In Which We Go On An Airplane

Well, we added a new first to our list of unusual places Connor has had a seizure.  He managed one at 33,000 feet in the air this morning, in the middle of an airplane.  Luckily it was a pretty short one, he stayed breathing and the flight attendants didn't notice.  We didn't really want to send the plane down early or anything. 

So you may be wondering what, exactly we were doing on said airplane.  We were flying home from Texas; we've actually been gone since December 17th.  So all of those posts where I didn't have any pictures and/or wrote a really short blog were actually due to a combination of bad Internet connections and settings that definitely didn't look like Washington state in mid-December.  The other reason the posts were short is because it is very difficult to find things to write about that didn't involve giving away the fact that we were actually somewhere else.  Like when I said that Jer was feeling under the weather, when actually we were in Colorado for a wedding and he got altitude sickness and threw up all over our hotel room and then just felt generally horrible until we got back down to an elevation under 6,000 feet.  That was a fun couple of days there.

Anyway, I tried my best to not let the cat out of the bag while we were gone because while I love all of you very dearly, I have no idea who most of you are.  And so since I didn't really want to broadcast something like "Hey, Our House Is Empty Right Now!  Come Visit And Check Out Our TV, Appliances And Small Valuables!" I figured it would be better to talk about the trip after the fact.  But it was very difficult, because I didn't want to lie to you.  So I just had to find a bunch of stuff to talk about that didn't have anything to do with what we were actually doing at that moment, which I did with a debatable degree of success.  This is what happens when you write a personal narrative-type blog, I suppose.

But now I get to talk about our trip, which I will do once I have actually gotten some sleep.  We got up for our flight at 3:30 this morning Texas Time, which works out to 1:30 in the morning for us, and then caught a five or so hour flight (direct, thank goodness) that left at 5:40 our time.  And then we unpacked, I took a quick nap, ate dinner and went to derby practice.  So I am just a wee bit tired at the moment.

Anyway, there is a Christmassy-type picture of Connor and me taken by my lovely sister to tide you over until tomorrow, when I will have many, many more things to share with you!

~Jess

In Which We Have Returned To Washington

We're back!

The wedding was absolutely beautiful and I think that everyone had a fantastic time! The newlyweds were absolutely glowing with happiness and my sister looked gorgeous. Connor hung out with my mother-in-law, who was nice enough to pull babysitting duties yet again even after spending so much time helping us out up in Washington. What a sweetie! I lucked out on the in-laws, huh?

And yes, as predicted Connor was ridiculously adorable in his wedding suit and hat. I can't wait to see pictures!

We were only gone for six days, and I'm amazed to see how much progress Jer has made just in the last week-- he's moving around better and has a lot more energy. It's nice to see the improvement; it's harder to see when I'm there every day, so it gives me some perspective. I can't wait to see what he's doing in another month!

Anyway the plane flight went well today, and we're now back up in Puyallup, where I am surprised to say it is still sunny and nice outside. I'm really hoping that it stays that way long enough for us to get the roof cleaned on the new house before the rain sets in! We'll just have to see how it goes.

The inspection and appraisal are both in, our underwriting approval is finished, and it looks like our closing date will be bumped up to some time between the 22nd and the 25th! That means we potentially only have eleven days before we own a house! I will now be catapulted into frantic planning mode-- we'll need a permit to put a ramp on the house, which we can't apply for until we actually own the house. This means we have to find a contractor ASAP so that we can start work pretty quickly. We plan to do the same thing we did with the last house and take 30 days to move in, so it's not like we'll be out on our ears or anything if we don't get the permit taken care of immediately after we buy the house or something, but it would probably be a good idea to already have someone lined up. And since you have to pay a fee for each building permit, it might be a good idea to write the permit for everything we intend to do to the house so we're only paying one fee. I'll add it to the list of things to do.

You know what I'm looking forward to? Besides not sleeping on the floor and having half my furniture in a storage unit, I mean. I'm looking forward to being able to sing my bawdy Irish drinking songs at the top of my lungs while I'm cleaning the house and not worrying about disturbing the upstairs neighbors. I'm not worried about any of them seeing me through the windows, as they probably already think I'm crazy, but they work the night shift and so they're trying to sleep during the day and the walls are pretty paper-thin. Hearing me belting out an off-key rendition of "Rattlin', Roarin' Willie" is not likely to help them get some shuteye. While this has been a great apartment complex and we haven't been here very long, it's hard to feel totally comfortable in a space that's not entirely your own. So it'll be nice to have a big space to dance around and be silly in without worrying about disturbing anyone.

I believe Jer is still mostly looking forward to that wood stove. We'd better get that thing cleaned quickly so he can cozy up to the fire. He's looking forward to that kitchen too-- there's a pull-out cutting board that might be just about his height, so he may be able to do some cooking right away!

But we only have eleven days! Guess I'd better get packing.

~Jess

In Which Much Drama Occurs

Well, today was a rather dramatic day.

I spent the first two hours of the morning with the real estate agent and the plumber up at the new house getting a hose bib replaced on an outside faucet. It took rather longer than expected because whoever put in the original hose bib apparently encased the whole copper pipe in concrete. I'm told this is not a good idea. Anyway, the plumber eventually extracted the pipe and put in a new one, but the extra time it took caused us to leave for the airport in a bit of a rush. Hopefully I didn't forget anything important.

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and stood in the long security line for a while. Connor and I always end up being searched separately because of the fact that the wheelchair won't exactly fold up and fit through the x-ray machine, so while my mother-in-law gathered back up the luggage we'd put through on the belt, the little guy and I headed over to the separate security area. One of the things they always do is take a wand that has what looks like a wad of cotton on the end of it, run it over the wheelchair and Connor's g-tube apparatus, and drop the cotton with the residue sample into a machine. Normally then we're sent on our way. Well, this time they swiped it over the outside of Connor's pump, dropped it in the slot, and all the bells and whistles went off while the machine's screen turned red and blinked EXPLOSIVE RESIDUE in half-inch high letters.

This is always what you want to see at an airport.

So the supervisor was called, and Connor was disconnected from the pump, and a man wearing gloves very gently picked up Connor's g-tube pump and very gingerly bore it off, presumably for more thorough testing, while I got to answer questions about where I'd gotten the g-tube pump and if I'd been away from it at any time and where was I going and what did I intend to do there? My only guess as to why his g-tube pump tested positive (as I'm relatively sure that Connor has not been mucking around with explosives) is that Jer has recently received ten footlockers from Afghanistan, all covered in a liberal coating of the fine-grained desert sand that they refer to as "moon dust" over there and which undoubtedly contains traces of explosives and God knows what else. At any rate they finally decided that Connor and I were not very likely terrorists and the g-tube pump was returned to us in time for us to catch our plane.

So the plane ride was uneventful once we got off the ground. This took a while because the plane apparently over the weight limit. As the airport thought my solution of shuffling all the really obese people on the plane around so the weight was more evenly distributed to be rather politically incorrect, they had to rearrange the luggage instead. Once the problem was solved and we were up in the air, Connor caught a little nap and was overall a totally adorable well-behaved little angel. Possibly he was making up for the whole playing with explosives thing. Anyway, we touched down, my father met us at the airport, we dropped my mother-in-law off at her house and arrived home, where we spent a pleasant half an hour catching up and watching the tail end of the hockey game when Connor decided to have a massive allergic reaction to something.

He started off coughing a little and rubbing one eye, and fifteen minutes later both eyes were totally swollen shut, the rest of his face was red and swelling, and his nose was stuffing up. Mom ran across the street to my cousins' house and borrowed some Benadryl, and we gave him a big dose. So now he looks much, much better, is asleep in a crib in the bedroom, and we are totally stumped. I'll check again when I give him his next dose of Benadryl, but as of right now he doesn't appear to have any red spots or hives-- nothing resembling any of the earlier issues he's had.

So for now we'll be hovering over him with the Benadryl while we try to figure out what the heck is going on. Was it their cat? We have two at home he doesn't seem to react to, and he hasn't had this reaction at the homes of our friends who have cats. Was it the lavender bouquets? We have those at home too and he didn't touch them today. Now here's a thought-- maybe he's allergic to explosive residue! Um, okay, maybe not.

Unfortunately if he continues to have this sort of thing happen we may have to find a hotel room, which is sad as we'd like to stay with family but better than Connor randomly blowing up like a marshmallow in the microwave.

Just glad he's okay now.

~Jess

In Which I Do Entirely Too Little

Today was a day in which I was supposed to get a whole lot of things taken care of, but instead I mostly lazed about and spent quality time with Jer and Connor, totally devoid of any desire to do anything productive. I'll have to get up pretty early tomorrow morning to get everything finished before it's time to leave for the airport, but it was worth it to have a lazy day with the guys. I don't have nearly enough of those.

I did get a few things done; I dropped off yet more paperwork needed to buy the new house and set up the plumber to get the bad leak outside fixed before the appraiser turns the water on. I also stopped by the bookstore to get a couple books for the airplane. That was pretty important. Now I just have to get a couple of nit picky details taken care of. Like packing. Packing would probably be a good idea.

Connor's face is almost totally back to normal-- you can barely see a pink outline of where the worst spots were. Hopefully in a few days they'll have totally disappeared. He seems to be much more comfortable and happy, which is nice. It was hard to see him itchy and miserable for so long. I'm still a little mystified as to the cause of the breakout in the first place, but I think we're going to stick with the eczema explanation for the lack of a better one.

Oh-- I just heard Jer's alarm go off. We set ourselves a bedtime for tonight because we've been staying up too late recently. I'd better go; I'll post tomorrow from Texas!

~Jess

In Which Jer And I Are A Scant 2671 Miles Apart

Okay, so I have good news and bad news.

The good news is I got a phone call from Jeremy this morning and he is in the United States!

The bad news is that he's not here.

He's up in the other Washington, to be exact; the D.C. one, where they will be doing his major surgery before moving him back to good ol' Washington state. He said that since he'll probably only be there a short amount of time it would be best if we stay here. So I'll hang out, clean the house (You don't even want to know what my bathroom looks like at this point. Trust me.), and get Connor totally ready for school. I'll also spend the time answering my e-mails and messages, which I have fallen way, way behind on, and basically try to stay busy so I don't go totally nuts.

I wish I was there-- especially for his surgery-- but I know he'll be in good hands. With any luck I will see him (FINALLY!) some time this week.

What a roller coaster.

~Jess

In Which I Am Not Patient

So far as I know, Jer's plane is still sitting on the tarmac in Germany. At least it was as of noon today, anyway. I'll let you all know when I get an update that's it's left or when they tell me it's arrived-- whichever comes first.

I spent a good portion of today waiting by the phone and playing approximately 8,000 games of Mahjong on my new laptop. When I couldn't stand Mahjong any more I switched to Solitaire, and then Spider Solitaire, and then I even tried Hearts, which normally I don't care for at all. Usually my game of choice is Minesweeper, but I couldn't bring myself to play today, for obvious reasons. The little smiley face with x's for eyes makes me cry.

Anyway, once I ran out of games I read a book, and when that was finished Connor and I took a walk, and then I paced in circles around the living room for 45 minutes or so while Connor took a short nap. Loki helped by hiding behind the futon and attempting to ambush my knees at unexpected moments, which kept things interesting. Finally I couldn't stand waiting any more and drove down to visit a few friends, where we watched The Devil Wears Prada and ate mini quiches, cheeseburgers, and chocolate brownies with ice cream and blackberries (all highly therapeutic foods). Around 7:00 in the evening or so I had to take Connor home for his medicine and bed. He's now down, so I believe I will be returning to the Mahjong-Solitaire-Spider Solitaire-Hearts cycle until the phone rings or I fall asleep: whichever comes first.

I hate waiting.

~Jess

In Which Jer May Or May Not Get Onto A Plane

So Jer is currently in a holding area waiting. This is because the plane broke down. I am glad they are fixing it and giving it a thorough check over before they get in the air, as I would rather not have Jer half-blown-up twice if I can help it.

He's doing pretty well-- a friend of ours in Germany was able to visit him quickly right before they loaded him on the bus and said his spirits were high (Thank you, Jason!). He'd started running a low-grade fever last night, but while they didn't have any information about it today I'm assuming it's well under control or they wouldn't be moving him.

You will recall that it took three tries to get Jer up off the ground when he left, so while they've said it will only be a couple of hours I'll take that with a grain of salt. I'd like them to REALLY give that plane a good going-over, so I don't mind the wait.

They'll let me know when it's up in the air, and hopefully he'll be arriving some time late this evening or early tomorrow morning. The first 72 hours we'll have to limit our visiting and touching him, since they have to wait for the blood work to come back and make sure he doesn't have malaria or one of those other nasty little diseases you can pick up in Afghanistan. While Connor and I coming down with malaria would undoubtedly make for dramatic writing material, I think we'll try and avoid it at all possible. Especially for Connor. Yeesh.

Though now that I think about it, malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, so kissing Jer shouldn't do anything. Unless he's picked up some other bug. Oh well; better safe than sorry.

We should with any luck get to go in and see Jer tonight though. I can't wait! Needless to say I slept hardly a wink last night. Good thing I now have some top-of-the-line under-eye concealer, thanks to my shopping extravaganza of yesterday.

As there's been a little confusion, I should probably clarify that when I said he was coming home, I didn't mean to our house. He'll be in the hospital-- probably for some time-- while they bolt pieces of him back together. While there he'll probably have a couple of plates inserted in his heels too, which should be amusing at airport security checks.

Jeremy's going to let me know as soon as he's up for visitors other than Connor and me, and I'll pass that along. We may try and space them out so we don't have the masses descending upon us all at one time. Give us a week or so-- I'll let you know if he's ready for y'all before then and you can come on down.

They've said that he'll be in a private room with a bed for me, which is nice. Connor can visit during the day but he's not allowed to spend the night, so I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to work that yet. I may be calling various people who live on post to see whether or not Connor and I can crash on their couches for a night or two so we don't have the commute in the morning. We left some flex time in our respite care hours so that Joanna can take Connor for a couple of nights and I can stay there, but that's not a long-term solution. It will largely depend on Jer's wishes, what procedures he's having done, and whether or not I can sneak past the nurses with Connor in a large duffel bag after visiting hours are over.

Joke, people. Joke. I could never fit all my new toiletries in there with a toddler crammed in my overnight bag anyway.


~Jess

Home

We're home.

We're tired.

I finally got Connor to bed around eleven last night. He then woke up every hour on the hour bawling-- probably having nightmares about me leaving him. I had to get up at 6:30 to finish my packing, as I wasn't able to pack the night before due to Connor's state of panic whenever he saw me putting things in the suitcase. I should really know better than to do this by now.

He stayed awake the whole plane ride of course, despite my attempts to cajole him into napping so I could catch a few hours of shuteye myself. He enjoyed every second of the flight once he figured out that we were getting on the plane together, which I had only told him about 8,000 times by this point.

So anyway, we're home safely. More tomorrow. Good night.

~Jess

In Which Even More Fun Occurs

Well, good to know that God has an impeccable sense of dramatic timing. I'm running around trying to get things together here for a trip down to Texas; my grandfather took a turn for the worse but has rallied and is holding his own right now. I still feel like I need to go down there, though, so we've got plane tickets booked.

Anyway, I called up Connor's hospital to let them know that we'd be going on a trip. I do this whenever we leave the immediate area as a precaution so that if something untoward were to happen while we were in Texas the doctor would have already reviewed Connor's file and be ready to advise treatment, fax medical records, authorize procedures, etc.

Anyway, I'd called our insurance company, Tricare, about a week ago to see who Connor's new Primary Care Manager would be-- I knew that Dr. Adams, his primary pediatrician, was supposed to leave at the end of May but I hadn't heard anything regarding the new doctor he'd been assigned. They told me that no, Dr. Adams was still there and still Connor's doctor. I figured his timeline had just changed or something. Fast forward to today. I call up the pediatrics department and they inform me that not only did Dr. Adams leave two and a half weeks ago, but that they haven't assigned Connor another doctor. I have them transfer me to Connor's developmental pediatrician Dr. Aranda, who tells me that she is actually leaving the hospital in four days. They haven't assigned Connor another doc in that department either. This means that my son-- you know, the one with the twelve-inch thick medical file whom I periodically have to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on-- has NO GENERAL DOCTOR WHO KNOWS HIS MEDICAL HISTORY.

Not cool, people. Not cool.

After I finished hyperventilating, Dr. Aranda (who didn't have any idea that we hadn't been assigned a new PCM) said that she'd personally ask one of the best doctors on staff to take us on. This makes me feel slightly better, though it still means that I'll be getting on a plane with no contact information for a doctor I don't know the name of who has never seen Connor before except on paper.

Gotta love military hospitals. This day just keeps getting better and better.

~Jess

Up, Up and Away!

Connor and I had a relatively nice, uneventful day today. He's still a little more emotional than usual, and he still won't leave his right ear alone, so I'm really thinking a trip to the doctor is an order. We're leaving for my brother's wedding pretty soon, and I'm sure getting on a plane if you've got fluid in your ear would not only cause Connor to have a long, long plane ride, but also me and all of the passengers sitting within a forty foot radius of us. We're going to try to avoid that scenario if at all possible.

Connor is a veteran flyer-- this will be his, um, seventeenth flight. I think. I've sort of lost count. He's usually fantastic on the plane, but this time we have are throwing in a few complications in addition to the whole possible ear infection thing. Normally we have Jeremy along with us, but he's not going to make this trip, so I'll be juggling baby and luggage alone. Also this will be our first flight with Connor's wheelchair. It should be interesting, as in addition to the chair and our luggage I will also be carrying on a car seat so Connor can sit in the chair that we paid 400 dollars for (and therefore will use if its the last thing we do, because the idea of paying all that money and giving the airlines a free seat causes me actual physical pain) instead of having to be on my lap, which is where he would otherwise be since he can't sit in those chairs without flopping over and being Terribly Unsafe. I'm not sure exactly how I'm planning to manage all of this stuff, but I figure I'm going to be that lady that no one wants to be behind in the security aisle.

Oh well. I'll let you all know how it goes.

~Jess