (and a personal lesson about switching tracks);

a lakewood blueclaws game;

a visit to atlantic city (where the kids accidentally walked through caesars’ casinos and we were escorted out — but all we wanted to do was go and get some taffy and take the kids to yet another rainforest cafe);

a stay in wildwood crest at a kitschy 1950s-era hotel, and;

a ride home on the cape may ferry.

and i wonder why i’m tired.

fried pepsi???

Posted on August 21, 2007 by wrekehavoc

from the land of WTF:

The deep-fried Combo Plate may be a little more healthful this year at the Great Indiana State Fair. So say the fair’s leaders, who, taking a step rarely seen in the realm of corn dogs and fried pickles, have banned oils with trans fats from all the fryers that line the grounds here.

somehow, i missed the whole fry-anything-that-doesn’t-move experience. who is the genius that thought up this concept in food? i mean, fried snickers bars? fried oreos? fried pepsi??

yes, virginia. deep-fried pepsi. take pepsi-based dough, dip it into pepsi-laced batter, and deep-fry. serve it with pepsi syrup, whipped cream and cinnamon sugar. mmm, mmm. dats good eatin’. michelin would give it five stars, i’m certain.

hmm…

1) who the hell likes pepsi so much that he wants to pray at its altar and eat a dessert dedicated to its flavor? and what the hell IS pepsi flavor, anyway? someone at IFF is probably laughing all the way to the damn bank.

2) i can understand why cities and restaurants want to ban trans-fatty oils; i applaud the effort. but hell, if someone is hell-bent on eating a deep-fried ho ho, don’t you think that the oil is the least of it?

3) if vendors are bitching that they have to change the oil more often, wouldn’t that make you wonder whether they ever change it?

fair food. one guy called it a little slice of heaven. i don’t know about that, but eating it might get you there a little sooner than you’d want.

open letter to mattel

Posted on August 16, 2007 by wrekehavoc

dear mattel,

i’m sure you aren’t having a great week, what with recalls all over the place and the possibility of a really terrible financial downturn looming for you, other toy companies, toy stores, and the like. no one likes to see major companies flipping about like fish gasping for air. and right now, it’s really easy to point the finger and say BAD CHINA! there’s poison in our pet foods, poison in our people food, medicine and toothpaste, my gosh, plenty of tires are faulty, lead in baby bibs, and now this toy thing. just makes you wonder who, if any, of the residents are running the proverbial asylum, huh.

but i have to wonder how much of this you brought on yourself?

i know, i know. you did it because there was demand for it. american consumers clamor for cheap. they clamor for cool. they clamor for things, and you only want to deliver. it’s as american as ronald reagan, a guy i sometimes want to blame for these sorts of things. what does the gipper have to do with any of this, you wonder? the dude’s long been dead.

but you see, he isn’t. not really. somewhere in our history, he kicked tom joad the hell out of our collective consciousness and took up residence. see, he’s now the one who lives in every american who feels entitled to a certain lifestyle that is wildly beyond his or her means. he lives in every citizen who feels like they ought to have everything — now — and for the cheapest price possible. he lives in every person in this nation — maybe this world — who ignores the real costs of good and services in their daily lives. so what if some eight year old is working in a factory? so what if they’re putting diethylene glycol into cough medicine? if i can get lots of bling-bling at walmart for 50% less than i can at joe’s mom and pop store, man, i’m there.

so, following this ethos, you did what every american company tries to do — make a profit. nothing wrong with that, right? but who knew making a profit could get so complicated? doing business overseas — well, nothing wrong with that i suppose. cut costs because you don’t have to pay people a decent wage. [check.] then that company probably has to put the squeeze on their workers to make a profit. maybe put the squeeze on the product quality. maybe do some subcontracts with others who do things very cheaply. lead paint? no problem! [check.]

and of course, all with your consumer in mind. who are, in your case, children. often young children who are known to put things in their mouths, or ears, or up the dog’s ass, for christsake. that’s what kids do. even the most supervised child in the world will manage to do something completely insane with a toy in that one second you close your eyes to sneeze or blink. so how could you allow your designers to make toys using rare-earth magnets? these puppies, smaller and more powerful, can kill a child if s/he swallows it. period. i’m stunned.

and now, the biggie. see, you don’t have to live with my kids. but i do. and right now, between thomas the tank engine trains that were recalled, polly pockets that have just been called home, and even a barbie that my daughter has being sent away, my house is not the happiest place on earth. i just spent 2 hours with my eight year old howling. her favorite polly pocket toy has to go away. well, actually, three of them plus a barbie. but this is her absolute favorite.

and we parents, sometimes, we take toys away from our kids in an effort to teach them to behave. it’s a discipline thing, and we sometimes are in the difficult position of punishing/ teaching, our kids a lesson. only sadly, the kids are now being punished because american corporations couldn’t learn a thing or two about international commerce. i wish i could stick each and every one of you in a room right now with my screaming daughter. no food; no toilet; no way out; and one very pissed-off little girl.

it might be a lesson you’d not soon forget.

yours truly,

wreke

silver wendy and dona

Posted on August 4, 2007 by wrekehavoc

silver wendy is a friend of my friend jaxx and, over time, a friend of mine, too, albeit mostly virtually. she set up this website to raise awareness of her dear friend dona, who is battling cancer. it always knocks me to my core whenever i hear about a mom who is doing everything to stay around. dona says it best:

I will dance at my sons’ weddings.

any support you might provide or links to her page are graciously appreciated.

reporting in

Posted on July 27, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i had an IVIG treatment yesterday, and i survived it 🙂 i was wicked tired afterwards — still am — but i didn’t seem to go through any sort of convulsions this time. i have a headache, but otherwise, i’m pretty damn good. i guess these things get better over time. now, if only the nurse could find a place for the IV on the first shot, it would be super.

finally, i received a copy of my trough levels — meaning the levels of IgG and IgA in my blood just before a treatment. not surprisingly, they’re low. in the inimitable words of my brother the doctor, “if they weren’t low, you wouldn’t need the treatment.” well, duh 😉 they broke down my IgG into 4 different types, which my brother also noted was a useless waste of test money, as i can’t control precisely what sort of IgG ends up in my gammagard soup anyway. all that’s important is knowing whether i’m low in total. which i am. sadly.

BS gave me a good perspective yesterday, one i needed to hear. he took me to wegmans after my treatment, and we sat and had the closest thing to a lunch date that we’ve had in years. i started to whine about what they might discover in the blood supply in 20 years. i mean, look what happened to those poor hemopheliacs before they figured out the whole HIV thang. and BS looked me in the eye and said one of the smartest things he’s said in a while: “you take this stuff so you can be AROUND in 20 years. without it, there’s a chance you won’t be. so don’t worry about what they’re going to discover then.” the point, you see, is to make it there 🙂

and i intend to.

stewing in my own gazpacho

Posted on July 25, 2007 by wrekehavoc

it’s been a fabulous week.

1st, a young woman ran her scooter into the back of our car. i’m glad she was absolutely fine. BS offered to take her to the fire station up the block so she could get medical attention, but she said she was fine. (and she seemed ok from where i sat.) thank goodness everyone was ok. but now, we have the joy of getting the bumper and back of our car fixed.

2nd, we noticed some water around our A/C. the A/C man came, told me we were freezing up and losing freon. and this was probably due to the fact that the A/C was from 1984. so we’re also looking at a chunk of change to replace the A/C.

3rd, i have an IVIG treatment tomorrow. the nurses are very nice, but i hope the one who finds my veins is the poker tomorrow so i don’t end up with an arm that makes me look like keith richard’s evil twin, circa 1969. oh, and it would be nice if i could ascertain whether these are working.

in short, i’m a little cranky. if you couldn’t tell, of course.

today in the world of health

Posted on July 10, 2007 by wrekehavoc

today i had a double-header, so to speak.

first up: the hematologist. i go every two months now to get my platelets checked. they have been going down slowly, though they’re still in a normal range (170 for you trivia fans who might remember the days when i was at 2. you can tell when it happened, too, as i didn’t post a hell of a lot in february or march 2006, did i?) of course, i am a little frustrated, as no one in particular seems to be driving my treatment train, so to speak. i absolutely lovelovelove my hematologist (even if he does root for cleveland — just kidding, doc!), but he was unable to procure my IVIG. he had a friend, a very wonderful infectious diseases doctor, who can and does give me my IVIG. i have seen her once. otherwise, i see her nurses every six weeks. but i have not yet received my trough levels; my hematologist never received my trough levels; and no one seems to want to talk to me about whether every 6 weeks is sufficient or whether i need to move it up to 4. maybe it’s too early to tell, but it would be nice if someone out there told me that rather than allow me to guess ineffectually.

the nice part of going to the hematologist’s office is that the staff, from the receptionist to the physician’s assistant to the phlebotomy staff to even the doctor himself (who wasn’t scheduled to see me today but was so wonderful to ask me how i was — i saw him glance at my tell-tale yellow sheet of paper to make sure i hadn’t dipped into scary numerical areas) treat me so wonderfully, like a returning hero. these are people who had to re-admit me into the hospital and send me to the ER yet another time. they are the people who were there the day i had my bone marrow test. they remember what i looked like during the height of my steroids. and, while i’m no kate moss, i look a bit better now. my reception is often akin to that of the bowl america commercials — where everybody cheers. they’re cheering because it’s at least one patient there who seems to be doing ok.

and ok, when you’re in hematology/oncology, is pretty fucking good.

but wait. there’s more.

part two of my day: my dinner with andre.

(oops, wrong day.)

actually, my appointment with the knee surgeon. when we last left our hero, she was hitting physical therapy twice a week, incurring the wrath of hellboy (who often missed his day home with me because i simply cannot bring him to a place where he can end up with a weight machine for a necktie). and last week, the staff nearly lynched me because: a) i broke the game boy (i’ll ‘splain in a sec), and b) i broke the cybex tester.

now, the game boy has a real name, but i just like to call it NAZI ELECTROCUTION MACHINE FROM HELL because it’s a little palm-sized zapper that is supposedly helping to re-educate my quads. to say i hate this thing would be an understatement, sort of like saying george bush is a bad president. but every week, i have to sit there and literally zap myself 25 times (with a 10-second rest period between each 10 second zapping session). i’m firing myself up, though i would prefer doing that with a mojito, if only someone would ask me.

but i digress.

anyway, i went to use it last tuesday and ZZZZZP. the damn thing died. it’s like it looked at me and decided to go to that great physical therapy carnival in the sky. the therapist, who knows i curse this thing night and day, was quite sure i put a spell on it. i got the look, the one that says i hope blue cross blue shield picks up this tab, missy.

so then thursday, i had to take my cybex test. i think it’s officially thought of as isokinetic (cybex) strength testing and exercise. you call it corn, i call it pain. 3rd photo down on the right (once you click on the our facility link, since it’s built in antediluvian frames!) for you hardcore people who just have to know. only, too bad for me. some knobby thing on it has decided to give up the ghost. oops!

i’m dead certain that the office manager thinks i willed it to break.

so back to my friend, the surgeon. he told me i can come back in six weeks to take the cybex test again. and i’ve been let out of PT for good behavior as long as i promise to go workout with weights 3-4 days/week. someplace else.

maybe they just want to protect the machines?

my brave friend

Posted on July 7, 2007 by wrekehavoc

our little friend mason is still battling his brain cancer. after some not-so-great news, he is now undergoing experimental treatments. his parents have exhausted their leave and everything imaginable, so with that in mind, some terrific people from our school have formed the Celebration of Life Fund. monies donated will allow mason’s mom and dad to spend more time with mason and not worry about bills so much at this time. it isn’t tax-deductible, so think of it as a good deed.

if you can, please donate. here’s how.

and thank you for your random act of kindness.

pariah of the parent set

Posted on July 3, 2007 by wrekehavoc

so we’re waiting for the bus to camp — me, BC, her friend, and her friend’s dad. we only met yesterday, but they seem like really nice and interesting people. we’re chatting about all sorts of things — scooter libby, the idiocy of the president, that sort of thing that passes for pleasantries here in the nation’s capitol.

then, BC looks at my arm, which isn’t covered by a sleeve. “hey,” she says to her friend, “look at the holes in my mama’s arm!”

yep. that’s a conversation killer.

i had to explain to the father that, in spite of all appearances, i am not a smack-shooting mother but rather a person who gets hooked up to an IV every few weeks for some life-saving IVIG.

yeah. i’m sure we’re getting invited over for a playdate. real soon, too.