Cleverly Disguised

or, My Travelling Companion was 7 years old.

Often when I travel I find myself singing songs about the area/region/place I'm going to. The standards for Louisiana are the one that has a chorus of 'Goin' to Louisiana with a banjo on my knee', and 'City of New Orleans' (the Arlo Guthrie version, usually), if we're flying in to MSY. There wasn't much in the way of music in my head this time, but now that I'm reflecting on it, most of the Graceland album by Paul Simon is making itself known. We didn't go to Memphis, but we did go to Nashville, and that's close enough for my inner DJ. I played this record (yes, on vinyl) CONSTANTLY my last 2 years of high school, just before I left for good. The sub-title is a modification of one of the lines in the title track on that album.

( Cut mostly for length )

Insert obligatory post about how fantastic it was to get back to Ymir, and we all had a good time (except for the bit where we briefly lost the boy, or he lost us), our newcomers had a great time, it was good to see harleenquinzell get put on vigil (laurel, natch) etc.

But mostly, SQUEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

About an hour before court, when things were devolving into that sort of 'what do we do now?' chaos, I was trying to round up teen-newcomer and the boy to head back down to the field for a bit. llelwyn engaged me in a fairly surreal conversation about sock knitting, and both teen-newcomer and the boy took off, in opposite directions, to elsewhere in the hall. A herald came in and called attention so all could hear their majesties (who had come in behind him), and he opened the court and calls my name. I came forward, and Her Majesty started talking about how I do things, and help out, and so on, so I was thinking I'd get a Golden Dolphin. But no, instead out of left field they made me a court baroness! I'm STILL having trouble believing this. And that was it, the entire attack court, just for me. Because I don't go to court.

So much for a possible diagnosis. I've got a couple of other people to go see, but not a lot of hope at the moment. I've got a pain-management guy at one clinic, and another general surgeon at another clinic. But the general/hernia surgeon I saw at light-blue-U hospital said that it's not a hernia. Of course since 75% of what he sees are hernia patients, that's what he was looking for. *sigh*

I talked to a lady at dark-blue-U hospital today and she couldn't figure out where to send me, so she's sending me to another general surgeon. I dunno, I suppose it's possible that nobody's going to figure this out, and I'll just go through the rest of my life not being able to pick anything up or ride my bicycle or swim or...
dammit.

This evening the immediate family headed over to the boy's school for the annual ritual of Open House. We received reassurances that he was doing great, we had fun talking to other parents and neighbours and his (very bubbly and excellent) teacher, but due to a miscue on my part we didn't sign him up for on-site babysitting so we switched off and each went to one session of the open house while the other hung out with the boy. I got him to finish his homework pretty quickly, so we headed out to tour the school. ( some people shouldn't be allowed... )

I guess I'm glad that I look so trustworthy, and of COURSE I wasn't going to let the kid get hurt/abandoned/whatever, but jeezus freaking christ, people, whatever possesses some people to just run off and leave their charge without confirming that they're looked after? At 7, I would have been fine with them being on the other playground by themselves, and I do try really hard not to be a helicopter parent, but the Rainbow Playground is just too far away and isolated. And the high school was having a football game, so the noise level was pretty high, which means that a hurt kid crying 'help' wouldn't have even been heard down there. The kid had told me that he was there with three people, but I guess they couldn't be bothered to work out a kid-minding schedule among them. Feh.

This, of course, will have to be confirmed with a CT, but it FEELS right. I went to see a 2nd GI/general surgeon, this one at UNC, and he was a good deal more explanatory and willing to listen than the first (irritating) guy.

To those playing catch-up, this is all about my abdominal pain on picking up heavy things. I pick up something heavy (like, say, a baby, or a bag of groceries) and it hurts. Last time I picked up a bag of groceries it hurt for four days. This was about 6 weeks ago. This started when I had a baby (unsurprisingly), although it had been exacerbated by bagpiping, carrying my right foot around while on crutches, and the way I used to hold my hips. At any rate, the visit started out well (including a bus ride because parking at UNC Hospitals SUCKS). I didn't even have time to sit down in the waiting room. I talked to a resident first (when did they get so YOUNG?!?), who was so impressed with my latest medical trick (circling or outlining the problem spot(s) with sharpie) he told me I was hired. I told him that I worked at Dark-blue-U, at which point both he and the nurse said 'What are you doing here, then?!?' which was funny. He felt the crevasse I've got at the bottom of the rectus abdominus, but didn't know quite what to do next. He went and got the attending, who was the man I was there to see anyway. After a great deal of poking around and pushing (which HURT), he sat down and drew me a picture. He thinks I've got an epigastric hernia, which is much more common in newborns. He did also say that I'm not the first bagpiper he's seen (he's a hernia specialist). He said that I need a different kind of CT than the other doctor had tried to order for me, and I've got that scheduled for the 28th of September, with a follow-up visit to see him that same day.

If that's it, then I'll need surgery, and I'll push for the mesh type instead of sutures because I DON'T want to do this again (and I'm not growing, either). I think I can handle this.

I just finished reading The Checklist Manifesto, and it's gotten me thinking about a whole host of things. Not least, I'm thinking about work and workflow and why not just documentation but also process is important, and also about future surgeries (for myself or for people around me), and the possibility of learning to fly an airplane (I've been daunted by the checklist in the past, but I understand the purpose quite a bit better now). But I'm also thinking about different applications entirely for the checklist idea.

If, say, you are on a diet, and you have trouble controlling your willpower, you can keep a checklist to check to see if you can/should eat something or not - not a list of foods, but more a list of 'is it fattening', 'is it nutritious', 'will it REALLY taste all that good', 'how close am I to my calorie target' and so on. I'm still fleshing this out (heh), but it might actually grow into something useful, sort of a willpower-augmentation device. For me, at least. I find if I make up my mind about, say, dessert, BEFORE I get to a place, I'm far less likely to actually have any, for example. A checklist might help me in situations where I am 'attacked' by dessert.

Or for spending money. We all know we shouldn't spend more than our budget, and it's easy to say 'oh, just this once,' or whatever, but if you say 'do I really need it', 'will I still want it in a week', 'is it REALLY in the budget', etc., that might help too. I have much less trouble spending too much than I do with not spending enough, however, so maybe I need to work in the opposite direction, I don't know.

I expect this will grow a bit in the next little while or die completely and you'll never hear another peep. I'm hoping for 'grow a bit'.

Letter I wrote to the DC Metro complaints website:
( clicky for whinging )

We went to DSI Comedy Theater on Friday night, and it was hilarious fun. We were extremely grown-up and skipped dessert that night in favour of the birthday cake I planned for my mom's birthday the next day. I did get a chance to try on Nikulai's favourite shoe but they truly don't fit my odd feet (not that I was at all surprised).

I'd planned all along to throw my mom a small birthday party this Saturday, so N. and I geared up to bake a cake. One of the neighbours called to ask if N. could come over and play, but he didn't want to, so we invited the neighbour O. (an almost-5-year-old) over to help bake. I got N. to teach O. things like how to use the eggbeater and how to turn on the mixer, and they each got a cupcake. It went REALLY smoothly, and didn't take a whole lot longer than if I'd done it all by myself. The cake is FABULOUS - dark, moist, and delicious. Come to K'berg tonight and you'll get to taste it, as it needs to go away before I eat the rest of it.

The small dinner party went well, including a Bakugan game with the birthday-present Bakugan N. got for his Mimi (my mom). What else could he possibly have gotten her?

Sunday saw us buying shoes for Bigfoot, as well as a haircut. He is now buzzed, and he loves it. His favourite part- he doesn't have to comb it!

( cut for those who don't want their teeth to rot out from the sugary-sweet cute )

was stressful.
But not overly so until the end with the epi-pen and the hospital visit...
(everyone is fine, Chow's dad is allergic to stinging insects, he's just in overnight for observation.)

My father-in-law and his wife have between them 4 kids, his two boys (Chow and his brother) and her two girls.

Chow's step-sisters have three kids each - the oldest is a boy, followed by two girls. In both families. It's nearly impossible to keep track of which girls belong to which family. Heck, I have to remind myself regularly who is married to whom (the step-sisters have the same leading consonant to their names, and their husbands are John and Joe). Me, I tend to hang with John and Joe and stay the heck away from father-in-law's wife (step-mother-in-law? good grief.) I've written about her before, and of course she hasn't changed a bit.
Anyway, they have a pool, so today there was a pool party with cook-out. Lunch/dinner was served around 3, which is exactly when I can't eat. So I got an Arby's on the way there and didn't eat at the party. C'est la vie. The 6 step-cousins range in age from almost-17 to two days older than N, and they all have a terrific time with each other. They just fold N. in without even thinking about it. There's no blood relation there, but Chow and his brother and the two daughters have been step-siblings for 30-odd years, so they might as well be.
The party started winding down as the families prepared to roll out - one set lives in Wilmington and the other in Richmond. Everyone started packing stuff away and carrying stuff up to the garage etc. when Chow's dad got stung by a yellow jacket. And then another one. This is really bad, since he's allergic to stinging insects. But did he stop cleaning up? No, he kept going. Chow noticed he was having trouble breathing, so he went inside and sicced his step-mother on his dad, to get him to find his epi-pen. That got done, but instead of sitting down to rest, he went back outside and started cleaning up again, right where the nest was. All in all, he got stung SIX times (and it turns out he'd been stung yesterday, too). But he kept insisting he was fine, so we got in our cars and left.

We stopped for dinner in Apex at a cute pizza joint and got home just in time for the boy to get poured in to bed. He had played in the pool for 5 hours, with only 3 or 4 breaks to re-fuel. After I put him to bed, I came out to the living room to Chow talking on the phone. His step-mother had insisted his dad go to the hospital. By the time they got there his throat had started to close up, so they gave him more epinephrine and started a fluid line. They're keeping him overnight for observation (he's 72). So I'm sure we'll hear more tomorrow.

Chow's father is FAMOUS for this kind of boneheadedness - he really should have been dead years ago from all the stunts he's pulled. It's astonishing, really.