Tag: health (Page 5 of 5)

The Streak Is Over

For the first time in her life, M. threw up today.* Appropriately, C. was laughing the entire time her big sister was puking up her dinner. I say appropriately, because the last time C. was sick, M. laughed. The fact it took M. over three years to throw up something other than formula bodes well for her college years, at least vis-a-vis her old man’s experience.

  • For my non-parenting friends, I make a distinction between puking up your food and babies spitting up. Babies can’t help it; it’s what they do. And once you get used to it, spit up really isn’t that bad, unless they soil your clothes five minutes before you’re leaving for work or dinner. Food-based puke, though, is disgusting no matter how cute the kid is who is doing the up-chucking.

Big Day For M.

Hey, all those words in the subject line have three letters. How about that?

Anyway, today was a rather large day for M.. Her first trip to the dentist! We’ve been educating her with a Dora goes to the dentist book for a few weeks, and for the past couple days she seemed really excited to go see Dr. I. (Long-time reader may recall that our family dentist is an extremely attractive woman. Of course, she is an excellent dentist first, and attractive second. But the view is nice when you’re leaned way back with a bright light in your eyes and a metal hook digging in your mouth.)

She was excited all morning until it came time to leave, then she suddenly got a little nervous and whiney. I stayed home with C., but from all reports, it went really, really well. She’s not always super cooperative when we brush her teeth. She gets first crack, which generally involves chewing on her toothbrush for two minutes before mom or dad step in. But during her check-up. she opened her mouth wide for the hygienist and dentist. She sat still. She was a very good girl. She was soooo excited when she got home. I kept telling her how proud of her I was, and she would start laughing and screaming. She was obviously pleased with herself. We had some concerns about how she would behave.

I’ll be less verbose about her other big accomplishment of the day. She pooped on the potty twice today. First times since the first time she did it a couple weeks back. Progress!

Rough Weekend

I slept what seemed to be about 90% of the weekend. That may sound like great fun to many of you, but this wasn’t leisurely, comfortable sleep. This was sleep because my body couldn’t stay awake. There were many factors that could have caused this:

1) M. continued to teeth last week, with the added burden of fighting her first cold. She was up anywhere from 1-3 hours every night last week, in addition to just needing someone to come find her binky an additional 4-5 times a night.

2) Between M.’s issues and my own insomnia, I averaged about 3.5 hours of sleep last week. One night, when S. was working, M. went down quietly at 8:00. I went to bed at 9:00, thinking I would read until I got tired then try to steal some sleep before M.’s meds wore off. Naturally, it was 2:00 AM before I started to even feel a little tired, and the first time I slept into a light sleep was the moment M. started crying.

3) I started having flu-like symptoms Friday afternoon. They got worse Saturday through Sunday. Still haven’t been awake long enough to figure out how I feel today.

I slept something like 11 hours Friday night, with some interruptions from M., ten hours Saturday night, and another ten-plus hours last night. I took a two-hour nap Saturday. I took three naps Sunday. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I’ve got nothing to offer you this morning. Hopefully I’ll wake up in awhile and realize I feel better. Going to class on another 70+ day may help too. I’m avoiding tonight’s basketball game, so I’ll try to get something decent posted this evening.

One other note for my non-Indiana readers. We’re back on the equivalent of Central time now (Actually we’re still on Eastern Standard Time while most everyone else is on Daylight time). Keep that in mind when calling from Kansas City bars late at night. If the legislature and governor act as promised, we could be changing our clocks here in Indiana on June 5, and then every October and April as civilized societies should. More on that when it happens.

Royals-Tigers at noon on the Deuce!

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood

I picked up my first prescription drug in at least 20 years the other night. It was a strange feeling; it made me feel old! I’ve been blessed with extremely good health throughout my life. I’ve had a couple hair line fractures and ligament tears from sporting injuries, but never anything that required a hard cast or strong pain killers. Never had mono, strep, bronchitis, or any other ailments that required antibiotics. In fact, the last time I think I had a prescription was when I had a stomach virus when I was 10. That was a good one. I’d be sitting there, feeling fine, and suddenly have this overwhelming urge to puke. I’d find a suitable location, unload, and five minutes later, I felt great again. I tended to act out in class a bit that year, so when I sheepishly walked over to my teacher to let him know I puked in the bushes at recess, he generally blew me off. I remember one day Mr. Dice flew into the restroom after me to confirm I was really throwing up. He was too late that day; I had already flushed. However, his demeanor changed the day I let loose at my desk during our CPR class. After the initial shock, the rest of the class loved me because they got recess 10 minutes early. Mr. Dice, racked with guilt, overloaded me with books to read while I was convalescing at home. Guilt can be a wonderful thing when aimed from children towards doubting adults. A week off from school and some medication later, I was good to go. After that, nothing from the pharmacy in 23 years.

As I shared back in March, I had been suffering from some pretty intense reflux. At first, I thought it was sympathetic pregnancy. Then it got worse, the pain changed, and it became easier to anticipate. I gave up my afternoon caffeine, which seemed to trigger it. That helped for about a day. I started downing Pepcid each day. That helped for about a week. I finally booked some time with my in-house health care professional who listened to my symptoms and said, “I think you might have an ulcer.” Great. I blame Roy Williams. So I’m popping the Little Purple Pill (not to be confused with the Little Blue Pill), Nexium, and hoping two weeks of that does the trick and I’m not forced to have a scope done to see what’s going on in my stomach.

We received our annual neighborhood directory last week. Very exciting times in this house, as this was the first edition since we became home owners. We marveled at our names in print, looked at the lot map and compared our property to that of our neighbors, and checked how long the people around us had been living in their respective homes. We also looked up the “interesting” people we’ve cataloged over the past 11 months.

One such family moved in shortly after we did last year. Separately, but at roughly the same time, both S. and I noticed that we only saw a woman at the home with two little boys. The woman did yard work, repairs to the outside of the house, picked up the mail, took out the trash, and played with the boys. She was there in the day and also in the evening. Once we realized we had both noticed the same thing, we came up with all kinds of theories. Widow. Lottery winner. Divorcee who got an especially sweet settlement. High class hooker. Or, most likely, married to a man who works constantly. “What’s the point of having a home like that if you’ve never, ever home?” we wondered. Well, finally, about two weeks ago, we saw her husband one weekend. So looks like the final theory was the winner, which just reinforces our question.

Another fascinating (even if only to us, but I’m sharing anyway) discovery came when we looked to see who moved into the other house we had looked at in our neighborhood. It was a smaller home, with a really bad yard, and didn’t interest us at all. As she was looking it up, S. said, “Well this is interesting. Someone with the same last name lives two houses down.” “Parents/grandparents?” I wondered. “Hmmm, the same kids are listed for each home owner.” Very interesting! Apparently there was a divorce last year and dad moved literally two houses away. If I wasn’t so fed up with the corporate life, I’d give them a call and see what company pays them well enough to afford two mortgages in this neighborhood.

 

The Heartbreak Of…

Heartburn. Or reflux I guess. I’ve got something going on with my stomach that I don’t like. For about a month, shortly after I eat, I’ve been getting these waves of mild nausea. The kind where you think you’re going to throw up in, say, five minutes, but you never get all the way there. I hadn’t had any real feelings of indigestion or heartburn with it until today. I’m pushing four hours of suffering today and the good doctor has the cheery opinion it could be reflux or an ulcer. Great. Looks like I’ll be on the Pepcid for awhile.

Or maybe it’s just the way the Royals are playing today. I ordered MLB Audio and can now listen to every home and away broadcast of each MLB game this summer. The Royals promptly stunk it up big time today. That means I can listen to Ryan and Denny bore me on a daily basis as long as the Royals are still in the pennant chase. Should they drop out of the running, I can start listening to the Red Sox and practice my Boston accent. The wisest $15 I’ve ever spent, I believe.

Since we’re on the subject of spending money, there is now a bookcase, nightstand, and mattress in the Little Girlfriend’s room. Tonight, stomach cooperation pending, the crib will be put together. The changing table and rocker are on order. While I was out of town last week, the Girlfriend’s room was painted. It’s scary how fast this is happening.

While waiting to go out Saturday night, we watched part of the rebroadcast of the first episode of the Bachelor. I was pleased to see a woman named DeShaun on the program, meaning the name is back on the list! If anyone runs across a female LaDanian, let me know ASAP!

That kid can kick, too. I had my hand on S’s stomach Sunday night and she gave me a big wallop. I pushed a little bit back and felt something solid. It freaked me out, because whatever it was, a head, an ass, a leg, pushed back a little, then disappeared. There’s really something alive in there!

I was a horrible, horrible blogger over the weekend. I had my little notebook in my pocket all day Saturday, but never took a moment to write down any details of the O’Bash. Despite the weather, which really wasn’t as bad as it looked, it was a fine day. As long as the wind stayed out of our faces, it really wasn’t that chilly. It helped that I brought a fairly heavy jacket, gloves, and stocking cap. I have a feeling an unlined jacket and no hat wouldn’t have kept me nearly as snug. As John pointed out, the rain made this year unique and memorable. The last 3-4 years kind of run together because the weather has generally been excellent. It’s the ’97s, ’99s, and now ’04s that stick out because it was an accomplishment to survive the weather.

There was an extra Juntos Podemos t-shirt floating around Saturday, which managed to land in my hands so I could pass it along to S. I’m going to ask my sister-in-law with the Spanish degree how to say Together We Did It in Spanish, and print up shirts that say that. I think Tony Pena would approve, based on his harassment of the Nesbitt newlyweds in Arizona.

The Indianapolis airport may not be a lot of things (impressive, modern, big, clean) but I will say this: they play some outstanding music there. A couple weeks back I heard Johnny Marr’s “Down on the Corner” which is an excellent song. Sunday, I heard Doves “There Goes the Fear”. A better music selection than your average radio station. All at your friendly local airport.

I had a couple other interesting observations, at least to me, Sunday at the Indy airport. First, the entire University of Minnesota baseball team managed to bring all foot traffic to a halt in one area of the airport as they checked in for their flight home. Imagine 30 or so guys, the support staff, coaches, and all their baggage scattered in the check in lines. Later, I heard some woman just screaming at a family member on the phone because whoever was supposed to pick her up hadn’t arrived. I know all about being frustrated after traveling and then having to wait on your ride. But do you really have to scream at people on the phone so the whole world can hear? Finally, I saw a guy make about three passes through the pick-up area, driving slowly, looking for someone. I only noticed him because he had some little rat dog in his lap, peeking out the window. I’ve never understood the whole driving with a dog in your lap thing. But I noticed he had to reach through and around the dog to turn the steering wheel. I bet this guy complains about people who drive and talk on their cell phones at the same time. Finally, his wife/lover/whatever shows up. He parks, gets out, and holds up the dog. This 40-something woman starts squealing like a nine year old. Come on, show some dignity. It was one of those little dogs that shivers a lot, never really looks healthy or happy. I’m sure it brings great joy to her life but please, save it for when the door is shut and I don’t have to listen.

 

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