11/17/12

There are two things that I wonder about (cuz I done already figured the rest out).  First is who is that guy Wes?  I mean seriously.

The second is ?  These are things that make me say hmmm (if this were a video blog you would see me with ridiculously long prosthetic fingers)

So………………Ollie is fat and phat.  He is officially mobile, agile, and versatile.  His favorite game is the classic crawl for the most disgusting and/or dangerous thing in the house and try to get to it before mom and/or dad and/or the dog and/or our stoner neighbor (wait he might be the disgusting and/or dangerous thing……wait why is he in my house……) and/or the and/or guy and/or gets to him as he cackles.  Great fun.  Still waiting on tooth number one.  Still waiting on him being able to sleep through the night (although in all (or at least “all” as I see it) honesty I still am waiting on being able to sleep through the night myself). 

Logan was going to have surgery (we earned some frequent medical miles through Kaiser so we decided to have some work done on) on Monday but the surgeon had to reschedule him so we will not have a cranky (well at least not crankier than normal) 4 year old on Thanksgiving.  He goes in in January which is good.

Cole continues to row his boat down the turbulent waters that is the chronic (disease not the other one).  Some days up, and some down.  More up than down though.  We have switched one of the antibiotics for another.  The one that we discontinued had some potentially nasty side effects.  This new med does not have the side effects but it is especially cruel in another way.  Let me splain.  My kids and my wife do not actually have blood.  No, their veins contain 2% cow’s milk.  They drink it with every meal, they bathe in it, they sleep in milk beds, and I even saw them chanting to a glass of it once.  This new med of Cole’s does not absorb into the body if there is dairy in his sytem.  If he drinks milk, then he has to wait 6 hours before he can take the medicine.  Once he takes the medicine, he has to wait 2 hours before he can ingest his holy fluid.  Now he has to take this med twice per day, and it is an oral med so he has to be awake.  All you math majors (drum majors, army majors, and major pains in the ass can also play) try and figure out how to give him his meds and still let him drink milk at all 3 meals. …(While we are waiting for them to crunch the numbers, answer me this: How does Alabama score 48 points when their QB throws for less than 200yds and their RB runs for less than 100?)… now try and do it with two meals, and remember that he sleeps from 8pm-6am.

On another front I am transitioning away from being a legal secretary and I am becoming a paralegal.  There are many good things to this switch.  First is that my knees were killing me.  B is that I will be a work from home contractor so I don’t have to wear pants any more.  And 3 is that paralegal is close to paramilitary which basically means that I am a badass.

Dear new Red Dawn creator, when someone makes something that sucks so awesome please leave it alone.  I have not seen your new movie but based solely on the trailers, your movie will suck in a very mundane way.  Come on now movie person(s) you are better than that.  Don't allow yourself to suck in a mediocre and non-unique fashion.  If you are going to suck, suck hard; suck well: and most of all suck uniquely.  

I guess that is all for now.  I will see you when I see you, and until that day please raise your glass and toast Oliver, Cole, and Logan your news channel 4 team.

Stupid Little Bug

You know what I love?  I love sports.  It is awesome and I wish that I could have a job where I was involved only in sports.  If anyone out there knows of an opening for such a job, please let me know.

You know what I hate?  I hate the entire family of fast growing myco bacteria.  Additionally I hate cancer, and I hate my son being in a hospital room (although he is with Unca Chris so he is, I am sure, having the time of his life and is probably about to be kicked out of the hospital of troublemakery), and I hate cancer, and I hate that my son missed his soccer game, and I hate cancer, and I hate that the baseball season is not over, and I hate cancer, and I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate that I can't fix him.

This is stupid.  I am tired of getting kicked in the nuts.  I don't aks fo much.  All I want is for my family (that includes the chickens) to be healthy.

Enough feeling sorry for myself.

I have an admission to make.  I have relapsed.  For any of you fighting addiction  you know how hard it is to quit.  I had kicked my nasty habit for an entire season, and I thought that I was in the clear.  But one night I was sitting around flipping channels when I just happened to land on the right channel at the right time, and all my previous work was for naught.  So I find myself back to being addicted, and must ask myself, what would Gemma do?

GI Joe

Well at least now we know, and knowing is a portion (can't remember the exact percentage) of the battle.

They finally figured out why Cole has been having all these fevers.  He has developed a bacterial infection that is in his bloodstream and has infected his lungs.  Now before you freak out too much, we managed to catch it early enough that we can treat it.

The bacteria (who I have affectionately named "stupid son of a bitch how dare you fuck with my kid."  and I am going to go all Gemma on its ass) is part of a family (I think one of the 5 out of NY) of bacteria that can be found in dirt and in water and in air and in everything that touches us.  Now us non-chemo types are able to effectively and efficiently tell Mr. bacteria to take a flying leap into a giant pool of hot dinosaur poop.  Unfortunately Cole is not so lucky.

So Mr. B is here to stay for a while.  You see, he is a slow growing bacteria so apparently it takes longer to completely eradicate the bastard.  By longer I mean that Cole will be on antibiotics for......wait for it.......keep waiting for it.......quit complaining it''''''s not like you have anything better to do.............almost there............here it comes............at least six months, and possibly up to a year.  SUPER (please insert a slight lisp on the S and hold the R for at least 4.32344530948504983045984 seconds)!!!!!!!!!

The crazy thing about this whole banana operation is that it was kind of dumb luck and crazy good timing that we (I say we in order to be inclusive.  I know I am not a doctor but since my premium pays their salary, I can say we.) were able to figure it out.  I have been told by a guy with a clipped ear (not joking) that this bacteria does not usually grow in the normal culture bottles that they use, so it was sheer dumb luck that any cultures grew at all (it was the first one they drew way back at the beginning of last (i.e.g. crappy) week) and it explained why only one culture grew.  They would probably still be TSing Cole had he not had his scheduled CT scan today.  The CT showed images consistent with this type of bacterial infection.

After they figured this out they/we decided to take out Cole's central line.  They replaced it with an IV in his hand, and after they get on the front end of the infection (a few days from now) they will install a pic (k?) line in his arm instead of the central line in the chest.

I know that in the bigger scheme of things 20 months is not very long, but Cole has had his line in for 20 months and I have gotten to the point that I don't even remember him not having it.  It looks strange to see his chest without those damn lines and without that dirty orange pouch around his neck.

Fever is still high (peaked at 104.2), so we have turned the room into an icebox.

Cole will be here in the hospital for a few days, and then should be able to go home, and pretty soon get back into school.

Sorry if this post is more of a standard (well at least as standard as I can be) update, and lack my usual wit and elegance, but I am tired of this crap and don't feel whitey.

Maybe tomorrow will be more fun.  In the meantime please raise your glasses and toast Cole, badass mofo who don't take no crap off of nobody.

Crappy Week

When last we spent time together, our hero had just gotten out of the hospital.  We pick the story back up on Friday evening.  I drove home from work excited to put this insane week behind me and relax (as much as that is possible with 3 boys, 3 chickens, and an epileptic dog with allergies).  We normally go to SJ for family pizza night, but that had been cancelled.  I just wanted to go home, play with the wife and kids, and then after they go to bed find a reason to go across the street so that I can get free booze at Rossi's Pub.  As I am sure you can predict (due mostly to the fact that this entire blog is all about crap that I do not want), my (I think) simple (I tried not to parenthizie, but I just can't help myself) relaxation (now this is getting silly.  someone should talk some sense into me) plan (it is becoming difficult to even get through this sentence) was not to be.  My fatal error was that I failed to realize that weeks start on Sunday (despite the confusing title of weekend)(yes weeks do start on Sunday.  Look at a calendar.  This one was your fault.  Stop interrupting).  Of course when I got home Cole had a fever.  Of course we had to go to the ER (driving to Santa Clara at 6:30 on a Friday = crappy).  Of course we did not get home until 11:45.  Of course I am not done.

Again to recap.  Weeks do not end until Saturday is over.  Now, on Saturday the sun was shining and Cole was feeling good.  So good that he was going to play in his soccer game.  We were playing at the house.  Some of the neighborhood kids came over to play in the tree house and chase chickens.  All in all it was a great morning.  Then, the week did not end.

(Author's Note: If you have read this blog at all you realize that I have only a very tenuous grasp of truth and reality.  However, the next paragraph is completely real and serious)

I was holding Oliver in the back yard and talking with Frank (neighbor) and Elisa.  I was pointing at the garden as I was saying something about chicken proofing the garden when all of a sudden, Oliver moved and  he slipped out of my arms.  He fell to the ground, landing on the cement.  It looked like he hit head first and there was a loud banging sound that just might haunt me forever.  We rushed to the ER, but we are so used to ER visits, especially how long they take, that Elisa just dropped Oliver and I off and took Cole and Logan to the soccer game. (A small geographic explanation is warranted here.  We usually go to Kaiser in Santa Clara for Cole, but for normal ER stuff we can go to a closer Kaiser.  In this instance, we went to SSF).

(Enough of the super serious.  Bring on the irreverence)

The ER at SSF (to which I have now been 4 times.  Once when Cole tried to take a short corner in the apartment and ended up headbutting the corner of the wall, once when Elisa had an ear infection, once when Elisa obtained a freak redwood splinter under the fingernail, and now this) is old and small (the entire ER could fit inside the waiting room of the Santa Clara ER) and has no TV.  So there I was (I forgot to mention that since it was hot outside when I bounced the baby, he was only in a diaper) in the ER registration line with a screaming half naked baby and boy did I feel like white trash.  All I needed was to be wearing a stained wife beater and be drunk (which of course I wasn't.  I should have, per Papa Sam, been holding some booze so that people would think I was drunk and not just stupid).  Some nurse clearly felt sorry for me and rushed me in, completely cutting in front of the lady who was about to puke into her purse, or on the registration lady, or on any one of us.  They took us back to a room and Oliver took one look at all the fun things in a hospital room and immediately stopped crying and started grabbing for things.  The nurse did some quick vitals and then Dr. Skater came in (please note that his name was not really Dr. Skater, but he was wearing vans) (really, a doctor wearing vans).  He took one look at my laughing (I am pretty sure he was laughing at me.) baby and said that everything was fine.  This took all of 10 minutes.  Did I mention that Elisa had dropped us off (the dropping off occurred because the clutch in the Jetta needs to be replaced so it was at the shop) and she had gone to the soccer game.  We were there just long enough to make sure that Cole had started his game.  So then I got to hang out in the SSF ER waiting room with a baby (put clothes on him), trying to keep him occupied.

I did get to see some interesting things.  I think I saw some Chinese men abduct a woman in a wheelchair (but as I cannot understand Chinese, they may have just been her family).  I saw a social worker sting operation (It was amazing and exciting and that is all I have to say about that).  I saw a guy try and hook up with a nurse while he was waiting to go in and see him mom.

Then do you know what happened?  The week finally ended.  Sunday finally happened.  It was glorious and I loved it.  We did not go to the ER.  We (I) did not drop any babies.  We did not have to deal with the plague.  There was no nuclear holocaust.

Just writing about this week was nearly as exhausting as living it (er...maybe not) so I am done for now.  While you are waiting for the next installment please raise your glasses and toast Oliver, hard headed as his daddy.

9-27-12

Unfortunately I flew too high and my wings melted.  I then plummeted down, and as I started to right the ship, so to speak, the waves hit me.  

On Sunday Cole was feeling crappy.  We checked his temperature and it was 312.48 Kelvin.  Called Kasier and off to the ER we went.  On Monday, the fever persisted so off to the clinic we (we herein for this sentence refers to gma and gpa) went.  On Tuesday Dr. Taggart called and said that the cultures drawn on Sunday had grown into something (presumably Canadians) and that we had to go get admitted. So............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I got to leave my new job early, again, and take Cole to the hospital, again, and we met the president again.  We were going to stay at the Hotel Abbot, but Kaiser knew of a much better place, so we stayed with them.  Now I feel that I must stray from this otherwise completely coherent and succinct summary of what's what and wander into a rant.  Over the last 18ish months I have spent a great deal (great deal is the grown up word for way more time that you should ever have to spend in a hospital with your kid) of time at Kaiser Santa Clara hospital, 3rd Floor, and have always been treated like a VIP (VIP is the grown up word for Vociferous Idiotic Parent).  You can understand my shock and awe then when I tried to go get some water from the room where the water and fridge are only to find that they put a lock, and an electronic one at that, on the door.  Not only was I locked out, but they refused to give me the code.  I tried to explain to them that the US Government (the sweetest smelling government in the world) saw fit to bestow upon me a secret clearance but to no avail (but to no avail is kind of a strange expression. You always use it in the negative.  You never say "to avail."  Kind of like repeat.).

Despite that, we had a nice stay.  Since the Monday cultures did not grow any friends to the north, Cole was free to go.  As they were discharging him they mentioned something about how the growing of the cultures was not due to bacteria in Cole's body, but rather contamination from the tech's glove.  Really.  The strain on  my nerves, as well as my new job did not need that.

As you can tell, I had a bigge week, but we seem to have made it through.  I will try to write again sometime soon, but in the meantime please raise your glasses to Cole, crane operator.  

So anyway, like I was saying I haven't written in a while (4 months to be exact) and I have almost forgotten how to write such that I am sure that I will make many grammatical mistakes and some of them might even be on accident or maybe I just might throw caution to the wind and completely avoid the use of a period irregardlessly of the amount of words, ideas, thoughts, rants, plea bargains, etc that I decide to use in my seemingly senseless and random diatribe.  Ok, maybe not.

So, a ton has happened in the last few months.  I will try to be brief in my summary.  First, and foremost all the people that reside in the San Miguel Baker household are alive.  The dog is alive.  The chickens are alive.   Unfortunately I can not say the same thing for the hermit crab or the rolly polly (although in our defense, I don't think the rolly polly was ever alive while in captivity).

Logan is doing well.  He is developing a strong, and some might say destructive, addiction to Star Wars.  He has only seen IV and VI (IV and VI is the "My culture has been dead for a long time mostly because we never figured out the 0 in math" way of saying A New Hope and Return of the Jedi (A New Hope is the hard core Star Warsy (tried to work Trekkie into Star Wars but it did not really work out) way to say what most people just refer to Star Wars)))))))))))))))))))))))))(I lost track of how many I had to close so in an abundance of caution I made sure to secure my parentheticals.  The last thing you want dangling where all the world (including the Pope and your 1st grade teacher) is a parenthesis.  )()()()()()()()()()(((((((()))))))))))).  He is a senior in College now and has almost mastered reading.

Oliver is built like a baby Barkley (Charles, not Matt although I would not say no to a scholarship to USC and a top 5 draft pick).  He is about to start crawling any day now.  He loves his new babysitter, Heather.  It was strange to take him to someone other than Anna.  He is a big bucket of giggles and poop.

Cole has been doing well. (let's get the medical crap out of the way).  He went through the MIBG therapy.  It was a crazy experience and I don't wish it on anyone.  At least; however, it did not seem to do any good whatsover.  So that is good.  Now we are on a new therapy this is logistically not so bad (one week of appointments every day but no overnight stays), and of the three medications that make up this protocol, he has taken two of them before (with positive results).  He has completed one round of this, and begins his second round soon.  After round 2, we will do a bunch of imaging.  Have to remember that it is a marathon, not a sprint.  Other than that, Cole has started 2nd grade, and really enjoys it.  He is playing soccer (had his first game last week.  I was the ref.  There were some controversial calls that some of the parents took exception to so I had to go and tell them what was up.  After the game I went home and made a big stack of pancakes and felt much better).

I have to go to sleep.  I have a bigee day tomorrow.

I have decided that I want to do a fundraiser (for some good charity, just don't know which one).  The fundraiser has to include Michelle Obama and Patrick Rothfuss.  Anybody have any ideas?

5-16-12

He is only 7.  Let me tell you two things that suck.

The first is that Cole asked a pointed question whose answer could only be fully given to someone with knowledge of chaca chaca boom boom (chaca chaca boom boom is the grown up word for making the beast with two backs).  Normally I would just use my powers of distraction and avoidance; however, I caught my self for one of those moments.  You know those moments that I am talking about.  It is that moment that takes, in reality, a fraction of a second but in your brain takes hours.  If it were a movie, you would have a conversation with your two selves in order to make the needed decision.  You see while I know that I will have to have the conversation with him that involves where to stick it, that conversation is not supposed to happen until after he and his friends have had the chance to look at an entirely inappropriate amount of porn.  What gave me pause however, was the fact that I cannot answer one simple question.  What if I don’t get a chance to have that conversation at all?  What if we lose?  WTF?

The second thing that sucks is this.  If you know that someone is going to hit you in the stomach with a 2X4, you can kind of prepare for it.  You can do your best to make sure that you take the hit in such a way that you protect, as much as possible, your vital organs.  Every time that my phone rings and I see that it is Kaiser, I have that moment before I answer the phone to get myself ready to take the hit.  I am used to it, and have gotten to the point where they can’t hurt me anymore.  But now imagine that out of nowhere someone randomly takes a shot at your stomach with a 2X4.  That would suck, huh?  I, randomly, get hit by that 2X4.  It might be something that I see (the outline of his tubes), something that happens (His legs start to hurt)……, or something that is said (like when I was talking to Oliver and I said that Cole is pretty cool and that when I grow up I want to be just like him.  To which Cole responded, “I don’t think you want to be like me.  For one, I have cancer.).  He is only 7.    

Well, please raise your glasses and toast Cole, the next Jim Duggan.