Lots of stuff
by Tee on Nov.09, 2008, under general ramblings
It’s been a busy time around here. Since I’m playing catch-up from my last post, I’ll give you the Readers Digest version of the past couple of months.
After being diagnosed with extremely high cholesterol, low testosterone and vitamin B12 levels, the doctor put me on a regimen of medications in the hopes of bringing everything back under control and bring me back from the brink of a heart attack. I was okay with this decision. The hardest part of the medications was the fact that Bekah gets to give me a shot every two weeks with a needle the size of the one in Gatlinburg.
So, I took the medications for nearly two months and invoked a radical change of my diet. First of all, I cut out sugar completely. This is a huge thing for me. That means no sweet tea. I’m a southern man. Technically speaking, I think this is actually in violation of the Geneva Convention. Second, I cut out all red meat. See the first point. Then, I cut out all enriched white flour and switched totally to 100% whole grain. Everything. This part wasn’t that bad.
This diet, along with the testosterone shots has proved to be quite a great thing. The most important thing is that I went down two pants sizes. I didn’t lose any actual weight, it just all suddenly turned to muscle. I have more energy than I think I’ve ever had. In short, it’s been incredible.
I even brought my cholesterol down nearly 600 points in two months. My doc was shocked. She’d never seen such a drastic turn around so quickly.
Here’s the bad news: Just about the time I started getting all this energy and feeling great, I developed water on my knee. This is incredibly painful and I don’t recommend it. After tracking down my medical records from my knee surgery in Texas, I finally got an appointment with an orthopedist and got it looked at. I was put in a leg immobilizer and on crutches – again, just at the time when I’ve got all this newfound energy.
I had a series of X-rays and MRIs all of which showed absolutely nothing wrong with my knee except the fluid. In other words, there was no apparent trauma that cause the fluid buildup. Strange. So, the doctor drained it. This is quite possibly the most excruciating thing I’ve ever been through. Ever. Then again, I’ve never given birth to a child.
He sent the fluid off to the lab in the hopes of finding out something there, but the labs came back clean. No infection, no gout, no arthritis (which is good news, but didn’t explain my problem). After draining it, the swelling went down a bit, but the flexibility had not yet come back and I could not put weight on it. The next week I went back and he gave me a cortizone shot (again, very painful to have a needle stuck into your knee) and over the past 10 days, I’ve slowly worked myself down from two crutches to one, from one crutch down to my cane, and finally I’ve started leaving the cane at home and am flying solo again. I go back in today for a “final” checkup on the knee and hopefully to be fitted for a proper knee brace. I’ve been using the generic “OTC” knee braces forever. They work okay, but I can never find one large enough to fit around my calf muscles. They usually wind up cutting off my circulation throughout the day.
Every day since the cortizone shot has been better than the one before it. I’m still not running any marathons, but at least I’m walking without any help. I’m still cringing when I go up or down a set of stairs.
Ian’s speech keeps getting better and better. We are still on the books for an autism screening in May at Vanderbilt. He is making great strides. He loves his speech teachers (both at the Bellwood School and at MTSU)! Morgan made the honor roll and was named a Good Citizen at her school last month. We couldn’t be happier with either of our kids! Halloween pictures can be found in the Facebook gallery. Ian made a pretty convincing Woody from Toy Story.
In other news, my office (which I share with John Mauldin) is being moved to a larger one across campus. Get this: I’m actually going to have an office in the theatre building! This move should be happening in the next week or so.
Was There Ever Life Before Ambien?
by Tee on Aug.08, 2008, under Family
Seriously.
It’s been a rough week since I last posted. In fact, it’s been so rough, that I’m opening a new window to read my last post to make sure I’m not repeating anything.
So, Tylenol with Codine did the trick. It was much easier to deal with the pain after that and he slept a little better (at least during the day–more on that in a bit), but the psychological damage had been done with regards to food and we are still dealing with that a little bit even today.
The day of the surgery, when we got home, he saw mom eating her lunch which just happened to be his favorite meal in the world: spaghetti. He pointed at it to indicate that he would like some and when I asked him if that’s what he wanted, he nodded “yes”. (Speaking was still painful to him at this point so, speech therapy or no, we weren’t pushing the whole talking thing like we normally do.) The doctor told us to give him anything he wanted as long as it wasn’t any warmer than room temperature. So, I cooled down some of mommy’s spaghetti (testing on my arm like I haven’t done in nearly nearly 4 years) and got down to work.
I picked up the fork and tried to give him a small bite all the while telling him to chew it up really good. Well, bless his heart, he was so hungry from not having eaten since the night before the surgery that he kept trying to grab the fork out of my hand. I would back the fork away telling him that I needed to feed him, but that just upset him further. I decided that it would be okay for him to feed himself as long as I was right there with him. He tried to scarf the food down in huge handful-sized bites. At this point, he was still riding the high of the anesthesia from the surgery, but it still didn’t stop the sharp pains in his throat as he swallowed the huge bites of food.
So now, in addition to just being pretty pissed off about the constant pain in his throat, he was also afraid of food. He wouldn’t even go near the typical tonsillectomy fare like ice cream and popsicles. We could hardly get him to drink anything let alone eat. So, keeping him hydrated and medicated became a WWE affair with the tag team of Big Bad Daddy and Hot Momma in one corner and Ian “The Hulk” Quillin taking on a grudge match in the other corner. “THIS TIME THEY’RE GOING DOWN!!!”
No kidding. Bekah had to hold his arms in place while I, standing off to the side so as not to get kicked in the nuts (kicking below the belt is apparently not only allowed, but encouraged in this league), would have to use one hand to hold his head straight while I tried to use the other to put the medicine–and eventualy, Pedialyte–into his mouth with a syringe, of which he would promptly spit out 75%. Of every dosage.
At one point, there was a streak of pink goo streaked across his bedroom wall that, had it been red would have looked perfect in the next Halloween installment–what is it now, XXXV? But I digress.
By Saturday, the only thing he would even attempt to put down his throat on his own was chocolate milk. I now own stock in Nesquick. I love that damn rabbit. Love him. And somehow he just knows, you know? If you click on that link, one of the first things you’ll see if the phrase, “Come to Your Happy Place.” Coincidence? Uh-uh.
Ian didn’t eat his first solid food until almost exactly one week after his last meal before the surgery. That’s right. Tuesday night, he suddenly walks into the living room, pats me on the shoulder and says–actually speaks–, “I want pizza.”
We were in the car headed to Lil Caesars so fast, I’m sure I broke several land speed records. I got the pizza home and adequately cooled off and he very carefully ate two whole slices (he doesn’t like the crusts) and helped himself to two cups of his beloved chocolate milk.
But, I haven’t even mentioned the lack of sleep. The first night, since we were on Tylenol only, he suddenly reached up with his hand and pointed toward his bedroom and slipped off mommy’s lap and started putting himself to bed. I thought, wow, this might actually be an okay night. That was around 7pm and rather than Bekah and I immediately following suit and crashing into our own bed, we decided to sit up and have some adult TV time. (No, not that kind of adult TV time.) Silly parents.
By 9pm, we would hear him beginning to cry through the baby monitor which I had dug out of moth balls and placed back in his room for the first time in nearly 3 years. By the time we could round the corner and step into his room, he was into full-out hysterics. 9pm also happened to be when his next dosage of Tylenol was due. So, we headed back into the ring for one more round. After that, the only thing that would calm him down was mommy slowly rocking him back and forth. So, she headed to the rocking chair while I acted like I could go to sleep without having taken my Ambien that night. Silly Daddy.
Eventually, Mommy made her way back into the bed room with an arm full of very sleepy, yet very pissed off little boy. We decided to let him sleep in our bed that night. I use the term “sleep” in a humorous way. We didn’t sleep because every time he swallowed, he would burst out into tears. Even after the Tylenol. So, every 10 minutes or so, when his mouth had filled up with all the saliva it could handle and he was forced to swallow it, we were awakened by the sound of him screaming and catching his breath after having swallowed. This didn’t help the whole fear of food thing, either. Eventually, whether through exhaustion or simple repetition, he got to the point where we could just tell him that everyting was okay and he would stop crying and catch another 10 minutes of sleep.
We did this for two nights straight.
Friday morning, neither Bekah nor I felt human. If you listen to this week’s episode of the podcast, you’ll see that I wasn’t really part of it. John put the whole show together for me. He also got to have a lot of fun at my expense, but what did I know? I was a walking zombie.
In a way, it was worse for her because she had to go in to work and deal with The Public. I, on the other hand, got to stay home and try the one-on-one bouts of administering his medication. The first real night of sleep we got was Monday night. Thankfully, Bekah had Tuesday off so as to get Morgan registered for school.
Skip forward to yesterday; one week and one day after Ian’s surgery. Morgan wakes Bekah and I up complaining of a sore throat. Since we were both enjoying the deep restful sleep that only corpses and overnight security men enjoy, we shrugged it off as her trying to get a little bit of the attention that brother had been stealing from her for a whole week now.
After we got up and checked her out, it turns out that, in fact, she was running a fever. We both instantly jumped to worst case scenario (because we are parents). If Morgan had strep throat, then it would be likely that Ian could get it. If Ian got it on top of just having had his tonsils out, not only would he wind up in the hospital, we would also be starting over from square one with his recovery.
We quaratined Morgan to her room and called the doctor for an appointment. Then we watched the flashing colon on the digital clock that is our cable box slow down just to mock us. I finally took Morgan in to the doctor and we went thought the whole culture thing–which I can’t stand, let alone sit by and watch someone do it to my daughter. It came back negative, so after spending the co-pay to the doctor’s office we went home without so much as a courtesy prescription of Placebex (use only as directed) just to make us feel better. We were told to watch her temperature and come back if it didn’t go away in 24 hours.
It did.
The story is not quite over, however. This afternoon, Morgan began to develop a light rash around her lips. Bekah treated it with some Neosporin and we went about our day. In fact, Morgan got to spend the day swimming at her Maw-maw and Paw-paw’s house. Tonight, when she got home, the rash had begun to show up on her hands as well. I immediately called Nurse Maw-Maw and asked her what I could do tonight other than putting more Neosporin on it. She told me that it looked like the beginnings of impetigo, which she very likely picked up while we were at the doctor’s office getting her sore throat checked out.
And now, tomorrow morning, I have to take her back to the same doctor’s office to get her diagnosed with impetigo and, hopefully, have something a little stronger than just the over-the-counter Neosporin to knock it out because she could very well miss her first day of the first grade if she’s not contagion-free. I don’t want my little girl to miss her first day of first grade for some silly, highly contagious rash.
I wrote all of this to simply tell you that if you happen to live in the greater Nashville area and happen to need any medications of any kind, they are probably all over at our house. See, I didn’t even tell you about all the medical stuff that happened to me this week…
Tonsils: An Update
by Tee on Aug.01, 2008, under Family
We kinda survived. There were no issues with the IV. However, he was not a happy camper about the seemingly never ending sore throat that goes along with getting your tonsils out.
To make matters worse, it took this operation to discover that my son is allergic to hydrocodone. The painkillers they prescribed for him had the exact opposite reaction that it was supposed to. Rather than making him lethargic and want to sleep (and numb the pain at the same time), this medicine made him completely hyper (and we couldn’t tell if he was feeling less pain or not). So, we had to tough it out with regular old children’s Tylenol until we could get in touch with the doctor’s office the next day.
Needless to say, Wednesday night was pretty rough around here. At first, it looked like everything was going to be okay. Without notice, Ian suddenly sat up in Bekah’s lap and announced that he was going to bed at around 7:30p. We did not argue. We walked him into his room, made him as comfortable as we could and hoped for the best for a good night’s sleep. However, about two hours later, he was up and screaming because of the pain in his throat. We gave him his Tylenol and put him to bed with us. Where we learned that he had been not swallowing his saliva until he absolutely had to. So, about every 10-15 minutes, we would hear him swallow followed by either a very dry cough and/or a short round of screaming in pain. This went on until about 2:30a. After that, I couldn’t sleep anymore. I got up, had a midnight snack, and read a lot in my book.
Anyway, yesterday, they prescribed Tylenol with Codine and that seemed to do the trick. My son has been sleeping very well since. In fact, I think he’s actually on another orbit right now. He really wants something to eat and/or drink, but he takes the first sip of something and will not touch another drop of it after he feels it causing more pain in this throat. We are having to force liquids on him to keep him from getting dehydrated.
It’s been a long two days and today is probably going to be the worst for me. Bekah’s at work today and I’m home with both of the kids by myself. After he wakes up from his early morning drug-induced nap, I’m going to have to force him to take his antibiotic and try to get some Pedialyte into him somehow. Yesterday, it took Bekah and I together to accomplish both of these tasks and it still was a wrestling match.
Wish me luck.
Tonsils and Acting
by Tee on Jul.28, 2008, under Family
Okay, so I went a couple of weeks without updating. Shoot me.
I was in Arab helping my brother with an acting workshop for his musical theatre program at the high school. The kids rocked the house. It was a two week program and I found myself wishing there were more time even though I was also homesick for the rest of the family. The first week, I had both kids with me (Granna and Aunt Lena watched them while I did the camp) and the second week, it was just Morgan and I staying down in Hunstville while I drove back and forth to Arab every day. It was a tough schedule, but it was oh so worth it.
In other news:
The day after tomorrow, Ian is having a tonsillectomy. Bekah has the day of the surgery off, but after that I’m on my own with a irritable little boy with a very sore throat. Thank God for pain medication. I also have a He-Man of a son. When we took him in for his blood work a couple of weeks ago, the first time the nurse stuck him, he bucked like a mule and ripped the needle out of his arm. It took three of us to hold him down while another nurse stuck him again!
That’s one of the hardest things about being a parent: taking them to the doctor. Here is a child who looks to you for everything.
Every.
Thing.
And, then you have to sit and look them in the eyes and try to tell them it’s okay and that this is going to make them feel better or that this shot will keep them from getting sick knowing full well that the child looking back at you is only thinking one thing: WHY ARE YOU LETTING THIS STRANGE PERSON HURT ME, DADDY? The guilt factor is very high with doctor visits when shots are involved. Luckily, most of the shots are complete before the children begin to develop a memory for these things. Coincidence?
Not likely.
Anyway, back to Ian being a He-Man. The day I took him in for his last round of booster shots last year (before he started to the new preschool), I had to take him in by myself because Bekah had to work that day. Not only that, but I had Morgan as well. The visit with the doctor went amazingly well. I love our pediatrician. He rocks. Great, dry sense of humor and an amazingly relaxed beside manner (especially considering that 99% of the kids that come in to see him leave the office screaming).
Anyway, the nurse and I played it really cool with the whole shot thing. Ian had had a great time with Dr. Rosser but I knew that his day was about to get really bad. She came in and started prepping him and everything was going well even all the way through the alcohol swap. Ian was laughing and playing and I actually thought, “you know; everything’s going to be okay this time.“ Needless to say, neither the nurse nor I were prepared for the Hulk emerging from my son at the very moment the first needle went into his leg. My son–I kid you not–instinctively lashed out with the hand that I was holding and grabbed the syringe and yanked it out of his leg before she could drop the plunger. Knocked it completely out of her hand. The syringe landed on the table beside his leg with the needle completely bent in a 45 degree angle right at the base. The nurse and I were in such shock that we almost let him get off the table (because he was suddenly moving with the speed of a hungry cheetah). She had to go out and prep another syringe in order to get all three in one swoop, but it took two nurses that time to hold him down while the third did the dirty work.
Needless to say, Bekah and I are very concerned about this upcoming surgery. Not because of the risks of the surgery or any of that. We’re worried about the fact that the anesthesia has to be administered via an IV.
I know the doctors and nurses are experienced in this stuff, but I can’t shake the image of my son on a screaming rampage, completely destroying the operating room just before he leaps through the plate-glass window and runs off looking for a few unsuspecting villagers to ravage.
After all this, I’ll make sure I post something on Wednesday night to let you know that we all survived the surgery. And I don’t just mean the family. I mean the whole damn town.
one more thing marked off the to-do list
by Tee on Jul.11, 2008, under Family
Family pictures. These were done at the Portrait Innovations in Murfreesboro. If you go there, make sure you ask for Kyle. He’s awesome!
The Gadget Wars
by Tee on Jul.02, 2008, under general ramblings
No, it’s not what you think.
Those of you who know me well know that I’m a gadget freak. Almost to a fault (but, then again, who’s really going to admit to an excess of anything, right?). So, for Christmas, my present was a GPS unit for the truck. I picked out the Garmin c340, because it is a GPS. I know there are fancier models out there, but really, who needs their GPS unit to show pictures and play mp3s on that tiny crappy speaker? The price was right and I went for it.
Skip ahead to this morning. I found out that the 2009 Map Upgrade was available and I was going to pick it up since we are leaving for out trip on Sunday. I figured, why not have the most current map on the thing since we are about to take our first “road trip” in several years? So, I got online to Garmin’s website to see about ordering it. I went through the process and attempted to place the order and I got a response that told me that my order had not been processed. So, I gave up and decided to find if there was a store in town that had it on DVD and I would just install it that way. It turns out BestBuy had it, so I scurried over there and picked it up.
Then I get home to find out that Garmin Internation has charged my debit card for the amount of the upgrade 15 TIMES!! You read it correctly, my friends. Fifteen friggin’ times they charged my card and I only clicked the submit button once. Total charges equalling over $1,000. So, I got back online to find out what the hell was going on. I logged in to my account on their website and clicked on the link to track my current orders expecting to see 15 orders. The account showed no recent purchase activity on my account.
I called the bank first, to tell them of the error and to hold those charges. They told me there was something about the charges and they would have to wait to be posted to my account and then I would have to get the merchant to reimburse me. Oh, hell no.
I called Garmin. The droid that answered the phone was helpful, but was not very nice about it. If you know me well enough to know that I’m a gadget freak, you also know that I’m very patient – especially with customer service types. I paid my dues by being one of those people all the way through grad school. So, all I did was tell the same story you just read to the lady on the phone very plainly so there would be no confusion. I didn’t condescend to her, lose my temper or make any derogetory remarks of any kind. After telling me to treat her like a human being (oh yeah), she informed me that since there was no order number attached to those charges they would simply disappear from my bank account within 24-48 hours. I asked her what assurance I had that would happen. She replied, “It’s just the way our system works.” I told her that wasn’t good enough and she told me to call my bank if I had any more issues. I informed her that I had already been in touch with my bank and that they told me to call them. I further explained that if those funds cleared my account and the money was actually withdrawn that I would begin the process with the bank to have them labelled as fraudulent and her company could take it up with the FTC. She asked me if there was anything else she could do for me and I laughed – I never do that. Through my laugh I said no and she thanked me for calling and told me to have a nice day.
I called the bank back and informed them of the situation. Bottom line: the charges are incorrect and they must not be allowed to be withdrawn from my account. Period. The young man I spoke with, Braulio, was most helpful. He looked into the issue and verified what the droid at Garmin had said: more than likely the charges would disappear overnight and everything would be okay. No funds withdrawn; no potential for an overdrawn account. I explained that more than likely was not good enough. I asked him to make a note on my account that this was a merchant error and that I should not be charged any overdraft fees in the unlikely event of a further problem. He agreed and asked me to hold for a second. (By this point, I had been on the phone for over an hour, most of the time spent listening to hold music. The longest hold times were Garmin’s, not the bank’s.) When he picked up again, he told me to contact Garmin again and ask them to contact the bank with a magic six digit merchant authorization number and tell them to ask the bank to remove the charges. I thanked him and told him I would do that.
Let me be clear. At no time did I ask for, nor did I expect, Garmin to refund the money to my account. I understood that no transaction had actually occurred yet. I was simply asking them to make sure that no transaction took place at all.
So, I had to wait on hold again with Garmin (minimum hold time with them was 28 minutes) and another droid picked up again. I explained my problem again and she put me on hold to talk to her supervisor. When she came back, she informed me that she would have to get some detailed information from me and forward it on their accounting department. We did that.
Finally, everything was taken care of to my satisfaction, but not without a lot of gnashing of teeth in this household. I’m writing this to pass along this message to the world: Garmin makes some of the best navigation systems in the world. I own two of them. However, they haven’t figured out the world of online commerce yet. DO NOT purchase any Garmin equipment via their website. It is crap. You can log in to access free updates to software and “window shop,” but don’t give them a credit card number via their website. Go to a brick-and-mortar place and buy it there.
Twittering
by Tee on Jul.01, 2008, under Website News
Is it sad that I just installed a widget from Twitter on my site that will allow me to keep my “status” the same on Twitter, Facebook and my own site?
And shouldn’t I have used that question as my status update? Hmmm…
Finally!
by Tee on Jun.30, 2008, under Family
So, Bekah and I are finally getting a chance to take a mini-vacation this weekend! We are headed to Gatlinburg, TN otherwise known as the Redneck Riviera. The thing is, we won’t be staying in Gatlinburg. We are actually going to be staying in a log cabin closer to Sevierville, TN. I surprised her with it and the response was everything I had hoped it would be. We can not wait until Saturday when we take the kids down to Granna’s and head back up to Bell Buckle, TN to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the first annual Tennessee Shakespeare Festival! (My friend Lane Davies is both directing and playing Oberon and several of my students at MTSU are in the show.) Then, Sunday it’s off to the Smokies!
For a thousand different reasons, it’s been nearly three-and-a-half years since we’ve been able to go on a vacation, let alone have any time to ourselves away from the house. Sure, they’ve taken a couple of week-long trips to Granna’s in the past, but Bekah and I would just come home and do anything but relax. We’d do the major chores that needed doing or cleaned up the kids’ rooms. Those of you with kids will certainly understand. Those of you without, let that be a warning to you.
Anyway, I wanted to share with you some of the pictures from the Maples Ridge Cabin Rentals website. These are the shots of the cabin we have rented! By the way, the prices were right and the people were fantastic on the phone!
Be on the lookout late next week. I’ll be posting updates about our experience and some more pictures from our trip (at least, the ones I can).
photos…
by Tee on Jun.26, 2008, under general ramblings
So, Bekah is prepping for her big scrapbooking weekend with the girls and she was going through our vast collection of family photos to have printed out at Wal-Mart. She completed her order, but there was only one problem. Some of the pictures she sent to be printed were photos that were taken at various photo studios all over the southeast!
When I got to the store to pick them up, they had marked some of the ones that they thought were in need of a copyright release. However, not all of the photos were ones taken by a photographer. They had tagged some of my own shots aside! So, we had to go through the entire batch of pictures and pull out the ones that were “contraband” and I was refunded the money.
When I got to the car, it hit me: Someone thought my snapshots were professional photos! Here’s a sample of some of the shots they thought weren’t mine.
Has this every happened to you?
Ian
by Tee on Jun.24, 2008, under Family
So, Ian’s got to have his tonsils out. It’s going to happen in about a month. It shouldn’t be that big a deal because we’ve already been through this with Morgan and she was younger than he is now when it happened. Still, there is no feeling worse than the helplessness that parents feel when their child is being wheeled off for surgery. I’ve already had that thought cross my mind about Ian.
I know. I know. It’s not that big of a surgery, so I shouldn’t worry, right? Well, what concerns me is that Ian’s is a little bit different. I’m not as worried about the actual surgery as I am the recovery. Because of his speech delay–or perhaps tied to his speech delay– I’m concerned how he might react to the pain during the initial recovery.
Anyway, it’s all going to be fine.
We are also taking him up to Vanderbilt in the next few months to have his developmental delays tested further at the Center for Child Development. Supposedly, it’s the best in the world. I’m anxious about going, not because I’m afraid of what we’ll hear as a diagnosis, but to have the diagnosis so we can get on with more specialized treatment for him.
He has come so far in the past 9 months with speech & language therapy as well as his occupational therapy he’s getting at preschool. We have seen major developments with him as time has gone by. But, as a parent, there’s always that nagging little voice in the back of my head telling me that we are not doing enough for his development. There’s got to be more we can do to help him catch up. Even though, I know that catching up is a very subjective term. Catch up with what? Statistics?
He’s a great kid and we are going to make sure he’s got everything he needs.
