In Which I Make A Skating Rink, And Connor Has A Great Time

Connor went down just fine last night and slept until about two in the morning.  Then he woke up and simply refused to go back to sleep.  Jeremy and I were both thrilled, as you might imagine.  Oh well.  It's a step in the right direction-- he was so tired tonight that he actually fell asleep in Jeremy's lap on his evening golf cart ride.  So maybe he'll sleep through the night.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I brought my skating gear with me on the trip because I knew I wanted to get some good practice time in.  Jeremy's aunt's house has a large basement with a concrete floor, and by shifting some rugs and opening up the doors to the game room, bedroom, pool/exercise room and storage room down there I was able to make myself a full-sized indoor skating track!  This was pretty great because it was over 100 degrees outside today and the neighborhood is full of really steep hills.  While there were a few narrow doorways to navigate, otherwise the track worked out really well, and I was even able to open up a large set of doors in the middle and make myself a figure-eight.  So I skated for a couple of hours.  Then I went and jumped in the lake to cool off. 

I took my skates off first, of course.

Jer came out and joined me, and we put on life jackets and spent an hour or two bobbing around in the water, just enjoying each other's company.  It's been really nice just to get the chance to spend so much time with Jeremy; our schedules have been so busy in the past few months that it seems like we haven't seen too much of each other.  So getting the chance to relax together has been just what we needed!

Connor has been thoroughly enjoying his time with his relatives; today he spent some quality time in the indoor pool with his grandmother and his aunt and apparently really liked the water.  We don't take him down to the lake to swim because he doesn't know not to swallow the water, and also because of his g-tube site, which doesn't really need to be in contact with stagnant, unsanitized water.  But he really enjoys the pool, which has the added bonus of being indoors so we don't have to worry about him overheating.

I think he's really liking all the attention!  Also we've been letting him watch quite a bit more TV than he's normally allowed to, which he is enjoying as well.  He watched The Little Mermaid tonight, which is a movie that is a really good example of terrible parenting if I've ever seen one.  But it has great music, so he enjoyed it. 

I'm glad he's having such a good vacation!

~Jess

In Which Jer And I Run Waves

Blogger was down last night and wouldn't let me post.  So here's the post today instead!

So Connor decided once again that four in the morning was an appropriate bedtime.  He also decided that the wee hours were the perfect time to demonstrate his extensive lung power and ability to hit notes that can shatter fine crystal.  Fun times.  Luckily vacation time means that it's okay to sleep in, so we didn't emerge from our room until nearly noon. 

After lunch Connor's grandma and grandpa spent some quality time with him while Jeremy and I took the waverunners out on the lake.  Jeremy grew up spending his summers here at the lake house, so he knows the lake like the back of his hand.  The waverunners are a different model than the ones we used last time, and they can really move--we could hit up to 60+ miles per hour-- and Jer had to switch sunglasses because the ones he wore originally didn't have big enough lenses so his eyes kept tearing up when he hit top speeds.  We spent a little bit of time jumping wakes, but the lake was pretty deserted today so there weren't any big cruisers or anything out to provide us with the ability to catch some really good air.  We ended up just spending the rest of the time exploring and looking at all the cool houses.

Unfortunately I managed to miss a four by two inch section of my outer thighs with the sunscreen on both sides.  As a result I now have some glorious racing stripes, which no doubt will look even better when they start blistering and peeling.  We were only out there about an hour and a half, but I have skin so fair I practically glow in the dark so that was more than long enough for me to roast.

Connor spent most of the day indoors because it was so hot outside, but he did get another golf cart ride in before the evening ended.  We tried out the swings over by the golf course, but Connor wasn't as enamored with them as he usually is by swings.  I think maybe it's because it was so hot that he preferred the breeze the golf cart made instead. 

He likes the wind in his face!

In Which We Are On Vacation

We're good, everybody!  I didn't post yesterday because we were on an airplane and didn't get in until pretty late.  We're on vacation! 

We started out yesterday morning with a bang; I threw a load of our clothes in the washing machine so that we would come home to a clean house, and about five minutes later Jeremy went into the laundry room and discovered two inches of standing water on the floor.  Apparently I'd forgotten to close the door of the washer before starting it, and of course we have one of those side-opening washers.  We raided the linen closet and used half the towels in our house to soak up the water.  Then Jer firmly closed the door, turned the washer on and started cleaning the litter box.

After about two or three minutes, torrents of water started pouring out around the washer door.  Turns out the problem was not that I had forgotten to close the door.  Turns out the problem was that the washing machine was broken.  Lovely.  So we used up all the remaining towels in the house cleaning up the second big mess.  Now we had twenty soaking wet towels, a wet load of clothes, some of which were originally supposed to be going into our suitcases, and a plane leaving in four hours.

This is not really the ideal way to start a vacation.

Luckily our housesitter offered to take the towels over to her place to wash and dry them so we didn't have to lay them all out in the garage and leave them there while we were gone.  So that was good-- nothing like coming home to twenty moldy towels to really make a vacation fun!  When we get back we'll call somebody out to repair the washing machine right away.  Connor runs through his wardrobe pretty quickly so we can't do without it for long. 

Anyway, Connor did beautifully (as always) on the plane trip; he's a veteran flier by now so he does very well.  We had several people compliment us on our beautifully behaved child.  Of course we also had the people who stared at Connor and whispered things to each other like "It's a shame, he's such a cute child," but it takes all kinds to make the world go round, I guess.  We just ignored them and concentrated on keeping the little guy amused.

It's lovely to be visiting family even if it is hotter than the hinges of hell here.  Today Connor enjoyed a long drive in a golf cart, which he thought was pretty wonderful.  We saw a bunch of deer, and he enjoyed growling at them velociraptor style.  Other fun activities included swimming in an indoor pool and copious amounts of attention from the grandparents, which he thoroughly enjoyed.  Grandparents are good for that sort of thing.  He got kind of a late start to the day because he stayed up until four in the morning and then slept in.  He went down for bed just fine, but about an hour into the night his feeding tube sprang a leak and soaked his bed, waking him up.  Then he got a second wind or something and refused to go back to sleep.  And of course since he slept in until noon, now he doesn't want to go to bed at all.  Oh well-- you're supposed to stay up late and sleep in when you're on vacation, right?

It's nice to get away for a little while!

~Jess

In Which We Do A Whole Heck Of A Bunch Of Stuff

I woke up extremely early this morning for some completely unknown reason and couldn't get back to sleep.  So around 5:45 or so I went ahead and crawled out of bed to get started on the day.  I really wanted to get the rest of the mulch spread (we underestimated and were short) and the shrubs planted on our new ivy-free bed so that I could have the project pretty much finished up. 

Jer and Connor stayed in bed a bit later, but once they got started things really moved quickly!  Jer and I started switching off with Connor; whenever I needed a break I'd come inside and he'd go back out to work on his project.  Connor started out the morning a little rough, looking pale and wan, but after a few good cuddling sessions and some stretching and gentle movement he perked up, and by midday he was back to his normal spry self and demanding play time.  Every once in a while he'd end up outside with us while Jer and I discussed some aspect of the yard work, and he seemed very interested in the proceedings, though I don't think he quite knew what to make of the transformation.

Jer borrowed a power washer from one of our neighbors.  Connor was not particularly excited by the noise the power washer made, so we had to go inside for that.  So while we hung out in the living room, Jer washed the moss off our chimney and cleaned all our gutters as well as the deck, which we'll be putting a second coat of stain on sometime in the next week or so.  Then he cleaned and organized our side yard for good measure. 

In addition to mulching and planting the fifteen or so remaining shrubs, I spent a good half hour in an abortive attempt to stain the trellises and arbor.  Rather than do it with a brush, which would take forever to get into all the little crannies and crevices of the lattice, I thought I'd try a technique I'd seen a few places using a pump sprayer to spread the paint.  Unfortunately our hardware store didn't carry filter bags for the inside of the sprayer, but I figured it would be fine since I was only going to be using about a half gallon or so.  Ha!  The sprayer clogged up the first time I tried to use it, and instead of a nice even fan of paint I got a sad little dribble.  I'll try it again another day with a filter bag once I get the chance to stop by a paint store. 

Anyway, I wish I could post before-and-after photos for you here, but posting pictures of the outside of my house in the public domain is probably not a very good idea.  So you'll just have to trust me when I say that the outside of my house is looking about eight billion times better, and hopefully in a few years when everything fills out it will be even more improved!  I'm going to bed still covered in those tiny little prickly splinters working with cedar mulch always seems to produce that keep cropping up for days even with repeated showers, but all the prickly itching that will happen in the next few days will be totally worth it! 

Now if we can just keep the yard looking like that.

~Jess

In Which We Are Champions And Stuff

We won championships! 

I'm not sure what the final score was, but the bout ended up being neck-and-neck until the very end, and everybody played their hearts out.  It was a fantastic way to wrap up the derby season!

I'll be taking a week or so off from derby and then jumping right back into training in the off season.  Jer's going to help me put together a weightlifting regime, and between that and getting in some major skating time hopefully I'll continue to improve my game.  I had a fantastic time this season, and I can't wait to see what next season will bring!

But now it's really late (and Connor had kind of a rough day-- he had three seizures and is feeling pretty under the weather) so I'm going to call it a night.  I'll tell you more about how things went tomorrow!

~Jess

In Which I Am Sleep Deprived And The Ivy Is Gone At Last

Don't expect this to be the most coherent of posts tonight.  Connor decided to stay up until 4:30 in the morning, and then I had to get up at 6:00 because the landscaping company was coming.  So I'm running on nothing but the dregs of coffee and delirium at the moment. 

I'm not sure why Connor decided he needed to stay up until (literally) dawn, but then he decided to sleep in.  Unfortunately for him, we had to go get his blood levels drawn at Children's Seattle this morning, so he was only able to snooze until 9:00, which is when I woke him up and got him ready to go.

Or at least I tried to wake him up.  It didn't work out so well.

He had a small seizure just before I put him in the car, which I suspect was brought on by the sleep deprivation of the night before.  Then he dozed in the car on the way up, which was a nerve wracking experience for me.  Connor almost never sleeps in the car, and I generally think this is a very good thing.  I mean, I have this little tiny mirror trained on him in the van so I can see him while I'm driving, but it doesn't show me a whole lot of detail.  And a kid desperately fighting sleep who keeps slumping over and going limp looks a whole heck of a lot like a kid having a apneic seizure when I'm glancing in that little tiny mirror.  It didn't help that he'd already had one that day. 

So needless to say I was on a bit of an adrenaline high.  It probably helped keep me awake for the drive, along with my gigantic cup of Emergency Coffee (as in-- Emergency!  I will fall asleep and drive off the road if I do not drink coffee!) and my phone conversation with Julia, who tells good stories and is generally very helpful in the not-falling-asleep-at-the-wheel-on-the-highway department.

We got to the hospital without dying or anything, and Connor fell asleep on my lap in the waiting room.  Luckily we got Hector The Amazing Phlebotomist, and so the kid didn't really even wake up that much for the blood draw.  And then he did that nodding-nap thing pretty much the whole way home, and once we got there he had another very short seizure and then conked out for the rest of the day.  He's been asleep for about nine hours now, so we'll see how tonight goes.  If he wakes up at two in the morning tonight or something, Jer has graciously offered to deal with it.  I have my championship game tomorrow and it would be nice if I could play without first having to drink so much coffee that I vibrate around the track rather than roll.

We did have one nice thing waiting for us when we got home; the front of the house was completely transformed.  The ivy is gone!  Whoo hoo!  Well, for now, anyway.  They dug down and pulled out as many of the roots as they could find-- and this ivy had some serious roots, roots as big around as my calf-- but ivy is pretty tenacious stuff and I'll probably be waging a war with it for many years to come.  I'm pretty sure that I won this round, though; they pulled enough ivy, salal and blackberry out to fill an entire dump truck to the brim!  Then they planted the Howard The Tree along with the shrubs I bought yesterday.  They look sort of lonely in all that space, but I'm sure I'll be getting them some friends soon. 

All of the rest of the existing shrubs are trimmed up and look lovely.  Tomorrow they're mulching everything, and the transformation will be for the large part finished.  It really opened up the view of the house (you'd be amazed at how high 35 year old ivy can get) and I can't wait to see the space in a few years when all the stuff we're going to plant fills out.  Of course, that's if the ivy doesn't sneak in while my back is turned and eat the house or something.

And now I'm off to bed.  I need some sleep for the big game tomorrow!

~Jess

In Which I Bring Home Howard

So today I left Connor with Joanna and went out to buy a tree.

I've never bought a tree before other than our potted Japanese Maple, i.e. The Symbol Of Our Love, and I'm not sure that it counts because it's only three feet tall.  So this was sort of a new experience for me.

Tomorrow we have a crew coming in to strip out our 400 square feet or so (and I wish that was an exaggeration) of English ivy, salal and blackberry.  The plants are fifteen years old and I'm so, so tired of fighting with them so I'm excited that someone else is going to do it for me!  They're going to dig down and take all the roots out, so hopefully that will be the end of my ivy problem. 

But of course we needed something to plant in place of all that ivy, so that's where my tree buying comes in.  While I'll be putting in the smaller plants myself (as I get them-- I haven't actually looked for any of the small stuff yet), they're planting the larger things for me.  I bought three evergreen huckleberry for our fence line, which gets full shade.  Eventually I'll be putting in some ferns, hosta etc. along the fence as well, and hopefully it will be a nice shade garden by the time I'm finished with it.

For the sunny area of the bed I bought a few low-growing conifers, some barberry (which I love for its color even if it is all prickly) and a golden elderberry.  And I also bought the tree, which we have decided to name Howard. 

What-- don't all of you name your trees?  Besides, this tree totally looks like a Howard.

Anyway, Howard is an Emperor 1 Japanese maple and he's about six feet tall right now, though eventually he'll get to twenty feet or so if I don't manage to kill him first.  It's a good thing I had respite care, because I'm pretty sure that Connor and Howard would not have been able to ride together inside the van.  As it was, getting him inside involved some delicate maneuvering, and I drove about five miles under the speed limit the whole way home as Howard was not tied down inside the van and Death By Tree would probably be a terribly undignified way for me to go. 

But I managed to get back to the house without incident, and Howard is now waiting patiently in our side yard for the crew to get here so he can get settled in his new, English-ivy free home.  I can't wait!  They're mulching and trimming everything too, so the front yard will probably look great once they're done.  Other than our lawn, of course, which still looks like the "before" picture in a grass fertilizer advertisement.  It's about half weeds, and I'm pretty sure I'm just going to have to start over from scratch on it. 

Oh well-- one project at a time, right?

~Jess
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In Which Connor Is Huge

Connor spent some quality time in his stander today.  I set him up in the living room and let him watch an episode of Fraggle Rock.  Precious, mind-numbing television time will get this kid to tolerate just about anything-- that's why it's a special hospital-and-therapy-he-doesn't-want-to-do treat. 

Putting him in the stander reminds me of just how tall he's getting; can you believe how big the kid is now?  He just cut his first permanant tooth and everything.  When you consider that when we moved to Washington four and a half years ago he was the size of a Cabbage Patch Kid doll it's kind of amazing how much he's grown.  Oh, he's still tiny for a five year old of course, but he certainly doesn't look like a baby anymore!

He does, however, seriously need his hair brushed.  That's what it looks like when he wakes up in the morning.  He's kind of got that mad scientist vibe going, if you know what I mean.  He likes to rub his hands together too, so it always looks like he's plotting world domination or something.  It's pretty cute, but I still brush his hair anyway.  I figure if he's going to conquer the globe he might as well do it with neat hair.

He and I did a bit more yard work today, but mostly we stuck to the indoors as it was gloomy outside.  I'm not sure tomorrow's weather will be any better, but I'll have Joanna here for part of the day so I'll be able to work rain or shine without having to worry about the little guy.  Connor wasn't very enthusiastic about any of the chores-- even the laundry, which is usually his favorite.  I think I wore him out with his stander time and he was pouting because I made him work.  Oh well!

~Jess

In Which Connor And I Do 80 Bazillion Things




So day two of Jessie's Outdoor Workathon went pretty well!  

Connor and I spent the morning putting a brick border in along one side of the shade garden.  I say "Connor and I" because he sat on my lap while I worked and in between digging and laying bricks I buried Connor's feet in the dirt, had him help me hold the shovel, and let him feel, smell and (depending on the plant) taste the lovely green growing things around us.  He really liked the feel of the rough bricks, and if I set one in his lap he'd run his hands carefully back and forth across it.  He also seemed to enjoy helping me put the soil back in place once I positioned a brick correctly; I think he liked how cool the earth felt on his hands, even if he didn't really care for it on his feet.  We talked about the life cycle of plants and about the earthworms we found, which he thought really tickled.  I figured if I'm going to be doing things in the garden anyway I should try and include him as much as possible.  Now if I can get him to weed I'll be golden.

Then he helped me give everything a good soaking-- including himself and me.  Connor goes kind of crazy when I put him in charge of directing the hose; it takes him a while to realize that water comes out the end.  Oh well.

So we mostly finished up that project-- the last few bricks will wait until the arbor is in place, which will happen as soon as Jeremy digs me some post holes.  I took that picture just before I started digging in the bricks.  When you consider that a year ago that space was wall-to-wall ivy and weeds, I think things are looking pretty good!  Once the plants fill out this may be one of my favorite beds in the garden.  I love that it runs right along our wheelchair ramp so Connor can see everything as we go down.  Once the arbor is in place, I mulch everything, we stain the fence and power wash the ramp and concrete pad, this area will be completely finished!  That makes me really excited, because it'll be the first area of the yard I can say that about.

After lunch we drove out to Portland Avenue Nursery and did some shopping for still more fun things to put in the ground.  I bought three trellises to go on the fence near our deck; they were priced at about what it would cost me to make them, so I figured I'd save myself the trouble and just get them ready-made.  I also picked up three clematis to go on the trellises, a few small plants for my last empty terracotta pot and a couple more plants for the shade garden, which is filling out nicely.  Connor and I came home and planted everything except for the clematis; they won't go in until I have the fence behind them and the trellises stained.  After that we did a little bit of therapy and then hopped back in the car for our weekly trip to the grocery store.

We got back home just as Jeremy pulled into the driveway.  It was still plenty light outside, so while Jeremy and Connor played together I went back out and touched up the outside of the fence with a second coat of stain.  The days when Connor's feeling good, the weather cooperates and it's still light outside when Jeremy gets home are all too fleeting, so I have to make the most of them!  I came back inside around 9:00pm, thoroughly worn out but satisfied with the amount of work I got done. 

Tomorrow is supposed to be relatively dry, if a little gloomy, so we'll probably be out there again!

~Jess

In Which I Feel Much, Much Better And Get Some Stuff Done

The Herb Garden

I feel much, much better!  This is a very good thing, because I've been ridiculously miserable the last two days.  I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail about my illness (and believe me, you should thank me for that), but let's just say that I am extremely happy to be on my way back to good health.

I spent a good portion of today just trying to catch up on all of the things around the house I let slide while I was being The Sickest Sicky Person In The World.  It's amazing how quickly the laundry and dishes pile up when I don't stay on top of them!  You can usually use the inside of my house as a barometer for how well Connor is doing-- if it's trashed, he's not so good.  It's weird to see it look that way because I was wiped out; I don't get sick very often. 

Connor felt great, and he and I spent some time outside, where thankfully it seems that whatever was making him break out in hives is either done blooming or taking a break.  So I did some weeding (another chore that very quickly gets out of control if I don't stay on top of it) and trimmed up my herb garden a bit.  With the exception of the dill, which apparently doesn't like me this year, all the rest of the herbs I put in are growing like crazy.  Here's the photo evidence-- this was the herb garden back in April!  I don't do anything to them except water them every once in a while and pull a weed or two, but that seems to be working just fine because they are growing like gangbusters.  They're already big enough that I can actually start using them without worrying about whether or not I'm trimming too much.  I made myself some lemon balm and mint tea from the garden today and it was just lovely.  Fresh herbs are just one of those things I feel like I need access to in order to properly cook anything, so I'm really happy I've been able to put in a huge herb garden like this one instead of being stuck with pots on an apartment patio. 

It's been almost a week since Connor had any seizures, which feels like a pretty good break considering the run of them we've been having lately.  I'm hoping that he'll have a reprieve from being sick and that it'll give him the chance to really recover so we can have a fantastic summer like we did last year!

~Jess

In Which We Have Father's Day And Jer Is Awesome

So today was Father's Day, of course, and Jeremy spent it being his usual amazing super-dad self.  I woke up feeling marginally better than yesterday but still pretty under the weather, so Jeremy declared it to be a Connor And Daddy Day and took off with the little guy so I could go back to bed. 

Yes, that's right-- it was Father's Day but I'm the one who got to sleep in.  Do I have a great husband or what?

Apparently they went to the park and played for a while, and then did a little shopping, ate lunch, and hung out at the bookstore and coffee shop.  Then they came home and Jeremy did some chores around the house and made a run to the landfill, thereby firmly cementing his Best Husband In The Universe title.  I mostly lazed around the house, but I started feeling a little better in the afternoon and did a little light housework and some gardening.  I'm going to take Jeremy out for a Father's Day dinner on Thursday when we have respite care to make up for being so under the weather today.

I see a whole lot of outdoorsy yard work in our future now that it's staying light outside past when Jeremy gets home from work.  I finished the arbor I was making a while ago and it's been leaning up against the side of the house waiting for post holes to be dug so we can cement it into place.  We've also got plans to put the second coat of stain on the deck and fence, resod the front lawn, weed and mulch all the beds. . . the list goes on.  We're getting someone to come in and finally take care of The Ivy That Ate Manhattan, which is still completely refusing to die no matter what I do to it and its buddies The Bindweed Of Jekyll Island and  Blackberry 9 From Outer Space.  I briefly considered renting a herd of goats to take care of it (yes, they actually do that up here) but I figured that we have a little too much ivy for goats to stomach.  So we'll have a crew come it and do it for us.  Eventually we'll get our wild yard tamed!

Other than a bit of a stuffy nose Connor is completely over being sick and hasn't had any seizures for a few days, which is really nice.  Jer is also feeling pretty much back to normal.  Now if only I can get over this bug we'll be good to go!

~Jess

My monthly post for Hopeful Parents is up.  You can find it over here.

~Jess

In Which Being Sick Is Kicking My Rear

So I spent most of today curled up in a ball on our bed.  I don't know if it was something I ate or if my Martian Death Flu got a second wind, but let's just say that it hasn't been a wonderful day for me healthwise and we'll leave it at that.  Luckily it's the weekend so Jeremy was able to watch Connor.

So this is going to be a short blog, because that's pretty much all I did today.  Ugh.  Being sick is no fun.

~Jess

In Which Connor Has His Last Day Of School And Summer Decides To Finally Cooperate

Today was Connor's last day of school for the year!

I dropped him off for a last private hurrah with his teacher, her support staff and his classmates, and then around ten or so all of us parents came back to join the party.  We watched some really cute video compilations of the kid's year and ate popcorn and cookies.  Connor tried a few swallows of his first soft drink ever-- some Sunkist Orange-- and seemed to enjoy it.  He also clapped enthusiastically in all the appropriate places during the video and the subsequent certificate presentations; it was really cute. 

I'm pretty sure he doesn't realize school is over though-- I think he just thought we were having a fun party.  I'm expecting that he'll probably start yelling every time we pass the school for the first couple of weeks of summer, just like he did last year.  I'm thinking the yelling means "Hey Mom, you missed your turn!" or something to that effect.

The weather decided it was time to celebrate too, and we had our first really gorgeous day of summer.  To make things even better our Community Supported Agriculture program finally brought in the first of the strawberry harvest!  All the berries are running about three weeks late because of the even-more-gloomy-than-usual weather we've been having this season.  These aren't the giant, firm strawberries you see in the grocery store; they're the bite-sized, incredibly ripe, delicate strawberries that are incredibly delicious but that don't store more than a week.  Trust me when I say that this is never a problem in our household.  Normally they're all gone by day three.

Despite the great weather, we're going to have to figure out some fun things to do indoors this summer-- at least until the weed pollen goes down!  I can't have the little guy breaking out in hives every time we go out on a field trip.  We'll hit all the museums, the aquarium and spend lots of time at the library again of course, but I'll have to start thinking up some new places to go too.

Bring on the summer!

~Jess

In Which I Feel Better And Connor Is A Blowfish

Sorry about yesterday!  I ended up spending most of my day on the couch, surrounded by tissues and miserably trying to stay awake while Connor watched far more Fraggle Rock episodes than was probably good for him.  We were at that glorious point where the little guy (who almost always gets sick first) was feeling a whole lot better and wanted to play at the same time that I was hoping someone would just take me out behind the barn and put me out of my misery.

While Connor obviously felt about 800 times better he wasn't completely recovered, though.  He'd be playing with a toy for about fifteen minutes and then his head would start nodding and his eyes would flutter shut.  He'd lean sideways and take a five or ten minute nap before snorting awake, giggling and going back to playing.  I tried to put him down for a nap, figuring he really needed one as narcolepsy is not one of the conditions on his ridiculously long list of medical issues, but the second I'd lay him down he'd suddenly become The Most Awake Boy The World Has Ever Known and start yelling at the top of his lungs until I gave up and picked him back up. 

Today was quite a bit better for both of us.  I no longer feel like death warmed over, and Connor seems to be pretty much completely recovered.  I put him back in his back brace for the first time since he got sick, and he wasn't particularly thrilled about it.  He kept holding his breath and trying to puff himself up like a blowfish.  I think he was emulating the Incredible Hulk and trying to bust out of his back brace with his crazy chest muscles.  When that didn't work, he tried exercising his crazy pouting muscles.  After that he gave up.

He enjoyed his next-to-last day of school (can you believe summer is starting already?), although I forgot to tell his teacher that he seems to be allergic to something in the air right now-- possibly the weed pollen, as it's really bad this year-- and so when they went out to recess he ended up with a case of hives.  Luckily they were pretty much gone by late afternoon, but they lasted long enough for me to go on a major Mommy Guilt Trip.  I'm pretty good at those.

Because of the way Connor currently breaks out in spots whenever we enjoy nature, I haven't been able to have him outdoors for more than five minutes at a time for the last couple of weeks, so you can just imagine what my yard was starting to look like.  While I would have really liked to have used the time Connor was at school for sleeping, I ended up mowing the lawn and weeding instead.  It was starting to look sort of like a jungle out there.  Luckily the days are getting longer so I'll have more time to work in the yard once Jeremy gets home in the evening.  I finished my arbor a while ago and it's been leaning up against the house waiting for me to dig the holes to put it in place.  I'm hoping to get that done this weekend, once I have a larger lung capacity and am actually able to breathe.

So I think the worst is probably over, which I'm very thankful for!  I'm looking forward to getting back to our regular routine.  And also not feeling miserable and stuff.  That's good too.

~Jess

In Which I Don't Really Write A Blog

I am seriously not feeling good tonight.  So I'm headed to bed and I'll blog more tomorrow.  Sorry!

~Jess

In Which Connor Shares With Everyone

Well, Connor must have been pretty disappointed about not getting to share his cold with his classmates.  So he decided to generously give it to Jer and me instead.  We are both completely thrilled with this development, as you can no doubt imagine. 

Connor still felt quite a bit under the weather himself; I got him up and dressed, and then put him in his wheelchair so I could make some breakfast and he burst into tears.  Any time I put him down for more than about two minutes today his lower lip would start dangerously quivering and Mommy Break Time would be over.  Honestly if he was any other kid I would chalk that sort of behavior up to being spoiled, but Connor is such a good natured little guy and crying at the drop of a hat is completely out of character for him and tells me he's really not feeling so hot.  So we ended up spending most of the day lounging on the couch together.  My household chores are rapidly piling up, but there's only so much one can do while balancing a wiggly fiver year old on a hip.  And also I felt sort of lousy myself, so the lounging on the couch might not have been completely Connor's idea.

My guess is that tomorrow is going to be that really fun day where Connor will be on the mend and I will feel truly miserable-- usually I'm sickest on the second or third day I start feeling ill-- and then we will have all sorts of fun times.  I'll be fine with the seizure level dropping (he had only two today) but the energy level rising might be a big issue.  Connor is not the sort of kid that really can entertain himself.  Or, say, be alone anywhere but in bed with the apnea monitor on.  Ever.  Oh well.  I have plenty of tea and brought home a new supply of honey from Canada, so I'm good to go! 

Now I just need more chocolate.  Chocolate is very therapeutic for sick people, so I should probably eat as much as possible of it.  I totally just made up that statistic, but I'm sure that it's true and in order to prove it I should gather as much empirical data as possible.  It's hard work, but somebody has got to do it.

For Science!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Sick Again

Guess who's got a cold?

The little guy woke up this morning with his nose crusted shut.  I had to use a warm washrag to clean him up enough so that he could breathe again.  He had six seizures today and spent pretty much all the rest of his time curled up on my chest alternating between sleeping and using my shirt as a kleenex. 

So that was pretty much all I did today too, other than the short breaks I got when he napped in his bed instead.  He didn't go to school, obviously.  I like to think of myself as a generous person, but this is one situation where I'd be willing to bet the teacher would rather us not share. 

He's having trouble sleeping because he keeps snoring loud enough to wake himself up. 

It just seems like he can't catch a break recently!  Looking back on the past six months I'm not sure how many posts I've ended with "I hope he feels better soon," but it's been just one thing after another.  I guess sometimes that's the way it goes, but I'm really hoping that with the return of the warm weather his health will improve. 

Oh well.  I hope he feels better soon.

~Jess

In Which I Have A Fantastic Time In Vancouver

I'm back!

The trip to Vancouver was an absolute blast and I had a tremendously good time.  We ended up winning our bout against the Terminal City Rollergirls' team the Riot Girls (I believe the final score was 89-193), but even if we hadn't it would have been a great game anyway.  I was skating with a pick-up team called the Tide Pool which was composed of members of all four of our home teams, so I got the chance to skate with quite a few people I normally skate against.  For a team that had only practiced together twice, we didn't do too badly! 

The atmosphere was laid back and fun, and we all really enjoyed ourselves.  Everyone played a nice clean game, there were no major injuries, and our hosts were extremely gracious.  All in all I'd say it was a near-perfect road trip!

Of course we got lost.  That's pretty much a guarantee any time you travel in a car with me anywhere that I'm not intimately familiar with.  But sometimes you find some really cool places while getting lost.  For example, on this trip I got lost looking for the place I was meeting one of our referees who was riding back with me, and I ended up driving through the million-dollar house section of Vancouver.  It was pretty amazing, even if it did take me an extra half an hour to get to the hotel.  Of course that might have also been because I was driving fifteen miles an hour.  Those were some really cool houses.

We didn't explore the city a whole lot because of time constraints, but we did stop at a really neat little farmer's market where we ate some fantastic local food and I picked up a souvenir or two.  It's a beautiful city and I'd love to go back and explore it with Jeremy and Connor some time when we have more time to stay and can really see the sights.

Connor had a quiet day yesterday but apparently had a couple of seizures today, and when I went in to check on him after I got home this evening he was really congested, so he might be getting sick.  Tomorrow we should find out what his blood levels looked like and see whether or not we need to adjust anything else medication wise.  I'm hoping he feels better in the morning. 

So over all the trip went pretty smoothly, but all the same I'm glad to be home! 

~Jess

In Which I Go To Canada

So tomorrow I'm headed up to Canada!  I'm having an overwhelming impulse to write "eh" at the end of all my sentences right now.  I'll try to restrain myself.

I've got a roller derby bout in Vancouver, BC so I'll be carpooling up there with some gals bright and early tomorrow morning.  I'm sad to say that even though we've been in Washington state for over four and a half years now, Jer and I have yet to explore anything north of the border in this area.  We've been up to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia a time or two, but that's literally on the other side of the continent.  So it was about time for a road trip!

Jer will have to wait another day to make his trip up because Connor is a a little young for an enhanced driver's license and doesn't have a passport yet.  So Jeremy and Connor will have a couple of Daddy Days while I'm off galavanting about with the ladies.  I wouldn't leave if the little guy was still being Seizy McSeizykin, but his medication change seems to have helped; he only had one today and seemed to be in much better spirits.  It would be just for my peace of mind if I did stay home anyway; Jeremy is an extremely competent parent and is just as effective at dealing with all of Connor's glorious medical emergencies as I am. 

Still, at some point we'll have to get Connor a passport and then we can all go up together and find some fun things to do, such as explore the Canadian health care system.  There are a whole bunch of emergency rooms we haven't toured yet up there! 

Oh, and we could go to the zoo and museums and whatnot too.  That would also be fun.

I'll be taking my trusty laptop with me but I'm not sure what kind of Internet I'll be able to find, so you may or may not see a blog here tomorrow depending on my access.  I'll be back by Sunday evening, so (if it was interrupted) your regularly scheduled programming will resume at that time.  I'm really excited about this trip-- I think it's going to be a blast. 

Wish me luck, eh?

~Jess

In Which We Mess With Connor's Meds Again

So bright and early this morning I rolled Connor into the van and drove up to Seattle Children's to see the neurologist.  Early morning appointments are nice because no one is at the hospital so you tend to get in quickly, but they're kind of offset by all the sitting in rush hour traffic you have to do to get there.

Anyway, Connor's blood levels weren't all back yet-- the only things back were the general workup and the Depakote, which turned out to be on the low range of normal.  We're still waiting on the Lamictal and the Keppra.  In the meantime our neurologist went ahead and decided to up Connor's Depakote.  Once we get the Lamictal levels back we'll discover if we need to lower that medication or not.  It's kind of a crazy seesaw sort of way to manage things, but it can't really be helped.

Oh, and we also discovered that one of his pancreatic enzymes is now reading high.  It's not completely off the register high, but it's high enough that we'll be coming back to the hospital in a few weeks to get it rechecked.  Depakote can apparently cause pancreatitis as a rare side effect.  Wouldn't that be fun? 

Yeesh.

Otherwise things went all right today.  Connor, I'm happy to say, only had one seizure today; after I gave him the upped dose he perked up and seemed to be feeling much better.  It doesn't help that he's got three loose teeth right now (all in the bottom) and also is cutting his first permanent tooth.  When we went to occupational therapy late in the afternoon all he really wanted to do was chew on their vibrating toys.  He ended up completely crashing on Jeremy this evening, which I'm not surprised by.  We had a very busy day and he spent a good portion of the second half of it with his mouth stretched open in a huge, jaw-cracking yawn.  It made me tired just looking at him. 

Here's something weird to think about, by the way.  You know how yawns are contagious and whenever you see someone else yawn you have to yawn too?  Well, Connor doesn't have that mechanism, or at least he hasn't developed it yet.  I've never seen him "catch" a yawn from someone else.  There's an interesting article on Discovery News that covers this very topic.  Interesting!

Anyway, we're hoping that the medication change will give Connor a reprieve from his seizures for a little while.  And also that he won't get pancreatitis.  Because that would be bad.

Yeah.

~Jess

In Which Connor Has A Whole Bunch More Seizures

Well, Connor's now had eighteen seizures in the past three days.  Which is sort of a lot.

Obviously he missed his school field day this morning, and when he'd had his first three seizures before ten in the morning again (he ended up having seven total today) I called the neurology nurse line and left a message.  I figured that even though Connor has an appointment with them tomorrow morning I might as well give them a heads up that his neurons seemed to have taken up tap dancing again. 

So I got a call back pretty quickly, and the nurse asked me to bring him in to get his medication levels checked.  This is pure speculation on my part, but I'm thinking that maybe they suspect he's overdosing on Lamictal.  The new drug he's on, Depakote, has the side effect of making the Lamictal way more effective, which could mean that his current dose is now too high rather than too low like it was before.  And of course, pretty much any time you end up with too much of a seizure drug in your system, it causes you to have seizures.  Connor's meds are sort of a delicate balancing act.

Thankfully we got the amazing phlebotomist (or in layman's terms, the Blood Draw Guy) who works at Children's.  For those of you who go to Children's in Seattle, this guy's name is Hector and seriously-- he's incredible.  He finds a vein on the first try and puts the needle in so quickly and cleanly that Connor doesn't even notice.  Connor's not exactly an easy kid to get blood out of, either.  So we're always happy when we see Hector around-- I saw him out in the hallway by a lucky chance and pounced on him. 

Don't get me wrong-- the other phlebotomists there are all great too.  But Hector is amazing.

So we'll find out how things looked when we go in tomorrow morning.  If we're lucky than the medication balance will end up being the issue and it'll be a quick fix.  I guess we'll just have to see!

~Jess

In Which Connor Has A Whole Bunch Of Seizures And I Build One Half Of An Arbor

Connor didn't fare very well today, I'm afraid.  He had a grand total of seven seizures today-- three of them before ten in the morning-- and he ended up coming home early from school and spending most of the day asleep on my chest.

I didn't fare so well either.  We had a three hour roller derby practice yesterday, and I woke up extremely sore.  When you are very sore, I do not recommend spending an entire day sitting on the couch completely still with a heavy (and drooling) weight on your chest.  This will not make you any less sore.  It will kind of have the opposite effect, in fact. 

Also by the time Jeremy got home I desperately needed a bathroom break.  This did not help matters.

I have no idea what's going on with the kid, but I'm wondering if maybe he's coming down with something.  He wasn't running a fever though and he's not congested at all, so I'm not really sure.  He's supposed to have his school field day tomorrow and I'm hoping he'll be able to go, but we'll just have to see how he's feeling.

In the hour or so Connor spent at school before the nurse called and I picked him up I did manage to get a little bit of work done on the arbor, which was nice.  I finished cutting out all the pieces and put together the first side panel as you can see in the picture.  The piece to the right is the top of the arbor; I have yet to attach the pieces together so it's just laid out.  I think it's going to turn out actually looking like what I had in my head, which is pretty exciting.  After Jeremy came home I escaped to the hardware store and picked up more screws as well as some plants for the shade garden on the side of the house, which I think will end up looking pretty nice once we're finished with it.  I'm not sure if I'll get the chance to work on it tomorrow; it will largely depend on how Connor's feeling and if the weather cooperates.

I hope he does better tomorrow!

~Jess

In Which I Play With Power Tools And Connor Has Some Seizures, But Thankfully Not At The Same Time

Well today was sort of a mixed bag.

Connor stayed up until 3:30 in the morning last night, which I did not particularly appreciate.  I let him sleep in until the last possible minute before waking him up for school, and believe me when I say that this was not entirely for his benefit.  After I gave him his morning medication (through his g-tube, so he could sleep through it) I went back to bed and I got up about five minutes before he did. 

He kept his eyes squeezed shut in protest and pretended like he was asleep (only asleep sitting up, clapping his hands and singing to himself, of course) from the time we pulled into the school parking lot, where he immediately perked up and was his normal, happy self.  He apparently thoroughly enjoyed himself at school, and had a great day. 

I considered going back to bed after I dropped Connor off, but I really had a lot of things I wanted to get done outside while he was at school.  So I went and found myself some caffeine, after which I came back home and spent some time out in the backyard with a measuring tape.  Then I sat down at the kitchen and drew up plans for an arbor.  We've decided to put one in the backyard over the wheelchair ramp to separate the side yard from the backyard and make the area more attractive, and I think I'm going to try and tackle the project on my own!  If I can manage to build this thing without really screwing up or losing any major body parts, it'll be the first thing I'll have made using power tools all on my own.  Luckily it doesn't have to be terribly sturdy because we're putting a plant called akebia vine on it, which is really light and pretty self-supporting.  Akebia vine is a shade tolerant, fast grower with interesting foliage.  It's also highly invasive in the southeastern states, (so don't plant it if you live there) but is nicely behaved here.  So if I end up with a rickety mess, at least the plant will be forgiving. 

Anyway, I drove down to the hardware store and picked up the supplies I needed for the basic framework of the arbor.  I ran into bit of a snag when I discovered that instead of the ten foot cedar posts I needed and knew would fit in Rowbert The Wheelchair Van (I measured!) all they had were the eight foot and twelve foot posts.  The eight foot wouldn't work because this is going over a wheelchair ramp, which is raised a couple of feet off the ground.  If I sink the posts a foot and a half into the ground than there would only be four and a half feet of clearance to walk under the arbor, which would mean that Connor (and possibly Ellen) would be the only ones in this family not having to bend over to walk under the thing.  So I had to go home with the twelve foot posts instead.  They were about a foot too long to fit in the van, and so I ended up driving home really slowly with the warning lights on and the trunk open.  Fun times.

But anyway, I've got all the pieces cut out for the top of the arbor and the four main poles, and tomorrow while Connor's in school I'll go back for the lattice work and start drilling pilot holes so I can put the whole thing together.  Hopefully I'll be able to stain it on Thursday and then Jeremy and I can put it in the ground this weekend and I'll be able to complete my plantings in the side yard.  Then (other than the mulching) we'll have one part of the yard totally finished!

So I was feeling pretty good about what I'd accomplished so far today when I went to pick Connor up from school.  He and I both took a much-needed nap and slept for a couple hours, which was pretty fantastic.  Then the day started going downhill.  Between three in the afternoon and seven at night, Connor had four seizures.  Also he threw up on my shoes. 

This comes totally out of the blue; I don't know if they were triggered by him not having enough sleep, or if he's getting sick or what.  At any rate, despite sleeping after each seizure he was exhausted by the end of the day and went down quietly and quickly.  It looks like he's probably going to sleep through the night.

So we'll see what he looks like tomorrow morning; I'm hoping that he'll be feeling better.  Otherwise my grandiose arbor-building plans might need to be put on hold for a while until we figure out what's going on with the little guy.  He likes to keep me on my toes!

~Jess

In Which Connor Gets A Hair Cut And Almost Loses His Ears

I'm having a hard time typing right now because Loki thinks my laptop is something nice to rub his cheek on.  So he keeps shoving it off to the side while I'm in the middle of a sentence.  I've picked him up and put him on the floor about six times now, but he doesn't seem to be getting the message.  Crazy cat.

So a quick update on my weird finger bump thing; I haven't received word on the x-rays yet, but I think it was probably partially dislocated.  I think this because a couple of days ago I was doing my sign language finger limbering exercises and sort of accidentally popped it back into place.  I won't go into too much detail on that, but trust me when I say it was not the most pleasant thing I have ever experienced.

So there's no bump there anymore, though things are still sort of, um, crunchy in there.  Ew.  Also the joint seems to be sort of sliding back in and out of place every once in a while, which is a kind of unsettling feeling.  Yeah.  My pinky seems to function perfectly well though and it's not painful or swollen, so I'm not too worried about it.

I should find out next week what, if anything the x-rays turned up, so we'll see if I'm right about what happened then!

Connor spent a quiet afternoon with his daddy today; I tried keeping him outside with me while I worked in the yard, but it didn't work out because he started having an allergic reaction to something.  One of his eyes swelled up and he broke out in hives.  So it was back indoors he went.  I have no idea what he reacted to, but there's a whole lot of weed pollen in the air right now and also everyone was out mowing their lawns, so I guess something was in the air.  At any rate, he stayed inside while I moved dirt around and planted ferns down the side of our house.  He's still a little bumpy but it seems to be clearing up and I'd be willing to bet that by tomorrow morning he'll be fine. 

I took him for a hair cut the other day and he's lucky he still has his ears.  The kid has apparently decided that hair cuts are hilarious, and he started jerking around unexpectedly and then laughing when I tried to hold him still.  There were several times he narrowly missed impaling himself on the scissors, which probably would have taken all of the fun right out of the whole situation. 

So his hair cut is a little ragged, but the poor stylist did a remarkable job considering the conditions she was working under.  I tipped her well; she earned every penny.  The ragged hair cut sort of works on him too-- especially when I put his Irish tweed cap on.  It gives him a jaunty, mischievous sort of look.

In addition to giving him a rakish air, the haircut of course makes Connor look like a very dapper, very short gentlemen in his mid-twenties.  How the heck do hair cuts make him look that much older?  My camera is out of batteries right now, but as soon as I replace them I'll take a picture for you so you can see how big he looks now.  He's decided to make it another late night tonight, which I am thrilled about.  I have no idea how this kid functions on so little sleep!  Before they figured out that Connor's apnea spells were seizures, they briefly talked about putting him on caffeine pills to help stimulate his breathing.  I am so, so glad they decided not to do that.  If the kid's like this naturally I can't even imagine how he'd be on caffeine!

~Jess

In Which I Buy A Gigantic Plant And It Is Very Hot

Today dawned gorgeous and sunny, so when Joanna came over to watch Connor Jeremy and I drove to the farmer's market downtown and spent some time wandering.  The market was absolutely packed, so we didn't want to stay too long.  My plan today was to do some work in the garden though, and I had one plant in particular I wanted to pick up that I knew would be cheaper at the farmer's market than in the nurseries.  After browsing several different vendors I bought a healthy looking specimen of giant rhubarb-- also known in these parts as dinosaur plant-- for my shade garden.  These plants can get six to eight feet tall, with leaves up to five feet across.  The one I picked up was considerably smaller, which was good because I'd hate to have to dig a hole big enough to stick a mature plant in. 

So we brought that home and I planted it in a damp, shady spot at the back of my garden.  We'll see whether or not I can manage to keep it alive.

I was planning on doing a lot more work in the garden today, but it was just so darn hot that I chickened out.  And when I say hot, I mean that it was about 78 degrees. 

All of my Texan relatives are laughing at me right now.

I've gotten so acclimated to the cool, damp climate here that somehow weather in the high seventies seems really, really hot.  This is funny because in Texas, where I spent 23 years, weather in the high seventies in June is a cold streak.  I believe it hit 97 degrees in my parent's town today.  But you know, this is the Pacific Northwest and so I'm allowed to complain about anything that's higher than, oh, 73 degrees or so.

Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to sit inside and eat ice cream.  Either way works.

~Jess

In Which My Day Starts Out Blah And Gets Better

This morning I felt really crabby and frazzled as I dropped Connor off for school.  The morning had not gone well; one of the cats (and I can guess which one) had apparently decided the detachable foam tongue of one of Connor's ankle-foot orthotics would make a fantastic toy and had absconded with it.  I spent a good half an hour looking underneath all of our furniture for it with no luck, and so I had to take Connor to not only sans braces but also tardy.  As of right now, the piece is still AWOL. 

So I was not in the best of moods.

I knew that if I didn't want to spend the rest of the day out of sorts I needed to do something quick, so I decided a little retail therapy might be an order.  I knew that a lot of the stores in the mall were transitioning out their spring clothes and moving in their summer clothes, so I stopped in and browsed their clearance racks for items to donate to the orphanage.  I've learned that one sure way to make myself feel better is to do something nice for somebody else, and those clothes went a long way to boosting my mood.  While I don't buy things like formula or medication until a few weeks in advance because of the expiration dates, I constantly keep an eye out for some of the items that won't expire-- like developmental toys, bandages, school supplies, and the aforementioned clothes-- and I snap them up on sale when I can.  I keep a box in Ellen's closet where I store everything I've found, and then every time our agency goes over to Thailand I send a bunch of things with them. 

So things were looking up as I left the mall.  The bar of gourmet chocolate I bought on the way out (which I donated directly to my mouth) tipped the balance, and by the time I drove to pick up Connor life was grand once again.

Ellen's care package is sitting on my counter right now all ready to go, which also makes me pretty happy.  I wanted to make it look pretty but I needed to make sure that the orphanage staff would be able to open the package and check the contents before they gave it to Ellen.  They know her best and if there's something in there that isn't appropriate for her at this time, then I wanted them to be able to take it out and still have the whole thing look pretty. 

I looked for a box with a lid at our local craft store but apparently they've stopped carrying them, so I ended up getting a plastic bin, covering it with wrapping paper and lining the inside with tissue paper.  It's maybe not the most elegant solution (and next time I'll probably try the craft store across town, which might still carry the boxes) but looks decent and hopefully the orphanage will be able to use the bin for something.  We're waiting on a letter to come back from the translator, and then I'll bake her some cookies (because for a person with a Feed People gene like me, no package is complete without some form of tasty baked good in it) and we'll send it off!  It gives me a warm feeling every time I look at the box, because I know that in a few weeks it will be in our daughter's hands. 

So I hope that she knows how much love we've packaged inside!  Or at the very least that she likes the cookies.  For us Feed People folks it's sort of the same thing.

~Jess

In Which Connor Throws A Party

So this is going to be a short post, because I'm bushed!

The past two nights, Connor has decided that three in the morning is Wake Up Time and he greated the day with a whole lot of very happy yelling and singing.  Apparently three in the morning is the perfect time to throw a little party for yourself; that's what it sounded like was going on in there, anyway.  Perhaps he is attempting to prepare us for Ellen's future teenage girl sleepover parties or something.

I didn't really want to wake up at three in the morning, but Connor's lung capacity has improved considerably so I wasn't really given a choice.  So I'd stumble out of bed every once in a while and check on him.  Both times he ended up falling asleep again around six, and of course an hour later it was his usual wake up time.

I've not been particularly thrilled by this development.

Connor spent all day today in a crabby, clingy, whiny sort of mood, which isn't really surprising considering he's getting four less hours of sleep a night than he's used to.  I was in a sort of in a crabby and whiny mood too.  Then of course he refused to go to sleep once Jer put him down-- he was probably overtired.  He finally fell asleep around eleven in the evening, and I'm really hoping he'll be staying down this time.

Blegh.

~Jess

In Which I Go To The Doctor

So today I spent the morning at the doctor's office, because I might have sort of broken my hand a tiny little bit.

It's weird being at the doctor's office when I'm not there for Connor, by the way.  They made me wait for ten whole minutes-- it was crazy!  I'm used to just sort of waltzing in past everybody and being whisked into a room.  Guess I'm a little spoiled.

But back to the hand thing.  Anyway, so a few weeks ago I was (of course) playing roller derby and I partially broke a fall with the outside portion of my left hand.  We wear wrist guards and it didn't swell up or anything, so it didn't seem like a very big deal.  My pinky and the top of my palm bruised, but since there's a whole lot of blood flow to extremities the bruising cleared up pretty quickly. 

So there's no more bruising, no more swelling, and the pinky works just fine.  Except now whenever I fully extend my hand and put pressure on the palm (like if I'm doing a pushup) an area just under my pinky hurts like a son of a gun.  Oh, and also I have a hard, pointy lump there that seems to be attached to the bone.  It's about the size of a pea, and it moves with my pinky joint.  You can feel it really easily under the skin.

So I went in to the doctor's office today, and the doctor said it's probably one of two things.  Either it's a bone spur, in which case I probably won't do anything about it as it's not really affecting the functionality of my hand that badly, or I've got a chipped bone in there.  Specifically what they call an avulsion fracture, where the bone broke and then a tendon pulled the end of the bone off. 

Glorious.

My guess is that it's probably going to end up being a bone spur.  I mean, I can't help but think that if it were actually broken I would have experienced at least a little bit of swelling and probably a heck of a lot more discomfort.  But the main reason I'm hoping it's a bone spur is because if it's a chipped bone the doctor said they're probably going to want to do something to it right away, and then I'd have to figure out a reason to put them off until after championships. 

I know, I know-- I shouldn't try and justify this sort of thing, I'm being irresponsible with my health, blah blah blah.  But it's championships, dang it, and it's not like the darn thing is going to get any worse, right?  It's already been almost a month since I injured it in the first place which means that it's probably pretty much healed that way if it has been fractured, so I imagine it could probably wait a couple more weeks. 

But there's no use going into that until the x-ray results come back (which should be some time in the next week) so in the meantime I'm just going to keep skating, and I'll hope for the best!

~Jess