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Unplanned Events

When I was younger and not plagued by insomnia quite so frequently, I used to look at the clock when I woke up in the middle of the night and hope it was early. Yes! I get to sleep 5 more hours! Zzzzz. Now when I wake up, I hope it's late—Did I make it through at least most of the night? (This cartoon captures it perfectly.) I'll say to Andy something like, "Last night was awful. I fell asleep right away, but then I saw 2, 3, and 4, so I guess I fell back to sleep sometime before 5:00." That refers to the clock-watching. I've read that you should just ditch your clock, but I am way too neurotic to ever do that.

Last night I remember looking at the clock at 11:46 and must have fallen asleep shortly thereafter, because I never saw 12. The next thing I knew, Pete was standing by my bed, saying, "Mom? Mom?" I mumbled, "What?" and he said, "Gracie is chasing a mouse around my room!"* I woke up Andy and told him. He said, "Oh! I have to get up now anyhow!" It wasn't until that moment that I looked at the clock and saw that it was 5:50. I had slept for 5 hours straight! I truthfully cannot recall the last time I slept for that long without even waking up to pee or glance at the clock with one eye! Andy, meanwhile, normally gets up at 5:30, but he was still on vacation schedule and had overslept a bit.

Pete said Mr. Jones wasn't up there, which was just plain weird—he loves a good game of mouse hockey as much as the next cat. I recalled that I hadn't seen him at bedtime, either. He normally hangs out next to my office chair, then waits for me outside the bathroom. As soon as I get into bed, he jumps up and licks off all the expensive cream I've just smeared on my face. Then he vanishes to parts unknown for the night, although I often see him outside my bathroom door if I get up in the night.

Andy later reported that he had gone up to Pete's room and retrieved the mouse (which by that time was mostly dead) and disposed of it, then looked in vain for Mr. Jones. I had suggested he check on the sun porch, and sure enough, the poor guy was trapped out there all night! He was not much worse for the wear, although Andy said he did race to his food and water bowls.

I had trouble falling back to sleep but did manage to log a few more Z's before finally getting up.

The next exciting thing that happened was when I sent the girls to the basement to get a frozen pizza out of the deep freeze for lunch. It was already defrosted. Uh-oh. I went down and, much to my horror, found that everything in there was defrosted, and there was a brownish puddle on the floor. Apparently someone had not closed the door all the way (my suspects are in custody). I batted back tears and quickly filled three giant trash bags with many pounds of shrimp from Costco, at least one of everything Trader Joe's sells, quite a few buffalo burgers, several tubs of homemade bolognese, and much, much more. Everything was still cold, but I didn't dare take any chances. I had two whole chickens from my CSA that were not only still cold but still had ice crystals on them, so I transferred them to the fridge and will make a lot of soup tomorrow, to be stored until winter in the freezer—assuming it is nice and icy-cold when I check it in the morning. (I left only bread in there overnight.)

*Meanwhile, I've been assuring the kids (and myself) for years that mice can't climb stairs. Pete's room is on the third floor. Gulp.

Staycation

Andy took last week off in the hopes that we could do some fun family stuff now that Steph is feeling so much better. Unfortunately, it did not turn out to be much of a vacation, partly because of the lousy weather the first half and partly because I had too much work to do (plus a mild but annoying medical problem that sapped me of energy and good spirits).

We headed up to New Hampshire last Saturday in the rain. We did not go canoeing. We did not go to Whale's Tale water park (yay! shhhh!). We did not go to Echo Lake. We did not play bocce in the backyard. We did not even grill steaks. So what did we do? We played cards. We read. We stuffed ourselves with pancakes and bacon at Polly's, and then restuffed ourselves with candy at Chutters. Sunday? Lather, rinse, repeat. We were more than ready to come home on Monday. At home it was still raining, but at least we were home. 

On Tuesday I finally finished my biggest project, so I took the girls to Fresh Pond, the only cinema even sort of close by that was still showing "Ramona and Beezus." It was sold out! Back home we went, before Andy and Pete could even start to watch "Clash of the Titans" on demand from Comcast. Then the mail came, bringing Steph's and Pete's "team" lists for middle school. Steph is disappointed that she's not the on the team that most of her friends are on, but she knows that that doesn't necessarily matter. We don't know anything about her teachers. I'm happy that Pete is on the same team Steph was on in sixth grade, because we liked those teachers. He's also with some of his friends, so he's excited.

You know where we were Wednesday.

Then, Thursday, the sun came out! Hurrah! Steph and I both had doctor's appointments in the morning, so we had lunch at home and then headed up to Good Harbor for the afternoon. The water was freezing cold, but that was just as well, because after we were there for an hour or two, the lifeguards ordered everyone out because of a high bacteria count! Ewww! (Good thing we weren't playing the spit-take game.) We left and went to Woodman's to stuff ourselves with fried clams and french fries.

Finally, on Friday we got a perfect day. We went up to Ogunquit and spent the whole day there. It was exquisite weather, and we had a great time. Oh, and Julie got her class assignment. We are thrilled that she got the teacher we most wanted. He (yes, he! the only male teacher at our elementary school!) has been at the school for a long time, but neither Steph nor Pete ever got him. She's with one of the three friends I requested too, so that's all I can ask for.

We did nothing much this weekend. The weather was nice, but we don't like to go to the beach on the weekends because it's too crowded. So we mostly just hung around, and I finished up even more work (including running into Charlestown to do some paperwork there).

We start school on September 7, so this will be our last week of sleeping in and having no real schedule.

Friday iPod Random Ten

1. Closing Time (live) - Lyle Lovett
2. Unhappy Anniversary (live) - Loudon Wainwright III
3. If I Were A Carpenter - Sheryl Crow & Willie Nelson
4. Girl from the North Country - John Prine & Gove Scrivenor
5. New Railroad - Crooked Still  
6. Westchester County (live) - Loudon Wainwright III   
7. Avalon, My Home Town - Bruce Cockburn 
8. Sometimes I Forget - Loudon Wainwright III
9. Red Apples - Cat Power
10. Do You Love Him (live) - The Avett Brothers

Shipping Up to Boston

This is maybe the worst bout of insomnia I've had in a long while. I usually fall asleep pretty quickly, but then I wake up somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00 and I am wide awake. My brain is going a mile a minute—often replaying song lyrics over and over—but my body is so weary that I can't even imagine getting out of bed. Most of the time I fall back to sleep after a few hours of tossing and turning, but not always. It sucks.

On top of that, last night I also had the sensation that every time I tried to swallow, someone was plunging a rusty dagger into my right tonsil and out my right ear. It was excruciating, to say the least! I was sure I had a raging case of strep, but somewhere between 6:15 and 7:30, it got much better, and by the time I got out of bed and showered, it was almost entirely gone. I'm still tired from my long, nearly sleepless night, but at least I can swallow without wishing I were dead. And aside from some sneezing and sniffling, I feel fine. Go figure.

It poured buckets of rain all morning, but the weather radar gods somehow fooled the decision-makers over at Fenway into declaring that the 1:35 game would go on as scheduled. The kids and I bundled up like good Red Sox fans, and off we went.

It was only lightly raining, and our seats are just under the overhang (row NN on the first-base line, for those in the know), so usually we can stay dry even while those in front of us are getting rained on. However, today there was a wicked wind, so we ended up getting rain blown straight at us throughout the game (which was blessedly short, just under 3 hours). We were drenched. Poor Julie could barely see a thing no matter how often I wiped her glasses. My jeans were plastered to my legs. 

This was my first game of the season, and it felt so wrong to not see all my favorite guys. No Tek, no Youk, no Pedroia, no Ellsbury.... Luckily I got to watch Mike Lowell at first base, though. And there is still nothing like the excitement when we're in the lead at the beginning of the ninth and suddenly the Dropkick Murphys come blasting over the loudspeakers to signal Papelbon's arrival.

So, it was a fun game, and we won, and the kids enjoyed themselves. Toward the end we were reminiscing about our warm, dry house and hi-hoseying our favorite afghans and blankets on the living room couch, so I'm glad it didn't go into extra innings.

Catching Up

Now I'm afraid to let more than a couple of days go by without blogging or else everyone will think someone is in the hospital! No, this time we headed up to Franconia for a long (rainy) weekend, and Andy is off this week. Hopefully the weather will shape up at some point so we can hit the beach, and we've got Sox tickets for a day game this Wednesday. In the midst of all this, I have a few work deadlines looming, so I will have to budget my time carefully.

But speaking of the hospital, Steph is doing well back home. Her recovery is a little slower than I'd imagined it would be, so we are trying to be content with incremental progress. The key is that she is moving in the right direction, and we will just have to be patient. Luckily she still has two more weeks before school starts to continue resting up and gaining back some weight!

Meanwhile, I have two interesting work projects to tell you about, a book I'm reading that I think will end with a thumbs-up review, a childhood memory that popped out of nowhere, and a few other goodies. But I also have a whopping case of insomnia, so I'm going to pack it in now while I'm actually feeling sleepy. Here's hoping....

[Update 5/13/13: Lotsa spambots leaving comments, so I'm closing them off now.]

Friday iPod Random Ten

1. Get Down River - Bottle Rockets
2. Big Big Love - k.d. lang
3. A Man Needs A Woman Or A Man To Be A Man - Bill Callahan
4. Coyote - Mark Knopfler
5. Possum (live) - Phish       
6. Angel Hair - Sam Baker
7. Die Die Die - The Avett Brothers
8. Sitting In Limbo -  Tuck & Patti 
9. Somerville - Pernice Brothers  
10. Take Me To The River (live) - Eva Cassidy

That & This

1. You never know when you might need to swear in over 200 different languages.

2. Consider using one of these journalism warning labels the next time you're reading one of those "fair and balanced" news stories.

3. It was like Tatooine in Boston earlier today! Now more like Yavin 4. What's  your Star Wars weather forecast?

4. I love this Social Media Monopoly game! Jail is MySpace (ha!), and Free Parking is Free Wi-Fi (of course!).

5. I'd forgotten about Ze Frank's wonderful "Young Me/Now Me" project. (Andy is #143.)

[Update 5/12/13: This post is attracting the spambots, so comments are now officially closed!]

Capital Expenditures

The same day that Steph was admitted to the hospital, I finally got my new washer and dryer! Andy and I had picked them out over the weekend and scheduled delivery for what I thought would be an uneventful Wednesday morning. Luckily, the delivery truck and the plumber were in and out before our appointment with the pediatrician, so that was one thing I didn't have to worry about rescheduling that week.

With some helpful advice from my pals on Twitter—particularly Nancy at Appliance Techs of Marin, who is incredibly knowledgeable and helpful!—we settled on the Whirlpool Duet front-loader set. We purchased them on the last day of July, which entitled us to a $50 rebate for some reason. The salesman also agreed to give us the electric dryer price even though we got the gas dryer. Anyhow, I got to admire how lovely they looked when they were installed, and then I was off to the hospital for a week, so Andy got to break them in. He's not one for reading instruction manuals, so I was nervous, but he managed to figure them out.

With the front-loading washer, you have to use detergent that's labeled HE for "high efficiency." These machines use much less water than top-loaders, so you need a more concentrated detergent, and you use less of it. We were told that a top-loader uses 40–45 gallons of water per load (!), compared to 15–20 for a front-loader. We do laundry every day, so I expect to see a big difference in my water bill from now on. The cycle is a little longer, but the clothes are spun around better and come out not quite as wet, so the dryer cycle is in fact shorter. Also, there's no agitator in the washer, so it's supposedly gentler on clothes.

Well, so far, so good! They seem to be doing the job, they don't make any noise, they don't march around the room, and they don't unexpectedly go on strike. 

I hope you will still visit my blog even though I don't expect to be able to regale you with any more tales of laundry woes. It was all I could do not to bash those Maytags with a sledgehammer on their way out my back door.

Then, this past Saturday, we took advantage of Massachusetts' tax-free weekend to buy the kids an iMac! It's the 21" monitor, one size down from mine. We set it up in the basement for them. They've been using a crappy old Windows machine for a long time, so this is pure awesome for them.

One Fine Day

At the Newton-Wellesley Hospital, all the pediatric rooms are private, which is awesome. At Mass. General ... not so much. Ellison 17 houses the babies up through age 5, and Ellison 18 goes up through the teens, and everyone shares a room unless they're infectious. However, when we arrived at MGH from NWH, they put us on 17 because there was no room on 18. For whatever reason, there were tons of sick kids but not many sick babies last week. So Steph and I got a double room all to ourselves, and the only price we had to pay was occasionally hearing a baby crying, which was no big deal to us. We were very grateful for the privacy, and Steph still had access to the awesome game room on 18 during the day.

Me, I had a little trouble concentrating, as you can imagine, but I did take advantage of my distraction-free moments to read and play Scrabble via iPhone and call family members and watch movies with Steph. I had a hefty book with me, One Day by David Nicholls, and it made for great reading. It tells the story of Emma and Dexter, who have a mini-hookup (Look! I'm hip! I know teen lingo!) on the night after their college graduation. They couldn't be more different—Emma is serious, thoughtful, bookish, and politically active, while Dexter is a womanizing, hard-drinking fly-by-night. However, they get under each other's skin and promise to stay in touch. Which they do.

The gimmick of the book is that each chapter takes place on July 15, beginning in 1988 and going up to 2007. Em and Dex aren't necessarily together on that day every year, but we learn what they're up to and what happened in the previous year. One year they might happen to be having dinner together on July 15; another year one is in London and the other in India; another they're attending a mutual friend's wedding, but not together. It's a very clever gimmick, and it works.

The writing is terrific. One Day is sure to be made into a movie, and someone is going to have a very easy job converting the novel into a screenplay, because the dialog is spot-on throughout. (In the Acknowledgments, Nicholls thanks his friends for the many "smart remarks and observations" that he "pilfered" for use in this book. I think I would like to hang out with Nicholls and his friends if only for the guarantee of sharp, delightful banter.)

I really enjoyed this book, even though I didn't like Dex at all. I could definitely see how Em and others found him charming and irresistible and forgivable (and I probably would too, in real life), but man, I wanted to smack him more than once. Nicholls managed to create very realistic characters; even those with smaller roles felt fully fleshed out to me. In fact, Emma is one of the most authentic female characters I've ever encountered from a male author.

I wasn't sure I'd like this book at all, but I really did. What you see is what you get, however; I don't think there's any deep meaning hidden within. But that's OK for a beach hospital read.

Friday iPod Random Ten

1. Pretty Girl From Annapolis (live) - The Avett Brothers
2. Hello In There - John Prine
3. Tip That Waitress (live) - Loudon Wainwright III
4. Sophisticated Lady - Cat Power
5. Willin' (live) - Uncle Tupelo 
6. Angel From Montgomery (live) - Dave Matthews Band
7. What a Wonderful World - David Bromberg   
8. Down On The Riverbed - Dave Alvin
9. Pantry - Lyle Lovett
10. Don't Think Twice - Susan Tedeschi

Getting Used to Being Home

I am nearly done with my hospital posts, but not quite. I'm finding that this whole experience is taking me a while to work through. Last night I woke up several times and imagined that I was in a hospital bed, complete with side rails and a 40° head inclination.

I was in switched-on mode for a whole week, and really fell apart only on Friday—granted, for most of the day, but still. All the other days I didn't cry or let down my guard even once. I was on a mission, and that was to get my kid the care she needed so she could recover and go home. It was in so many ways an altered state of reality. I didn't think about showering (although I'm sure some of our guests wished I had!) or eating or sleeping or work or any other obligations. I did think about Pete and Julie, of course, but I knew that Andy was on top of that situation. At one point I do recall asking him if he'd fed the cats, and he had. He bought a different brand of toilet paper than we usually get, but hey! He bought toilet paper! Who am I to judge? I was focused.

As sorry as I was feeling for Steph (and myself), it didn't take much to put things into perspective once we got to Mass. General. My kid is dragging an IV pole to the game room, and there's another kid doing the same, but this one's bald. Here's a girl who says, "Why are you here? I have a tumor!" There are toddlers in rooms that no one can go into without full infection-protection garb. There's an infant getting passed from nurse to nurse because she has no one there with her—we're told that she's headed for foster care. There are kids who are greeted with hearty welcomes because they've been there so often that everyone knows them. There's a girl with her entire head wrapped in white gauze, with one lone braid hanging out the back—who knows why?

So, I am grateful that Steph has a manageable condition, at least for now, and that this blip on the screen was unprecedented. I hope that we will be attuned to future flare-ups and can nip them in the bud before they get quite this bad, but in any event, I am very content just to be home with the whole family. The prospect of an uneventful weekend never sounded so appealing.

Have You Hugged Your Nurse Today?

We love Steph's GI and feel very grateful to have found her. Her approach with us and with Steph is just right, she explains things well, she's straightforward, and she's kind. She even called me today from her vacation to ask how Steph was doing, and immediately worked some magic to switch around a followup appointment next week so we can go to Newton-Wellesley instead of shlepping back into town.

We met lots of other doctors this week, both at Newton-Wellesley and at Mass. General, and we felt confident that Steph was getting great care with all of them. One doctor from NWH even came to check on Steph over the weekend at MGH. Granted, some doctors are better than others at explaining things or at talking to a kid. When it comes right down to it, I'd rather have a competent doctor who's lacking in bedside manner than the other way around, but most of the doctors we saw were both skilled and personable.

We also had a terrific team of paramedics in the ambulance—imagine, we were smiling and laughing during what would have otherwise been a very anxiety-producing ride!

There are also "child life specialists" who work on the pediatric wards, bringing DVDs or art supplies or just themselves. (As an aside, we watched Bride Wars, The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, Bedtime Stories, Made of Honor, 13 Going on 30, Cheaper by the Dozen, Night at the Museum, and several other movies that I can no longer remember.) And there are lots of volunteers; we even got visited by Tucker, a sweet and affectionate golden Lab, on Pet Therapy Day.

 

But the nurses, that's another story. We had the most amazing nurses. And somehow I suspect that if we'd had an entirely different group of nurses, we'd feel just as lucky and blessed. I think nurses are magical. Nurses get very protective of their patients and will go out of their way to make them comfortable. For instance, Steph has horrible veins for drawing blood and putting in IV lines. She had more than one session of getting poked and stabbed numerous times without luck, and we were both ready to lose it. The next time, our nurse moved Steph's scheduled blood draw up 3 hours so she could have "the best" IV nurse do it before her shift ended. What a difference! Afterward, Steph turned to "the best" IV nurse and said with gratitude and awe, "You are my favorite person in the whole world."

The day before we went home, it was a nurse who said we could disconnect the monitors so that Steph could get out of bed without having to unplug everything. It was the same nurse who later asked the doctor if Steph could get off her IV so she could walk around without dragging her IV cart with her. (One nurse named her IV cart "George"; she said, "For the next few days, George will be your best friend. You won't go anywhere without George.") We even had one nurse at both NWH and MGH—that was like a reunion with an old friend!

So, our warmest thanks to Janice, Elise, Daniel, Helen, Mary, Kathy, Karen, Meredith, Donna, Katie, and all the others whose names I've forgotten. Every one of you made a difference. Every moment of cheer or optimism or comfort that you brought to Steph (and to me) helped make a very hard week a little easier.

The Opposite of a Vacation

As many of you have commented via email, it's unprecedented for me to go so long without blogging—one day here or there, maybe two, but not nine! I wish I could say I was gallivanting about on a wonderful vacation, but the truth is that I have been staying at the hospital with Steph all this time. Out of respect for her privacy, I won't go into the details, but I will say that she had a flare-up of a chronic condition and we had to pick her up at camp last Tuesday night. She was admitted to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital on Wednesday, then transferred (via ambulance!) to Mass. General on Friday. We just got home late this afternoon. She is relatively stable now and expected to recover just fine after some rest and new meds. (Her camp is ending on Thursday, so she won't be able to go back.)

I am feeling very grateful to live in a city with world-class health care. I also feel blessed to have so many helpful and supportive friends and family members, including the many dozens of Twitter pals who rode this out with me and really did make a difference. Every time I checked my iPhone while waiting for doctors and lab results and found a few words of encouragement, I bucked up a bit.

Now we're home, and I'm finally hitting the wall after a week of being strong and brave. Oh, and that reminds me: You can expect a post in the next day or so about how nurses are the closest thing we have to angels on earth.

The Help

I thought I was the last person (well, maybe the last woman) on the planet to read The Help by Kathryn Stockett, but it turns out that several of my Twitter pals haven't read it yet either. Anyhow, I did read it last week, and I'm glad I did.

In case you've been living in a cave, Stockett was born and raised in Mississippi at a time when rich white families still hired black maids to take care of the house and the kids. In The Help, she tells the story of a young woman, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, who grew up in that community but comes home from Ole Miss and starts questioning "the way things have always been." She's not exactly aware of civil rights (although events such as the murder of Medgar Evers and the March on Washington are mentioned), but she knows that it doesn't feel right when, for instance, her best friend suggests that all households should install a separate bathroom so their black maids won't use the same toilets as the white families they work for. These families won't let the black maids shop in their supermarkets unless they're wearing their maid uniforms and are clearly shopping for a white family—why? They can't touch food that they're going to eat, but they can buy, prepare, and serve it to white people? They take care of—and, in many cases, actually raise—the white children but are not trusted with the family silver.

Skeeter enlists the help of some of the black maids in town and asks them to tell their stories of life as a black maid in a white family. They tell the good, the bad, and the ugly (mostly the latter two), and Skeeter records their words, changing names and other identifying information as necessary. She's hoping to get the collection published.

I know that some people were put off by Stockett's use of black Southern dialect for the maids' sections, but I didn't find it offensive—but, then again, I'm not black. I don't know whether those who complained about it were white people being offended on behalf of blacks or black people who found it offensive. As far as I could tell, Stockett worked hard to present the story the way she lived it and remembered it. I thought it was an admirable effort.

It's not great literature, but it was a very interesting, entertaining, and moving read. I don't know a single man who has read it, though, which makes me wonder whether it is indeed "chick lit" as I feared (which was why I put off reading it for so long). Perhaps there is some "chick lit" that is still worthwhile reading.