Miscellaneous catching up

I know, right?

We went camping last weekend. This was our second time out. Most of my best memories from childhood were of family camping trips, so I've been psyched for a long time to take Linus out. We never got our shit together last summer, but this time I knew the window of time in which I'd be able to sleep on the ground was small, so we had to get a move on right quick. I figure that if we work the kinks out early, later when I'm too big with baby to be comfortable the boys can go out for weekend trips and leave me home to nap in peace. Orion and I used to do all kinds of hiking and camping back in the day, but we hadn't been out in years. I don't think we even took our equipment out of storage the entire time we lived in Kansas. No point - you have to drive 8 hours just to get anywhere remotely hike-able. But now we live an hour from 2 mountain ranges. Of course, the kind of camping we're doing now is a bit different - car camping vs. back-country camping. We had to get a bigger tent and a cooler and what not. And, if I'm not carrying it in on my back, I want a dang seat and a big fat sleep pad!

This is all up Linus' alley, what with all the sticks and rocks out in nature. He could spend 3 hours throwing rocks into the river. We roasted wienies on sticks over the camp fire, then marshmallows, of course. He's happy to sleep on the ground and rain doesn't bother him at all, which is good because we got lots of it last weekend. I apparently chose the perfect elevational band for rainfall. A little higher up the mountain, dry, a little lower down the mountain, dry(er). Ah well, we had fun anyway. I think if we go in the next couple of weeks I may have one more trip in me, but after that it's bed only for me.

I'm jealous

At this moment I'm watching Linus sit on the back patio eating a blueberry muffin. He's wearing a Batman shirt, complete with cape and utility belt, khaki shorts, and blue and red monster rain boots. He's quietly singing Twinkle Twinkly Little Star to himself. I think. Awesome!

Hi, Skeletor!

Sorry the scan sucks. You know what the best thing about that image is? The nice, clear, midline down the middle of the skull! That's what I like to see in a developing fetus, a well-defined midline.

1.8 mm

The ultrasound tech took about 4 different measurements of nuchal translucency last evening and they ranged from 1.4-1.8 mm, with a crown-to-rump length of 59 mm. So, unless my blood work comes back really anomolous, my guess is that the probability of any of the most common aneuploidies (or congenital heart defects) will actually be lower than even that based on demographic data (you know, advanced maternal age and all). In other words, YAY!

Even better, everything else looked great too. All kinds of brains, strong heartbeat, 5 fingers on each hand, everything where you'd expect it. Huge relief! The difference between how anxious I was going in vs. coming out of that ultrasound was bigger than even I thought it would be. I didn't fully realize just how wound up I was about it until I started relaxing as we looked around in there. Phew.

Turns out I didn't need to get all chippy about whether the ultrasound tech was going to be forthcoming with information. He was a really nice guy and he took us on a guided tour. Full disclosure, just how I like it. We even got a pretty cool picture of what looks like Skeletor waving at us from inside my uterus. That'll go in the scrapbook. Maybe I'll scan it and post it later.

I unleashed the circus last night by calling all of my family and infoming them. My mother already knew because last weekend was her monthly visit and she full-on asked me directly if I was pregnant. Wtf?! She caught me off guard and I wasn't prepared to lie straight to her face so I copped. She's wiley that one. She was only good for maybe one more day of discretion anyway, so we had to spill the beans.

Every single person we've told so far has said they're hoping for a girl. Friends too. Even Orion. In fact, even Linus! I asked him yesterday if he'd rather have a baby brother or sister and he said, "baby sister" (though then he said he didn't want to be a big brother he just wanted to be "a Linus", so take that how you will). Apparently I'm the only person I know who'd like me to be carrying a boy. Defer to my wishes!! We didn't find out the sex yesterday. It was a little early anyway and Skeletor wasn't cooperating.

I refuse

I'm letting you all know that I refuse to call a seminar broadcast on the internet (or intranet, as the case may be) a "webinar". I just won't do it.

Just so's you know.

Back! (and pregnant)

I just ate a turkey burger in, like, 20 seconds. I'm not kidding. I fucking INHALED it. Why? Because I'm pregnant, that's why, and I've reached that stage where I'm no longer in the driver's seat w/r/t food intake. This phase should last about another 6 months, then I'll be in charge again.

That's right, I said "pregnant". I'm in my 13th week, which means that horrible 1st trimester sleepiness should abate soon (at least until it comes back in the 3rd). We finally decided last November to try again, after many months of:

"Should we?"
"I don't know, what do you think?"
"Well, I guess I kinda feel like we're not done yet, what do you think?"
"Yeah, me too, but are we ready for it?"
"I don't know, what do you think?"
"I'm sleepy."
"Me too."

Repeat.

We started trying to get pregnant that December, until I realized that would mean no drinking over the Christmas holiday with family coming to visit. I put the kibosh on that right quick. Tried in January. Nothing. This caused me to immediately assume we'd waited too long and we'd never get pregnant as I was clearly no longer ovulating. I proceeded to pull a bunch of papers about pregnancy and insemination rates and what not. I know. It's what I do, ok?

Did you know that even in healthy couples trying to get pregnant (that is having daily sex at the right time) there's only a 37% probability of conceiving, and a 25% probability of having a live birth. That means that even if absolutely everything goes right, you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting viably pregnant on any given month. (I'm getting this from Wilcox, et al. 1995, "The timing of sexual intercourse in relation to ovulation" N Engl J Med 1995;333:1517-21) Most of the difference between conception rates and live birth rates happens before you even know you're pregnant. Essentially they had 221 healthy women who were trying to get pregnant pee into a cup every morning and record every time they had sex. This way they knew exactly when they ovulated, conceived, miscarried, etc.

This kind of blew my mind at first. Only 37% of women conceive even when the stars are aligned, and only 2/3 of those conceptions end in live births? Doesn't that figure seem low to you? And this was in healthy women trying to get pregnant, not any ol' women. Now I get why you have to be trying unsuccessfully for at least 6 months before the medical community will even begin to think you may have a fertility problem. Even though it is a low probability in any given month, another way to look at it is, even given that low conception rate, the probability of you not conceiving a viable pregnancy after 6 months of trying if you and your partner are healthy is only 18%. So, once I read all this I calmed down a little bit. February, we got pregnant.

Ok, enough statistics (for now). I'm due November 12th. Like my pregnancy with Linus, I feel good about this one. But given our history, I'm not going to relax or fully embrace it until I see that everything's ok. I did get to hear a heartbeat last week, and that was good, but I'm really waiting for today. Today we go in for a nuchal translucency ultrasound. This is a non-invasive, 1st/early 2nd trimester screening proceedure that they've recently started doing in this country (they've been doing it in the UK for quite awhile now). They take some blood and then measure the fetal nuchal translucency (fluid at the nape of the neck) via ultrasound. Really, anything above 2mm or so for the nt measure is associated with higher rates of some chromosomal anomalies (including trisomy 21 - Down's Syndrome) and/or some congenital heart defects depending on gestational and maternal age, and some blood chemistry markers. Blah, blah, blah, I want a nt <2mm. AND I want to see everything else looking good and that nice butterfly shaped higher brain development. That's what I'm looking for.

I'm not really worried about chromosomal anomolies, even given my "advanced maternal age" (all of 38) (mofos!), but fears about a repeat of pregnancy #1 lurk, especially given that we never found out what went wrong exactly.

And I'm not leaving that examination room without knowing the crown-to-rump length and nuchal translucency. I hope the ultrasound tech doesn't try to get all cagey about it. I get that he can't diagnose, but he can give me the friggin' numbers. There will be trouble if he tries to deny me.

Those dastardly Mooninites!

We are big Aqua Teen Hunger Force fans in the McNyset household. I laughed so hard this morning while listening to the report about how the Boston terrorism scare turned out to be a gorilla marketing campaign featuring replicas of the Mooninites that I almost drove off the road, but not as hard as I laughed when I asked Orion, "How could anyone think it was terrorists?" To which he replied;

"'Oh my god! Al Qaeda is giving us the finger before they blow us up with Lite Brites!'"

I may be stupid...

I just gotta say - it's open enrollment time for health benefits and all that crap, I'm sure many of you are dealing with this yourselves at the moment. You guys, I have 3 degrees from institutions of higher learning and I CANNOT figure this shit out! I have seriously spent many hours (OVER LUNCH, in case my boss finds this journal) trying to figure out which health plan is going to give me and my family the best coverage for what we need for the best price. I JUST DON'T KNOW! Fortunately, all the information is online these days - if I had to do all of this on paper I would've hung myself already, for sure - and as I type this I have 4 browser windows, 2 PDFs, and 2 spreadsheets open trying to make a final decision. Still, I have no confidence that I'm making the right choice. And while Orion is plenty smart and all, you know I can't leave this kind of thing to anyone else. Besides, he would have descended into a deep depression days ago had he been in charge of figuring this stuff out.

I look at the 12 plan brochures, each with 2-3 different plan options, all with different premiums, and co-pays, and deductibles, and PPO networks and I think of my 86-year old Grandmother who had to sign up for the Medicare prescription drug coverage not too long ago. DON'T get me started...

I don't know why I'm telling you all this, other than I need to rant, and I want anyone else out there who's feeling too stupid to function in this healthcare system at the moment to know: I feel you. Better than not having any health coverage, for sure, but still....can we not work this shit out as a people? I know that Americans are supposed to be all about having choices and "control", but I just feel like they're confusing me with their jazz-hands and fireworks and I'm going to end up losing my house when I have to pay my share of the bills when Linus breaks his arm after climbing up on the mantel and playing Supa Fwy!

Google me now, mofos!

I find it amusing that I get more hits on this blog from people googling, "belly button rubbing" than I have regular readers. Of course, there are only 4 people who check regularly, so it's not that fantastic, but still...

What the fuck?! What is it that people need to learn from the internet about belly button rubbing? Looking for How-Tos?! Or is this some sort of fetish and people are looking for like minds? Are there belly button rubbing naughty pictures out there? To each his own, but...ew.

He still does it, by the way, Linus and the belly button comfort rubbing. It's still his only security "blanket" (though it may be getting competition lately from his Supa Man hoodie). He's pretty much weaned himself over the last couple of months, so there's no nursing-for-comfort now, just belly button checks. On occasion, not all the time. It's great for me because you can never misplace your belly button and then demand that I find it before you'll leave the house. Nobody cries because they can't find their belly button. At least, I'm assuming.

Wha?

(While looking through an alphabet book)

Me: What's this? (pointing to the letter "M")
Linus: M!
Me: Yes! What's this? (pointing to the letter "K")
Linus: B!
Me: Close! It kinda looks like a "B", but it's a "K".
Linus: K!
Me: Yes! What's this? (pointing to the letter "J")
Linus: Wonda Woman!
Me: What? What is this?
Linus: Wonda Woman!
Me: Huh.

60 Minutes Australia can fuck off!

I'm not kidding, they really can. I told them as much in an email. I may have used the phrase "yellow journalism" as well. Fuckers.

I'm pissed because they featured a story on their October 22nd broadcast called, "Being there". No, I don't watch 60 Minutes Australia. Someone on the parenting listserv back in Lawrence that I still belong to posted about it. It's supposed to be a story about Attachment Parenting, but it ends up making AP parents looks like radical, permissive kooks. Attachment Parenting, in case you don't know, is a parenting philosophy that advocates building a strong bond with your baby through things like breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and "baby-wearing" (using a carrier as much as is practical so the baby gets the benefit of lots of physical contact), along with "gentle" or "positive" discipline (which in practice means a lot of things, but primarily non-violent). The idea is that if you establish this strong attachment, your kids will develop into secure, emotionally-healthy, peaceful people.

Before I even knew I had a parenting "philosophy", I knew that these things made sense to me and described the kind of approach I intened to take to parenting an infant, at least. This parenting group back in Lawrence (I've written a bit about them before and how much I miss their support) is an Attachment Parenting group. We're not affiliated with the international organization - mostly we're a bunch like-minded parents. I got in touch with the group initially because I didn't know anyone, apart from far-flung family, that had small kids and I felt like I needed to make friends with other parents. Critical! It was only later that I realized I'd happened into the right group for me, and felt lucky to be surrounded by people who fully supported, and could give informed advice about, the choices I was making as a parent. Hell, I don't even like to refer to a "parenting philosophy" - sounds a little like I'm in est, or a scientologist or something. We don't have a secret handshake or anything. I think some parents tend to gravitate together because what we're doing is not particularly well-represented in the mainstream media or popular culture.

Ok, back to the 60 Minutes story - so, they misrepresent AP parents from the begining. They chose to profile parents who go waaaaay beyond any AP parent I've ever met. They open with an image of a woman with big ol' boobies tandem nursing her daughters. They totally play on people's squicky response to breastfeeding in general, and especially breastfeeding toddlers and young children (apparently there are many cultural similarities between Australia and the United States on this subject). Also, they misrepresent AP as taking a "no discipline" approach and they lump a bunch of other random shit under the AP rubric which doesn't belong there at all. Notice that I've said nothing thus far about home-schooling, home-birth, and Elimination Communication ("EC" - not using diapers, essentially) among other things. Now, it's true that some AP parents are also home-schoolers, or had home births, or only wear Birkenstocks, or drive fucking Volvos, or only name their children after natural features of the landscape, but that doesn't mean that those are AP principles simply by association!

AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaagh!

They even go as far as showing the tandem-nurser mom expressing some breast milk and applying it to some sort of rash on one of her kids. Wtf?! What can that POSSIBLY have to do with AP?! It may be a perfectly fine idea, I don't know, that's not the point. The point was, I can guess, to show how far-out and nutty that family is. In fact, that women's breasts get more airplay than anything else in this story. They also have a midwife on who practices AP with her kids, and she actually does a fairly good job of talking about her parenting philosophy in the face of what I would characterize as derision from the "journalist", but every time she talks about her approach to discipline, they cut to a shot of her 3 year old crying, or screaming, or generally melting down. Please! I don't care what parenting approach you take, if you have a toddler, you're going to have to deal with crying and screaming. But they were doing it in a way that made it look like her kid was completely out of control.

Then to top it all off, they have on a child psychologist (Dr. John Irvine) who makes the claim that AP parents are actually subjecting their children to "emotional abuse". I'm not kidding, that's a direct quote. Now, I don't know anything about this guy, I've never heard of him before, but he's totally off his nut if he really believes that. Now, I suspect that what he's really refering to are those parents who don't set any limits with their kids. I suppose that would be "no discipline", and I'm sure that does lead to insecure, entitled assholes. You'll get no argument from me about that. If that's the case then, he needs to get his fucking story straight about what he's actually talking about, rather than talking out of his ass. There are many child development experts and pediatricians who endorse an AP approach, by the way (Drs. Sears and Jay Gordon are two of the most well-known), NONE of whom were interviewed in this piece. AND, they don't even mention that there's an international organization, let alone interview a representative. No! That would potentially put AP in a positive light. Asswipes!

Why am I so upset about this? I don't know exactly - part of it's because it's such a crappy, distorted, bullshit piece of "journalism", and part of it's because I feel personally slighted. It's just so frustrating. I know a lot of parents who could be characterized as AP, and most of them are smart, sane, nice folks. None of them are strident about it. They represent a broad spectrum of choices: some breastfed for 2 months, some for 4+ years. Some co-sleep, some don't. Most all of them have used a sling or other baby carrier for some period of time, but they also use strollers. Many of them have caught grief from family or friends (or even complete strangers!) for some of the choices they've made. Like most parents, they're just trying to do right by their kids without completely screwing them up.

That's my goal, anyway.

Now, any parent can choose whatever approach works for them, I don't care. Oh, I'll probably judge you IN MY MIND, but that's because I'm that way. I'd never actually SAY anything to you unsolicited. Actually, I'm quite sympathetic to the plight of most parents. All it takes is your first toddler meltdown in a public place to knock the smug right out of you. I'm also happy to explain at length why I've made the choices I have, because you know they're well-informed at least. If you know me at all you know I've approached parenting the same way I approach just about anything - research, research, RESEARCH. Why didn't you call ME, 60 MINUTES?!? Too boring?! Not willing to wag my boobies on TV?! Oh HO! Little do you know.

Phew! I feel better now. Thanks for letting me get that hot lump of screed out.

Mini Me, er...Him

Ok, that right there could be a picture of Orion. Hands on hips, walking around, surveying the situation, furrowed brow. Of course, Orion doesn't have a pair of monster boots like that, and if he did, I doubt he'd insist on wearing them everywhere, every day. Sometimes, Linus even tries to get me to let him wear them to bed, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. I'm always taken by surprise whenever Linus busts out with some look or gesture that's exactly like Orion. I mean, I'm a biologist and all, so I know how it works, but still...

I figured I'd give a bit of a Linus update:

Well, he rocks, of course. That kind of goes without saying. He's talking all the time now and it's cute as hell. He's past that stage where we can say stuff in front of him without him understanding. Now if we want to talk about, say, chocolate (or "chocus", according to Linus) we have to spell it out, otherwise it can get ugly. He pretty much keeps up a running monologue, unless he's pooping or getting into something he knows he shouldn't, like mining my bag for gum. Handy, that. Kind of a warning system.

He's completely fascinated with Superman ("Supa!") and how he can fly. I really don't know how he found out about Superman. I suspect another kid at daycare must have spilled the beans. He loves to "fwy" like Supa - he puts his arms out and either wants us to carry him, or he dives onto the beanbag ("FWY!") (I know - killing you with the adorable. Believe me, I know!). The other day we were at the grocery store, when suddenly he yelled out, "Supa!" I'm looking around not seeing anything, but the baby keeps insisting, "Supa!" Finally, I follow his pointing to a jar of Napoleon brand roasted red peppers. I'm totally not getting it, then it dawns on me that Linus thinks the little picture of Napoleon is Superman. Well, he did have dark hair and we was wearing a red and blue outfit, so...ok.

Napoleon, Superman. Potato, Potahto, right?

Roasted red peppers are one of his favorite foods, by the way, completely independent of the whole Supoleon confusion. Peppers and "tatoes" (tomatoes). And, of course, chocus.

Can't forget about the chocus.

We go to Nathan Hale High School, we get things done!

I went to my 20th high school reunion last month. Oh, yeah. I didn't think I'd make the effort at first, but then Tina was all for it, so I thought, "Why not?" Then as the time got closer I got increasingly nervous and excited, much to my own internal embarrassment. High school was a hard time for me, as I imagine it is for many if not most people. My family was a mess on top of all the precarious negotiations of the high school social scene. I wasn't in a hurry to revisit all that. Before the reunion, Tina and I met up with an old high school friend, Sandy. It was lovely to see her again! Seriously, I don't know why we lost touch. We fortified ourselves with libations before heading over to the "billiard hall" where it was being held. Nervous, nervous, nervous!

Turns out, there was absolutely no reason to be nervous. The whole thing was a bit boring, actually. About a hundred repeats of this conversation (from my side):

"Hi! Oh my god, how ARE you?! Great! What have you been up to? Good, good. Oh, everything's going well for me. Yeah. Well, we just moved back to the west coast. Yeah! I just started a postdoc with ____. Yeah! I know! Yeah. I do! A little boy - Linus. Oh, thanks, we like it too. Here's a picture. I KNOW! Isn't he?! Just 2. Yeah, he is big for his age. I know! And you? *Gasp*! Ohmygod! So cute! Really? Yeah. Well that's great. .... Yeah. .... Ok! You too!"

All of this done in a much higher voice and sing-song tone than I EVER use in daily life. Jesus. Embarrassing.

There were a few people there I was happy to see, and I few people I was hoping to see that weren't there, but mostly, a bunch of people I feel entirely indifferent about. Apparently many people remember me as someone who just did what she wanted and didn't give a shit what anyone thought. Which... is a perfectly fine way to be remembered, I guess. I remember feeling awkward much of the time, but...

There was one moment that made the whole trip worth it though. I got to witness first hand a drunken, bitter rant by Tim L.! Now, I had a crush on Tim when we were in junior high. A big crush. And even though I was well over it by high school, he always had this, "Yoooooouu had a crush on meeeee-eee!" kinda attitude all through high school. Gah! Back in junior high, when he found out I liked him, he told me that he could never like me back because I had too many freckles.

I know!

When I asked him what I was supposed to do about that, he said, "Well, a little acid should take care of it." And then he burped in my face.

I'm pretty sure that was about the time I stopped liking him.

Anyway, at the reunion, Tina and I made our way over to the bar to refresh our drinks, and found ourselves standing at one of those high, round, bar tables with Tim. He was clearly well into the scotch by this point. We exchanged a couple of pleasantries along the lines of what I quoted above, and then the most awesome thing happened! He goes:

"Ya know. I'm sick of people acting like their lives have all turned out soooo great! [in a falsetto] "How are you? Oh my life is so great! Everything's just great!" [fixes me with a drunken stare] Well. My life's been a roller coaster! [rolling head around to illustrate] I went to college, then I dropped out, then I tried again, and then I dropped out. [gestures with scotch in hand, sloshing drink] Then I found out I have ADD, which is probably why I couldn't ever finish. I got married, then it turns out she was a BITCH, so I got divorced. Now I drive a bus for Metro. So, no! My life hasn't been that great!

[moment of drunken silence]

Ya know. Just keepin' it real."

Oh. my. god. It was AWESOME!!!

Total fucking schadenfreude and it. was. DELICIOUS!

Tina, to her credit, was very gracious and started talking about how really, things haven't always been so great for her over the years, and what not, while I just stood there taking it all in with a big, stupid grin on my face. I mean, sure, everybody's gone through ups and downs over the last twenty years, and nobody's life is perfect, but in general, my life's pretty good. And really, I can't say that I'm too torn up about Tim L.'s life not turning out so great (see above anecdote).

Yes, I am a small, petty woman.

Later, I saw Tim across the room, arm around a women who also professed a bit of a hard luck life story. Also, quite drunk. In fact, Tim was buying her a drink while we chatted. I'm pretty sure they left together. Nothing like a drunken hook-up between bitter trainwrecks at the 20th high school reunion.

Aaaaaah, the majesty.

I know I suck at this!

Yeah, that's right. I know one of the things that makes a blog readable is, you know, actual words. Plain Jane had a post today where she made comments to some of the journals she reads. I doubt that any of them were to me specifically (I know she's read me before, but I don't think she checks back (though if so, Hi Jane!)), but all the ones that said, "UPDATE!" could have been. I know! Blogs that aren't updated regularly annoy me! Yes, I annoy myself. All the time, actually.

In my defense, I didn't really know what to post following Tori's death. I started a couple of posts, but it all seemed so lame and inappropriate. Now that there's been some time, I feel like I can write about trivial stuff again. Either that or I've come to embrace the fact that I'm lame and inappropriate.

You pick.

Also, I've been working on a paper at work, so I've been a bit sick of writing. And, writing for scientific journals and writing for a personal blog do not mesh. In fact, all of my training as a writer (such as it is) has been geared toward technical writing, which I think is really at odds with good journal writing. In scientific publications you have to dispassionately describe results as succinctly, yet completely, as possible, all without the use of personal pronouns, or even acknowledging that actual people conducted the research. The effects of my immersion in that kind of writing permeate this blog, I think, and not in a good way. I think that my writing here tends to be too brief, not enough detail or development. Not to seem to be sucking up, but one of the things I like about Jane's journal is that she can go on for paragraphs about one topic, really delving in and describing her feelings in detail. That's one of the reasons I like her writing. I always catch myself trying to sum up everything in one sentence. Skimpy. My writing here is skimpy. Just so you know that I know.

I've contemplated just deleting this blog and keeping my junk to myself, but then...something comes up and I want to write about it. I figure no one's making you check in and read, so I'm just gonna keep going. I could make some empty promises about updating more regularly, but I won't insult your intelligence. I will say that this latest gap was due to unusual circumstances and hopefully won't happen again.

We went to Tori's memorial service a couple of weekends ago. It was in Reno so we all flew down. It was awful. Not the memorial service, which was lovely, and hard, and very emotional (obviously). No, Reno was awful. My family lived in Sparks (next to Reno) when I was a kid, but I hadn't been back there in about 20 years. Now I know why. If anyone reading this is from Reno and has deep affection for it - sorry, but that place sucks ass. Both Orion and I had headaches from the moment we arrived, and mine finally developed into a my first ever, full-on migraine. I think it was the combination of the high altitude, bone-dry air, cigarette smoke, flashing neon lights, loud, loud, LOUD noise, crying over Tori, and the pack of crazy fuckers known as My Family that did it. But I've cried and been around my family before without getting a migraine, so I'm really blaming it on Reno. By Sunday evening I was huddled in a ball in the rental car, which was blissfully quiet and smoke-free. Fortunately for me, Missy gets migraines, so she slipped me one of her pills and an hour later I could walk again.

I hope I never see a buffet or the inside of a casino again. Seriously, gross. I've never considered myself particularly sensitive to cigarette smoke, but Oh My God, I have limits! I'm pretty sure I've developed a spot on my lung just from walking through the casinos to get to whatever buffet to eat with my entire clan. I guess I've become wimpy since my waitressing days. All that living in places where smoking is banned in all public buildings (otherwise known as "Civilization") will do that to a person, I guess.

Ok, lunch time is over. That's another reason I don't update often - finding time to write. Blah, blah, blah. I'm living up to the Complain-o-peeps moniker today, eh? I have lots of little saved stories from over the last month and a half. I promise to update frequently, for awhile anyway.

Inadequate words

Tori died yesterday.

Her body just couldn't do it anymore. When it became obvious that there was no hope, they cut back on her sedation in the hopes that she would regain some consciousness. Apparently, she did wake up enough for Missy to tell her what she could.

I don't know what to say now. It feels like I should say something about how she faced the last 8 months with incredible strength, which she did, and how sorry I am for Missy's loss. It all sounds so inadequate.

Here's something: The Children's Hospital has a Courage Bead program. Essentially, every time a kid going through cancer treatment has a procedure, or experiences a milestone of some sort, they get a bead to add to their string. Different color and types of beads signify different things. So, for example, every time she got poked she got a black bead to add to her string. When she lost her hair she got a brown bead. When she got her bone marrow transplant she got to pick out a special, big, glass bead (she chose one with a tree on it). She got glow-in-the-dark beads for her each of her radiation treatments. You get the picture. When I was there for her birthday, her strand of beads was over 19 feet long.

Her favorite bands were Green Day and My Chemical Romance. She had a huge crush on Johnny Depp. She wanted to get a tattoo of a heart on the inside of both of her wrists. One facing out and one facing in - for the love she'd received and the love she'd given. I'm so sad she never got to do it.

My concern is for Missy now. I can only begin to understand the depth of her grief. We asked her to come and stay with us for as long as she'd like. I hope she does.

Tori's crashing. She's crashing and we're all lost. They had to put her on a respirator, so they induced a coma so she wouldn't fight it. They also put her on dialysis because her kidneys just can't handle all the toxic by-products of the cellular breakdown she's experiencing. She's unable to regulate her own blood pressure, so they've got her on three different meds to keep it up. She can't handle being off those meds for even a minute (like changing the IV) without her blood pressure plummeting. She also has a fungal mass in one of her lungs, despite being on two powerful anti-fungals. If she makes it past this crisis, they're going to have to do surgery to remove half her lung. Christ.

I don't think she's coming back from this one. This time it seems like too much. Too much. The poor kid's body has had so much to deal with over the last eight months. She has fought back from the brink before, however. There is some hopeful news in all this - she's developed the rash that says the transplant cells have taken root. She's making white cells again and actually has a white count.

I worry. I worry. I cry. I hope.

Bittersweet 16

I finally got down to Oakland Children's Hospital to see Missy and Tori last week. Finally! It was Tori's 16th birthday last Wednesday so all the women in the family went to celebrate with her. Her Bittersweet 16th. She can have a Sweet 16th later if she wants. I'm glad I finally got to lay eyes on them. I'd made plans to fly down there 3 other times, but each time either I was sick or the baby was sick, and Tori essentially has no immune system so I couldn't risk exposing her to something I might be carrying.

I was unprepared for just how bad Tori looked. I get daily updates and I've seen pictures, but seriously, she looked like 8 kinds of hell. It was shocking. The poor kid. She's had her bone marrow transplant, but she's dealing now with the effects of the radiation she had to have before she could get the transplant. She's still bald, but now her kidneys aren't working right, so she's all swollen with excess fluids. She has, essentially, radiation burns on the tips of her fingers and toes and a couple of other places, and she bruises at the slightest touch. She's losing the lining of her mouth, nose, throat, intestines, etc., so she can't eat. I never heard her complain, but she's obviously in a lot of pain, and other discomfort, despite all the pain meds she's on.

For all that Tori's going through, my heart was really with Missy. I just can't imagine what she's experiencing. It's really the horror of watching her child die, because that's what she's doing. Even if the doctors can cure her, Tori's dying right now. It's all part of the treatment - taking you as close to death as possible, so that they can bring you back cancer-free. It really seems to me like the doctors have thrown Tori off a cliff. She's falling, and maybe they can catch her at the bottom and she'll survive the fall. And Missy has to watch all of this, and can't do anything about it except be there, fall with her, and tell her over and over that if she has anything to say about it she'll be fine.

I was there 3 days, we never left the hospital, and I came home exhausted. They've been there 8 months, less one week furlough home when she was doing better back in March. Eight months. I don't know how they do it. Or, I guess I do know. They do it because what choice is there? Missy's in that hospital room 23 hours a day because that's where her daughter is.

Go hug whomever you love right now. I'm serious, y'all, go do it. Hug 'em and look them in the eye and SEE them. I'm sure you hug your loved ones all the time, but give them an extra one for me, ok?

Awkward chicken transition

Whatever I write about next is going to seem trivial, so I'm just gonna dive in. It's an uncomfortable segue from cancer to poultry, but here goes:

We got chickens. Real, live, peeping, baby chickens. 4 of them.

They look just like this:


Tina, do not freak out! You'll never have to see them - you weren't really ever going to come down for a visit anyway, were you?

I decided to start a little, backyard laying flock. Even though this is something that never EVEN entered my mind prior to about 6 months ago, apparently it's not that uncommon for people to have urban, backyard flocks. You might think there's some local ordinance against it in your town or city, but probably not. Not for a few hens anyway. Roosters are another story - lots of towns ban them because they drive the neighbors crazy with the crowing - but a few hens is pretty low-impact, from a neighbor perspective.

I started thinking about it because when we lived in Kansas our friends, Dick and Cathy, kept chickens. They're a retired couple who live on about 25 acres outside of Lawrence, and they keep a pretty big flock, for amateurs anyway, of about 20 birds I'd guess, including a couple of roosters. Cathy's into heirloom breeds, so they have lots of different kinds of chickens. One of the perqs of being their friends is that they would give us eggs all the time; a dozen eggs a week for years. Those were some good eggs. I'm not kidding. If you've never had really fresh eggs from healthy, happy chickens, do yourself a favor and find some.

I've told Dick and Cathy a couple of times that if Linus turns out to be a genius we owe it to them. They kept me in high quality protein throughout my entire pregnancy and through Linus' first year AND eggs are a good source of choline, which is key in brain development. The whole time I was pregnant an omelet sounded tasty, while many other foods were Off The List, so I ate a lot of eggs. There was a front page article in the New York Times last Sunday all about how we're living longer and healthier lives than our ancestors, in part because we have better pre-natal and early childhood nutrition. So, Linus will also have to thank Dick and Cathy if he lives a long time.

Anyway, I've been missing those good eggs and I started looking into what it would take to raise laying hens. Turns out, not much. I may have mentioned this before, but I am a total geek. I'm all about data, so when I approach something new like this my first response is to gather as much information as possible. I spent weeks reading every website and book about raising chickens I could get my hands on. I now know pretty much everything you can know about raising chickens from reading a book. I could write a thesis. Of course, I'd end up plagiarizing all over the place because I have no ACTUAL experience, but none-the-less, I'd get an "A".

Once we decided to give it a try, I had to figure out where to get the chicks. Turns out, you can get them mailed to you. Seriously. No big deal. A peeping box with holes in it will be delivered to your front door by your regular mail carrier. Who knew? There are a number of hatcheries around that have just about any breed of chicken you might want. I decided on Barred Plymouth Rocks. They're supposed to be good layers and calm, not flighty, important because I don't want any chickens flapping around my head, and pretty nice looking.

You know...for a chicken.


The problem with ordering through the mail is that the hatchery will decide how many chicks are needed to keep each other warm and even if you just want four pullets (girl chicks), they'll pack in as many extra cockerels (boy chicks) as they deem necessary. Of course, they have way more boys than they need because chicken sex-ratios are just like ours, 50/50, so using them as packing peanuts is no loss to them. So, it's possible that I'd have 15 chicks show up on my doorstep. I wanted to avoid this if possible, so I found a hatchery not too far from here where I could go pick them up. I'll write all about how I'm never patronizing that hatchery again in another post, but for now I'll just say that I went up there yesterday and picked up my chicks. They're living in an old fishtank for the next month or so until they're big enough to move outside. Orion's building the outside accommodations for them. If they all make it through puberty, in about 5 months we should be getting a dozen or so eggs a week from them.

The irony is, I don't like birds. I'm with Tina on this one, though maybe not quite as borderline-phobic. I've never kept birds of any kind. I'm not much of a bird watcher. I have a bird feeder in my yard, and I'll occasionally look up a visiting bird in an old, hand-me-down bird guide, but mostly I'll watch the robins working the yard through the blinds with slitty eyes. I don't trust those robins. You can totally see their dinosaur ancestry in the way they move. Creepy. I don't feed the ducks or geese at the local pond, uh uh, no way. I never saw the penguin documentary. Never will. Penguins freak me out. But somehow this seems do-able. They are pretty cute when they're small, so maybe watching them grow up will make them more familiar; not so alien and disturbing.

I don't know, we'll see. If it doesn't work out I'm sure they'll make a fine stew, so either way...

Callouses

I have been trying to write about this for a month, but I keep laming out.

My cousin Missy's daughter, Tori, has leukemia. I haven't written about it before because I didn't really know what to say. She was diagnosed on this past Christmas Day. A couple of days before Christmas she developed a fever and general illness. She got dehydrated enough that she had to go into the hospital and that's when they found out. It's Acute Mylogenous Leukemia (AML), which is quite serious. She's been in the hospital ever since, except for one week-long furlough home. She's been going through rounds of chemo interspersed with recovery and treatment for a variety of secondary infections. She keeps developing a mystery meningitis that's been difficult to treat, among other things. She was told by her doctors when she went into treatment that even though this form of leukemia only has a 20-30% long-term survival rate, they thought she'd get through it ok.

I just have to say that the chemo she's been going through is fucking medieval. In a hundred years from now we'll look back on these treatments like we currently look back on bleedings to treat "ill humours". They essentially have to nearly kill her over and over in order to get her to the point that they can try and fix her. She's on a ton of pain meds, and antibiotics, and miscellaneous what-have-you. And, of course, she's lost all of her hair. It all friggin' sucks. She's 15, by the way.

They've been trying to find a bone marrow donor for her for months. They finally found a match, though she's been through another round of chemo and then radiation before that can happen, hopefully next week. She and Missy have been hanging in there through all of it. Missy pretty much lives in Tori's hospital room. They have special, long-term accommodations across the street from the hospital, but she doesn't use them. She just sleeps in T's room. I think that's pretty much what I'd do if I found myself in the same situation.

Missy's always been a bit of a black sheep in our family. She was the first of all of us (me, my sister, and my other cousins) to have a baby. She was young, around 20, and unmarried. Oh! the clucking and tsk-ing that went on in the Complain-o family when that happened. I gather she's always been a big disappointment to many in our family. She has a hard time keeping a job for very long, and she's hit up a number of us for money more than once. When we were growing up, I was closer to her than any of my other cousins, though we only see each other every couple of years at family gatherings in the last couple of decades.

I tell you all this to put this next part into context. I was talking to another member of my family, whom I'll refer to as "B". I was talking to B about Tori's health and how hard it's been on her and Missy. How they've both persevered and hung on all through all the crap one goes through with cancer treatment. I know that Missy and Tori had been having tough times dealing with each other before T was diagnosed. Typical mother/teenage-daughter conflicts, I think.

One of the things that's become clear to me during all this is how religious/spiritual many of my family members consider themselves to be. Missy posts regular updates to a website maintained by a charity for families with kids in the hospital for long-term treatments. It's a good way for all of us to keep in the loop without having to bug them by calling them on the phone daily. There's also a guestbook feature where friends and family can post notes. Almost all of Missy's posts and posts in the guestbook include calls for prayer and talk about counting your blessings. There's also a lot of talk about how God doesn't give us more than we can handle and Tori has been so brave and strong in this regard, and God works in mysterious ways, and other such platitudes. My conversation with B meandered in this direction when B said something that just stopped me cold. B said that really, Tori getting cancer was a blessing in disguise because she was going down the wrong road and would probably have been pregnant within a year, or a drug dealer. Now, this experience has drawn her closer to Missy, and Missy's had to step up and act more responsibly and in the end they'll both be better for it.

What?! I couldn't even begin to respond. I just let B ramble on. Normally, I like B. B's always seemed sensible and down-to-earth to me in the past but, what the fuck?! I've said before that my family is a bunch of crazy fuckers, which it is, and I think this causes those of us who are relatively sane to develop callouses in weird psychic places in order to survive. That's what I think has happened to B. That's the story I'm going with anyhow. I mean, seriously, cancer is a blessing because it might keep her from making some mistakes? The hell that kid (and her mom) has gone through. Do we hate teen mothers that much, or drug dealers even? And the truth is, I'm afraid Tori is going to die. Not afraid in an abstract, cancer-is-scary, kind of way, but in a concrete, it-very-well-may-happen kind of way. What then? How does B fit that into the cancer-as-a-blessing philosophy?

I know that hope is important, and maybe B is only expressing this in terms where actual dying isn't a possibility. That whole, "Tori is strong enough to fight her way through anything and will be better for it" kind of thing. I get that. Still. ..

If only!

We just got back last night from our latest trip up to Seattle. We were there to attend my sister's commencement. She graduated from Bastyr University with a B.S. in Herbal Science. Which, good for her! I had been planning on going up by myself, that way I could just drive up, attend, drive back, but my mother laid the guilt voodoo on me about how my sister would only graduate from college once, so "the whole family" should be there, celebrate, blah, blah. I caved. I should have trusted my instincts and stuck to my original plan because, first of all, who has commencement at 1pm on a Monday afternoon?! And also, guess what? A 3-hour commencement ceremony is pretty much the last place you should take a 2-year old. What?! Really?! Yeah. It was nice and all, but not enough singing and clapping and talking trains to keep Linus' attention. Seriously, it just. wouldn't. end.

There was a moment early on where I got all excited about it. My mother was reading the program before everything started when she exclaimed, "Oh, look! The keynote speaker is Patch Adams!" "Really?!" I replied. "Cool!" Because, see, I thought she was talking about J.P. Patches. Seriously. For those of you who don't know, J.P. Patches is a Seattle icon. He's a clown who had a local children's show from the about the late 1950s, until the early 80s. Sort of a Captain Kangaroo (only better!) for Seattle kids. Ask anyone of my generation who grew up in the Seattle area and they will invariably LOVE J.P. Patches. I only caught the tail-end of the J.P. Patches era when my family moved to Seattle, so I don't even have the depth of love that many of my peers do, but still, I was stoked!

So, imagine my disappointment when I figured out a couple of minutes later that I wasn't going to be listening to J.P. Patches at all, but instead to Hunter "Patch" Adams, M.D. Talk about a let down. My mother couldn't understand my disappointment. Hmmm. Let's see. Beloved iconic clown of my youth vs. "clown" doctor made famous in (what I imagine to be, as I will NEVER watch it) a suck movie staring Robin Williams (exactly the kind of movie, by the way, that my mother LOVES, which is how I know I should avoid it at all costs. My mother's two favorite movies ever, and I'm not kidding? Jumping Jack Flash and Sister Act. I rest my case.). His speech was everything I thought it would be - self-righteous and long-winded. He started off with a whole anti-capitalist thing, which I can totally get behind, and went on to talk about how schools don't teach people to love and that's the most important thing for healers, and really everybody, and on and on. Fine. He even goaded everyone into standing up and hugging the people on either side of them. Anyone who knows me knows this is the part where I really started to look unamused. That kind of shit makes me crazy. I'm not against hugging. I hug people all the time. But I'm not going to hug complete strangers in some bullshit attempt to make a point about how if we all just loved each other we'd all be happy and healthy, or some such crap. Fortunately, I was out in the lobby, with all the other parents and toddlers, watching it all on closed-circuit TV. Gah!

Then, he talked about how he's never accepted any money for any work he's ever done as a doctor. He talked about this more than once, in fact, about how he doesn't accept money, or have any savings, or insurance, or a 401k, and all said in a way to make you feel creepy about getting paid for what you do. What. ever. I'm sorry, but my sister is a single mother with student loans to pay off. She damn well better charge for her services, 'cause I can't afford to support her, and she's been leaching off my parents long enough.

Bah! Enough about it.

When we got home last night, Linus had a melt-down. Like, the second he got out of the car in our driveway. A full-on, sobbing, meltdown. I think he'd just been holding it together through all of the travel, and events, and new places, and new people, and more travel of the previous 3 days, that when he saw familiar territory, he just let it all out. He wanted me to carry him around while he sobbed and pointed at different things. When I'd take him over to those things, he'd scream, "NO!" and point at something else, blubbering all the while. Poor kid. It really was a lot. I felt like melting down and I had the benefit of experience and alcohol to get me through it all. It seems like we've been traveling, or people have been visiting us, every weekend for about a month and a half now. We were supposed to go up to my cousin's again next weekend, but not any more. Orion's going to go up and build them a deck, but the baby and I are going to stay. home.

Oh, that sounds good! We'll lay around in our pjs all weekend eating waffles. I'll show him clips from the J.P. Patches Show and we'll talk about the commencement speech that could've been.