Life is Strange

It seems that I have not had much time for posting.

I guess sometimes life just likes to pull the carpet out from under us and run away shrieking hysterically, while our head hits the pavement. That is what happened to me on Tuesday. Talk about 180 turn around from expectations. To show up at the hospital ready to take Jared home, and then have everything change and be sitting in the surgery waiting room at twelve thirty that night. Well to say it was unexpected would be an understatement. After the initial shock, I seem to be coping reasonably well.

While waiting for Jared to come out of surgery, I read the USA today that was sitting on the table. Apparently the rest of the world is continuing to function. This reminds me of the time when Marion's dad passed away. It was the December of that awful Tsunami in Thailand. I honestly missed the whole thing. We did not turn on the TV for over a week. It was a couple weeks later at the orthodontist that I read about the horrible devastation. I was shocked that something like that could happen and I would not have even heard of it.

So while waiting to find out the fate of my son, I read things like this:

Fish pedicures pamper flaky feet

"A pedicure in which dozens of tiny, toothless carp nibble away the flaky dead skin on your feet is the latest in unusual spa treatments. John Ho and his wife, Yvonne Le, say they began offering the treatment four months ago at the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon in Alexandria, VA. Traditionally, a rough instrument is used to scrape off dead skin. The garra rufa fish, also known as doctor fish is used in the procedure that originated in Turkey and has become popular in some Asian countries. It costs $35 for 15 minutes, $50 for $30."

I had to read this article twice. Are you kidding me? People pay to have fish nibble at their feet. EEEWWW! I don't get it. What. The. Heck. Doctor Suess's next book: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, These fish wear coats of fur, These fish give a pedicure.

Another thing I don't get around here, is how many health care professionals smoke. What is up with that? You would think that seeing first hand the results of smoking, (ie emphysema, stokes, heart attacks, cancer) well, I would think that might help deter someone. I guess I just don't understand the addiction. It seems very sad to me. And when you have nurses who smoke, well they just have to take more breaks, than nurses who don't smoke. I am not very impressed with that.

I miss all my friends in the PICU. It is hard to have to start over and make new friends. Yesterday, I was pretty much determined not to do it. But now that it looks like we will be here so long, I guess it will happen anyway. Because lets face it, I am not really capable of not making friends. I am just a freak that way. A friend freak is good, right. (kind of like 'death by pirates is good' What movie is that from?) So I guess I should just embrace it.

We have the same day nurse today that we had yesterday, and she will be here tomorrow. She seems even more confident today. She is so cute and is from Louisiana. She has the sweetest accent. She discovered that one of the ports on Jared's pic line is clogged. This improves my opinion of her. And we are getting to know her better, which makes me feel better. I wonder if she was ever in a pageant, she is that pretty with dark hair and creamy white skin. Think Snow White is hot pink scrubs. Gosh, it sounds like I have a crush on her, which is not the case, I am just bored and looking for things to write about.

Our nurse last night was very competent. She will be here again tonight. I actually found some of Trent's ear plugs in the car and finally managed to crash last night about 11:30. Jared was calling to me at 12:30 that he needed his ice pack refilled with ice. Finally when I didn't respond after he threw the ice pack at me, he had to call me on the phone. I had my phone on vibrate and so that woke me up. I walked down the hall, blurry eyed and got the ice. Then I went back to sleep and slept through all the 4 am vitals and IV antibiotics. Then he called me again at 6:30 am to get him some pain pills. I am not sure why he doesn't just buzz for the nurse. Now that I am awake I will discuss that with him. In a half awake state I just did what I had to do to make him stop bugging me and let me go back to sleep. Then I slept til 8:30. I am not sure if I am going to stay again tonight, but if I do maybe I will turn my phone off. :)

We had a roommate when we first got here on Wed night. He got to go home about noon on Thursday. Then we got a new roommate last night about 9:30. The first kid had a collapsed lung and was in the room next to us in the PICU for 2 days. The mom said that the reason his lung collapsed was just that it happens some times to kids that are tall and skinny. Who knew that was something to lie awake worrying about when you have a tall and skinny kid. Note to self: add that to list of things to lie awake and worry about.


Our second room mate was pushed down by his brother and he landed on a pencil. Yep, it was an puncture wound to his behind. Impaled on a pencil, not good. That sounds horribly painful. But apparently you can recover from it OK, because he just left after lunch. I guess they just wanted to watch him over night. So it will be interesting/frightening to see who our next room mate will be. Some times it is slow on the weekends and maybe we won't get anyone. That would be nice. Jared did have a fun time playing game cube with this kid this morning. I saw him smile more in a few hours than he had the past few weeks. Good to see.

The doctors just came in and said that his blood work from last night came back looking good. They were looking for inflammation markers and they were down from the blood sample earlier in the week.

Here is a picture of the wall next to his bed, with the cards that my family made in Seattle and my mom brought to him. They definitely put a smile on his face.


The hardest part right now, is making Jared do the things he is suppose to do. For instance sit in a chair three times a day. Kind of like time out but for recovering sick people. It helps your lungs and muscles when you sit upright. The other thing is walking around in the halls. Today he had a hard time walking as far as he did yesterday. And last of all the most torturous thing for him is laying on his stomach to make the wound drain. He has an open hole on his hip a little larger than a quarter. It is pretty gross looking, but Jared said I could take a picture of it the next time they change the dressing. Sure no pictures of him looking better and having fun playing video games with his room mate, but oozing, open holes in his body, no problem. At one point he and his room mate raised their beds up as high as they would go. Here they were about four feet in the air playing video games. The nurse came in and had a fit. "Lower those beds, what if you fall out". Stupid, fun, sucking, liability lawyers. A kid is stuck in bed for three weeks, what else is he going to do for fun?


In retrospect I have come to realize that even though this is his fifth surgery, the previous four happened while he was still sedated. So this is his first surgery that he is feeling the pain of recovery. It hasn't been particularly pleasant because go figure it is hard to be a kind, calm, cooperative fourteen year old boy when you are in excruciating pain. And lets face it fourteen year old boys aren't that kind, calm, or cooperative to begin with, so adding pain is not a good plan.


After lunch we convinced him to sit on the edge of the bed for fifteen minutes and then he laid back down and fell asleep. At this point my mom said "Leave and don't come back for a while". I felt as though I had just been paroled. FREEDOM is a beautiful thing that I have taken for granted far too much.


So I drove right to my hair cutting place and got a much needed hair cut. It felt so good to have someone pampering me, I almost fell asleep. It was over far too quickly. This is when life decided I needed a kick in the teeth, or maybe a wedgie just for good measure. My debit card was not in my purse. It is a Visa card and this is the only credit card they would accept. First I went through everything in my purse at the counter. Then I sat on a chair and emptied my whole purse looking frantically and feeling anxiety filling my whole body. Nope. Nothing. Nada. It was at this point that I remembered the last time I used it was on Wednesday night on my way to the airport to pick up my mom. I stopped by the bank and made a deposit at the ATM. The only thing I can figure out is that I left the card in the machine and just drove off after it took my deposit. I am so distracted that it is totally conceivable as an explanation.

After the airport, we went right to the hospital Wednesday night and I haven't left that place since then, so it had to be at the bank. I called the bank, they told me that cards in the machine are shredded. So this is most likely the case. I next called my bank (which is in Utah, so not the same bank that I made the deposit at) to see if there were any unauthorized purchases on my account. Guess what? Their computers were down and so they could not look at my account. Well, isn't that just special. Not only that they could not cancel my card and send me a new one until the computers come back up. Well that's one way to limit my spending, but it doesn't reassure me that someone has not emptied my account. Geez, life, I know that I am bending over in an irresistible way, but did you have to kick me in the pants like that?

So my nice relaxing haircut turned into another chance for an anxiety attack/nervous break down. Good news, when they take me to the mental hospital, my hair will look cute.