In Which Rowbert Gets A Tune-Up And Connor Is Sick

Hey everyone, guess what?  I got sleep!  Sleep is awesome.  I should totally do it more often.

Today was a pretty busy day for us.  After an extremely early in the morning send-off to my family, who had to return home today, I went back to bed, where I slept even longer.  It was amazing.  Then I got up and went out to clean up our van.

We needed to take the wheelchair van in for its annual maintenance, and also because the ramp had been acting up in funny ways for the last week or so.  It started doing this weird lurch to the right every time we tried to put it away, and while it would still go into the undercarriage it was obvious that something was off.  So Jer took some time off, we scheduled Joanna to watch Connor, and we prepared to take our beloved Rowbert in for some TLC. 

I always have to clean my vehicles before I take them in to the mechanics, by the way, because I believe that otherwise the mechanic is secretly judging me by just how messy the interior of the car is while he works on my car.  My mother does the same thing to the house whenever my parents have a maid service come, so I'm pretty sure this is an inherited trait.  Oh well.

The wheelchair van repair place is north of Seattle, which is quite the drive-- well over an hour away.  I was a little nervous about going today because Connor woke up this morning obviously under the weather.  He's been in school for a couple of weeks now, which means it's about the time when all the kids have thoroughly passed around on all of the new and delightful bugs they have picked up over the summer.  I'm pretty sure he'll be staying home tomorrow, as he's congested and miserable.  We really, really needed to fix the van though, and Jo was able to drop her daughter off so she wouldn't be exposed to Connor, so we figured we'd have to go for it.  Of course he had a ton of seizures (five or six-- I sort of lost count, which probably makes me a horrible mom) and was utterly miserable all day.  Poor little boo.

At least he has a functional ramp van now, though.  It turns out that a bolt holding something important in place had sheared off, so that's why the ramp was acting in such a funny way.  They replaced the bolt, and now everything is hunky-dory again.  Yay for Rowbert!

I left shortly after we found out that we could take the van home today (we weren't sure if we'd have to leave it overnight) so I wouldn't be late for derby, but I an accident on the access road delayed me getting on to the highway until the height of rush hour.  So then I sat for nearly three glorious hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way through Seattle and back down to Puyallup.  So I was late anyway.  I felt really off and kind of achy tonight during our scrimmage, but I'm not sure if that's because I'm coming down with whatever super bug Connor's come up with or if it was because I'd just sat in a car for three hours.  I'll probably know one way or the other by tomorrow.

On the one hand, it really stinks that Connor is sick.  But on the other hand, he's sleeping again for the second night in a row.  I'm going to go take full advantage of it now.

~Jess

In Which I See An Improbable Pair Of Kayaks

So I spent today cleaning in preparation for a friend's visit and trying to resist the strong temptation to write a theme song for Semi-Flexible Plastic Boy.  Please note that 'plastic' rhymes with, among other things, 'drastic,' 'fantastic,' 'bombastic' and 'sarcastic.'  I had a very, very hard time restraining myself. 

Jer and Connor spent quite a bit of quality time together today.  I love it when Jeremy is home on the weekends and I get to watch the two of them interact.  Jer is a fantastic dad, and he's never happier than when he's bouncing the little guy up and down and telling him silly stories.  Connor loves every second of it, of course.

The weather here has finally decided to cooperate, and we've had some absolutely glorious sunny days.  I think everybody has gone a little nuts; traffic on the weekends has been ridiculous because so many people head out towards the coast or the mountains, ready to spend some time hiking or kayaking. 

And it's not just ridiculous because of the number of cars on the road, either.  Today on my way to the grocery store I saw a smart car with not one, but two sea kayaks strapped sideways to the roof.  It looked like they'd rolled the windows down and managed to wrap bungee cords through them and around the whole mess.  I'm pretty sure the whole thing would tip over if the driver took a turn a bit fast or if we got a strong breeze.  I gave him a wide berth.

What's next?  A kayak strapped to a unicycle?


~Jess

In Which Rowbert Gets A Tuneup

Today did not exactly go as planned.

The day before yesterday I was driving down the highway in Rowbert (our trusty wheelchair van) to a skating practice in a nearby town when the indicator for my tire pressure went on.  I was almost to the rink, so I went ahead and drove there before getting out to check on my tires.  It was about time for me to put air in them and the car didn't seem to be handling differently, so I figured that they were probably just a little low on air.  When I got out of the van, though, I could hear a very loud hissing noise coming from the tire on the front passenger side.  There went my "the tires just need a little bit of air" theory.

Thanks to an awesome skating buddy the spare tire was installed without any trouble, and once the flat tire was off it became extremely obvious where the hole was located.  A screw head about a half an inch in diameter could be seen jutting out from the tread.  Since the screw wasn't embedded in the sidewall of the tire I was hopeful it could be patched, and so first thing yesterday morning I called the dealership to see if they could fit me in for that as well as an oil change and a tuneup while I was at it.

So that brings us to today.  Our appointment at the dealership was for one in the afternoon, and I figured it probably wouldn't take more than about forty-five minutes at the most.  I brought one book and a single small toy for the little guy.  This proved to have been a mistake.

See, it turns out that there's an internal recall on the model van we have for an oil line problem.  As the nice service lady explained it, every once in a while somebody's oil line has broken and then "all the oil whooshes out all at once." This does not sound like it would be particularly good for one's engine.  So they needed to put in a new line.  Apparently this is kind of a time consuming job, but it was certainly necessary.

So instead of a twenty to forty-five minute wait it was more like a three hour wait.  Connor was amazingly good considering, the poor little guy.  The toy I'd brought with us was one of the less annoying ones, but by hour two I was more than tired of it, and I have no doubt the poor cashier in the waiting room was tired of it too.  I didn't have the heart to put it away for more than a few minutes at a time, though, because Connor really was enjoying it and it's not like I had a whole lot else for him to do.  I was really wishing I'd brought some reading material for myself instead of just a book for the little guy.  I spent some time reading their magazines but I really wasn't all that interested in who's dating who in Hollywood these days.

So I learned a few lessons from this whole experience.  The first is to never go to an appointment with a mechanic without a full bag of toys and entertainment for Connor and me.  The second is that I should probably subscribe to some sort of roadside assistance program, just in case.  And the third, most important lesson is that I should be really, really grateful for the small things even if they don't seem particularly wonderful at the time.  That screw could easily have caused a blowout on the highway rather than the slow, easy leak I had instead.  It was a clear night and the roads were dry, which is nearly unheard of in winter here.  And by going in to fix the tire I ended up having a potentially much bigger problem taken care of.  I got to spend those three hours of waiting sitting and having some quality time with my son, even if we spent some of that time reading together about what Angelina Jolie's been up to lately. 

So the day didn't go exactly as planned.  But that's really okay.

~Jess

In Which Jer Gets Back In The Saddle

Poor Connor spent a good portion of last night throwing up.  So he stayed home from school today and we cleaned out the master bedroom closet.  I did the cleaning part, and he did the lying-around-and-looking-cute-in-between-throwing-up part.  There was one exciting moment when I found a lavender sachet we missed in the Great Lavender Roundup of 2009 (Connor is deathly allergic to lavender, for those who don't know) but otherwise the day was about as scintillating as you might expect of any day in which closet cleaning is the highlight of the activity.  At least it wasn't very exciting in terms of what I did.

What Jeremy did, however, is a whole other story.  My husband got back behind the wheel of a vehicle for the first time since August!  He drove himself to the gym, to physical therapy, and to a bicycle shop (he's considering taking up biking to replace marathon running as his main outdoor hobby).  I must admit that I was a bit nervous about the whole thing-- I sort of carried the phone around with me the entire time he was gone.  I am happy to note that I refrained from calling him eight billion times to ask him if he was fine-- something that took a great deal of self-restraint on my part.  I managed it by reminding myself that he has a good twelve years of prior driving experience to rely on so smothering him might not be a good idea, and also that he wouldn't be picking up the phone anyway as talking on a cell while driving is sort of illegal in this state. 

But I shouldn't have worried, because Jer didn't kill anyone or get into any horrific accidents or anything!  And I'm really excited about him being back behind the wheel because it means that I'm no longer responsible for getting two people to all of their appointments.  Also it gives Jer a lot more freedom, which is probably pretty nice for him.  It's got to be really frustrating to be dependent on someone else whenever you want to pop by the store.  This is one more step down the road to complete recovery for him, and I'm so excited about it!

As an added bonus now I can totally send him to grocery store for more ice cream rather than having to make up an excuse to go get it myself.  I can claim that it's good practice or something.  Score!

~Jess

In Which Rowbert Does Not Emerge Victorious From The Battlefield

Today our mobile tactical defense wheelchair van, Rowbert, was involved in his first major skirmish.  It was not, as expected, with his arch nemesis the Oscar Mayer wienermobile but instead with an extremely beat up pickup truck, and unfortunately he didn't exactly come out on top.  The pickup sustained absolutely no damage, but poor Rowbert now has a sizable dent in his rear bumper, which will have to be replaced. 

Pick Up Truck: 1
Rowbert: 0

No one was hurt-- not even the duck we store in our trunk for parking emergencies-- but the duck will have to ration food for a while as there's a small piece of bumper holding the trunk closed.  Otherwise the van held up very well, and there was no other damage, which is what a bumper is for.  As an added bonus we got to test out the tie-down system on both wheelchairs.  Since there are no Connor-or-Jeremy-sized holes in our windshield, I've come to the conclusion that it works pretty well.  Good to know.

Poor Rowbert.  I'll be setting up an appointment with our mechanic to get our beloved van back up to top fighting condition in no time. 

~Jess

In Which The Martians Have Landed

There's a new epidemic going around town, and H1N1 has got nothin' on it.  Run in terror, folks, because it's Martian Death Flu season, and our household is contaminated.

That's right.  You'd better burn your computer after reading this, because the dread disease is so contagious that I'm pretty sure it can be transmitted by Internet contact.  Martian Death Flu is coming for you all.

First identified by eminent scientist Dave Berry back in 1986, Martian Death Flu (MDF) has been a minor problem, affecting only two or three people a year until now, when lax regulations on the importation of Martians caused an outbreak of the disease among fourteen year old girls across the nation.  From there it rapidly spread to the rest of the population, and now we're on the brink of a pandemic.  Once MDF is contracted, there's nothing to do except take to your bed or couch for a week and hope that a meteor will fall on your house and put you out of your misery. 

I'm sure my research on the origin of MDF is accurate, because watching Lady Gaga videos to figure out which one to link to this post also made me wish for death.  And here's another important fact: 1986, when Mr. Berry wrote his groundbreaking article, just happens to be the year that Lady Gaga was born.  Coincidence?  I think not. 

With any luck today was the worst day for Jeremy and me, and we'll have the weekend to recover slowly.  I'm really hoping I'll have regrown all of my taste buds by Monday, as my favorite holiday of the year-- Half Price Chocolate Day-- is happening then.  I burned the entire top surface of my tongue off by drinking copious amounts of scalding hot tea with lemon in a misguided attempt to melt my lungs to the inside of my body in order to prevent myself from ejecting them while coughing.  For future reference, this does not work.  All it does is make everything you eat taste even more like cardboard than it did when you still had taste buds.

Connor, I'm sad to say, is definitely not over the worst of it yet-- he's still running a low-grade fever and his nasty, lung-ejecting cough seems to be taking up residence long term.  I'm kind of hoping at this point that he doesn't end up with bronchitis. 

Bronchitis, for those of you who don't know, is when a brontosaurus stomps on you, making it hard to breathe.  At least that's how Jeremy explained it to Connor earlier today.  Apparently not very many people get it because brontosauruses (brontosauri?) are few and far between, making it very difficult to catch.  I'm not sure exactly what the correlation between the Martians and the dinosaurs is, but apparently they work together or something.  No doubt the government has covered it up in an attempt to prevent widespread panic.  We'll have to ask the velociraptors about it when we have the energy to drag ourselves out to the van.

But there's no need to panic, folks: while a vaccination for the direct transfer of Martian Death Flu has yet to be developed (so if you come into physical contact with us you are DOOMED) there's a simple inoculation available for the electronic transference of the disease.  Simply barricade yourselves in your homes, turn off your computers, and listen to eight hours or so of public radio programming.  This should stave off any ill side effects you might experience after coming into contact with Martians, brontosauri, or fourteen year old girls for at least a good forty five minutes.

One final note: I'm pretty sure that when my children are adults, rather than spending hours explaining why they were so traumatized by their childhoods they'll just direct their therapists to this website. 

It'll save everybody a whole lot of time. 

~Jess

In Which We Encounter Evil With A Side Of Ketchup

Tomorrow I'm going to tell you all about the home show we went to, but first I have some shocking news:

We are being stalked.

By an Oscar Mayer wienermobile.

The day before yesterday we spotted it in Seattle, nonchalantly rounding a corner just down the street from us. No doubt it was taking Rowbert's measure and foolishly thought we wouldn't notice it if it didn't make any sudden moves.

Wienermobiles do not make good ninjas.

Anyway, yesterday when we were headed out to the home show, what do you think we spied parked in the parking lot of a local Puyallup grocery store? That's right-- the same wienermobile. Coincidence? I think not. Jer snapped a picture of it with his cell phone, but since we don't have fancy phones he can't get it to the computer, so you'll just have to trust me. It was there.

Obviously Rowbert has picked up an archnemesis. I'm not sure what the hotdogs have against us, but we'll just have to be vigilant in the future.

Today we had a false alarm when we exited a coffee shop and spied a bright yellow object lurking around the corner, but it just turned out to be a Little Caesar's Pizza van. The wienermobile was suspiciously absent. Perhaps the two are in cahoots.

If the Redbull car shows up tomorrow we'll know it's a conspiracy.

~Jess

Ask Jer: In Which You Never Eat Corn Flakes Again

Jeremy's post: Round 2.

"Have you played Valkyrie Profile yet? How is it?"

Sorry, I haven't played it yet. It is on my to-do list.

"Do you miss your old roomie Wilcox? Why did Stephen never date in college? Was he not good enough for the girls or the girls weren't good enough for him?"

Yes, although I don't think he and I were ever ol' ladies (roommates for non-Aggies).

I could be wrong, but I don't think Steven ever talked to girls at A&M, except for the girls in the band with us.

"for both of you where r the medical mondays?"

Loki ate them. Fear not, I plan to beat them out of him. (***It's me, Jess, interjecting, as this question is for both of us. Medical Mondays will resume as soon as I can reach my file cabinet with all my medical research in it again. Right now it is in the office, which is wall-to-wall boxes.***)

"Do you and Connor have races in your wheelchairs? I bet he kicks your a**."

Yes. On level, beveled, and uphill gradients Connor has a distinct advantage since he actually receives locomotion via mommy power. On a downhill I have recklessness on my side which allows me to achieve speeds at which mommy power cringes in horror and cars must swerve wildly to avoid me.

"If your remote control could be hooked up to only one thing in the whole world, what would you choose?"

Rowbert. If I could control Rowbert via remote I could use him in place of a large predatory animal and begin my crusade against stupid people. In his current form his attacks would be limited to things like, "Run Over", "Door Surprise Attack", or "Ankle Snapping Ramp Attack". With some Road Warriorish modifications (warriorish is now wordified) I'm sure Rowbert would be the bane of stupidites everywhere.

"What happened to your hedgehog?"

At first, I had no clue what you were talking about. Now I seem to remember having a stuffed hedgehog animal in college. I have no idea why I had such an animal or where it came from. I have absolutely no clue as to its current whereabouts. If it absorbed my passive aggressive violent side it is probably running amok.

"Was Afghanistan what you expected? If you were given the 'all clear' health wise, do you feel like you'd WANT to go back?

Given current circumstances, what are you hoping will be your next career steps?"

Yep. I expected a mountainous desert with landmines everywhere and a people whose culture is vastly different from ours and Afghanistan delivered. The Army is reasonably good at preparing units for the area they will deploy to. We received language and culture classes in preparation for our deployment.

If I were given the all clear health wise I would want to go back and I would be obligated to go back. My current unit is still there. However, the point is moot since I won't be given the all clear anytime soon.

Ideally, I will be able to remain in the Army. The military has started keeping more wounded Soldiers, including some amputees. I don't know a lot about options for continued service since this is my first time losing at minesweeper.

"What's your favorite way to spend time with Connor?"

Much of Connor's therapy could be considered play, since play is what children do. I enjoy trying to get Connor to explore new toys or play with his old toys in new ways. For instance, putting him into a sitting position and placing a toy just barely within his reach so he has to work to play with it.

"Will you be acquiring Diablo III, upon its release?"

Of course. Although I am more excited about Starcraft 2. Starcraft's plot was phenomenal in my opinion.

"....Ender's Game series by any chance?" (in reference to my answer in the last q&a I did about what books I read)

Yes. The sequels were decidedly not military sci-fi unfortunately. The parallel series about Bean was decent. At this point, however, they read like young adult novels to me. Jessie has just informed me that they are kinda sorta young adult novels.

"Do you have the Little Rabbit Foo Foo book (the one by Michael Rosen)?"

Nope. If I did I would definitely predatorize the heck out of it. Connor must understand that rabbits are an important food source for wolves, bears, and tyrannosaurus rex.

"Why not T Rex driving tanks?"

Unfortunately a T Rex is unusually large. We would have to design a really big tank for it to drive. We have plenty of people sized tanks that we could immediately man with velociraptors. It might be better to simply label a T Rex as a bipedal tank. Then we could call it TankRex.

"I usually read fantasy, but I'm discovering old Larry Niven and Heinlein and such. What are your favorite books?"

I definitely enjoyed Niven and Heinlein. A couple of books I have enjoyed are Armor by Steakly and The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle. Pournelle supposedly has some good stuff. Let me get back to you later on this. I'm currently in a heavy sci-fi phase and am reading a lot of new material.

"what is walking like for him? what hurts the most and what is the most difficult part about it? in the end, is he supposed to have pretty much all functionality back? i remember Jessie mentioning something about not being able to move the foot sideways... will that remain?"

Walking is a fairly painful process at this point. I am able to use it for short bursts with crutches and even shorter bursts completely unassisted. There is a bit of general pain in the heel area and some sharper pains in the mid foot. The heel pain is probably directly related to the trauma and degradation of the fat pad. The mid foot pain is probably occurring because many of the mid foot joints have extremely limited mobility at the moment.

The recovery process has introduced me to the most painful experiences of my life unfortunately.

Currently, breaking up scar tissue is the most significant pain. This involves a licensed medical massage therapist putting deep, manual, pressure on the left calf wound area and the trauma scars on the undersides of my feet. When we started this process it involved me screaming and cursing into a pillow while hitting things and trying to climb the futon to get away. The scars have softened up and I usually only growl a little now.

Prior to that, the removal of the pins in my feet was amazingly painful. Pins are small metal wires that are pushed through connective tissues like ligaments and then driven into the underlying bone. This makes sure that ligaments and tendons heal correctly to the bone. Sometimes they came out with minor pain. Other times they had to get a pair of medical pliers (look just like regular pliers) to get them out. If pliers were needed it meant screaming and a few tears.

Removal of the sutures and staples wasn't too bad. It took a while to get them all. My feet and legs were still very sensitive at that time and this probably amplified the pain a bit.

I remember very briefly waking up as I was put back into my bed post surgery. My heels hurt a lot but I was very drugged up. I remember screaming a bit and begging for more morphine. Considering that my heels had just been cut up, drilled into, and probably hammered on with medical tools I am extremely happy that I was still very drugged up from anesthesia.

If you like corn flakes you need to stop reading right now.

Amazingly, the actual trauma hurt very little. Mostly I just had a very odd sensation in my feet and a feeling of lethargy. Imagine a bowl just slightly larger in diameter than your fist. Fill the bowl with corn flakes. Do not add any milk. Make a fist and rest it on top of the corn flakes. Now, with a quick and firm movement, push your fist down into the corn flakes. You probably feel lots of cracking and individual pieces grating against other pieces. Maybe you feel a few sharp pieces cutting into the soft tissue on your fist. That's what my feet felt like to walk on. Surprisingly little pain was involved. Just lots of crunchy.

If you like corn flakes you can start reading again. If you no longer like corn flakes, sorry.

The history of recovery from this type of injury is varied. Due to the pain involved with rehabilitation, many people stop therapy early or don't try at all. I am willing to tolerate pretty substantial amounts of pain though so the outlook is good. I am walking early for wounds this severe. More importantly, none of the foot joints are slipping which is great. Instability from joints slipping would have meant more surgeries to include possible amputation. Overall I would say the prognosis is quite good.

The left foot cannot make a full recovery due to the fusion of the calcaneus (heel bone) and the talus (ankle bone). My physical therapists report that with this fusion I will lose the ability to move my heel left and right. I do have the ability to move my fore foot and mid foot. At this point I suspect that this will only impact my ability to make rapid direction changes and possibly my ability to run. I might have a little bit of difficulty balancing on a beveled surface as well.

That's all I'm tracking for questions, so unless you ask more questions I will never blog again.

Out.

In Which I Display A Little More Of My Unhinged Creative Side

Because I have a wildly out of control bad habit for making up terrible song lyrics that has raged for years (No really-- my brother and I rewrote the entire Little Mermaid song "Under the Sea" when we were seven and nine respectively and made it about cats. It was entitled, as I recall, "Under the Chair." It was horrible.) guess what I just spent entirely too much time working on?

Rowbert's theme song is set to the theme music of Transformers: The Movie, which came out in 1986. I was horribly disappointed the song (the Transformers one, not Rowbert's) didn't make its way into any of the new movies, even if it did have lousy lyrics. You can find the original lyrics in all their glory here, and the music over here. I suggest you listen to it while you read these to get the proper effect.

In case you miss the reference in the song, by the way, Parking Duck appeared in an earlier post and will guard the space that we need next to our van in order to deploy the ramp. He's in Phase I of our Rowbert Defense Modifications. Phase II involves growing some velociraptors from extracted DNA and raising them with surrogate duck parents to avoid potential tragic infighting within our combat team.

Anyway, enjoy!

Rowbert Van

Rowbert Van!

Stupid people walking right past you
Comin' from the mall
There's something you can do

Prepare to strike
There'll be no place to run
When they’re caught within the beam
Of our giant ion gun

Rowbert Van
More than you can see
Rowbert Van
Wheelchairs and weaponry

Run from these human infestations
Who are staring and pointing
And asking rude questions

Cornered now with them our captors
Until off of the roof
Come our velociraptors

Rowbert Van
More than you can see
Rowbert Van
Wheelchairs and weaponry
Rowbert Van

Parking Ducks wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of
The Idiotocons

Rowbert Van

It's judgment day and now we've made our stand
And for now the powers of darkness
Have been conquered with our van

The Battle's over but the war will begin soon
So watch out when we deploy our awesome ramp of doom!

Rowbert Van
Rowbert Van
Rowbert Van
Rowbert Van

More than you can see!

Rowbert Van!

Okay. I've gotten it out of my system and I'm done, I swear-- you can quit backing away slowly now.

~Jess

In Which Our Van Receives A Name

This morning I drove Connor to school and parked in the disabled parking spot like I do every morning. I hit the button to lower the ramp and walked around the van to unlatch Connor's wheelchair when a father and his five or six year old son passed us on their way into the school. They were staring at the van as it sank down and the ramp deployed from beneath the floor with identical looks of excitement.

"Wow!" said the dad to the blond-haired little boy next to him. "Did you see that? That was awesome! I didn't know cars like that existed!"

The little boy was jumping up and down and yanking wildly on his father's arm in excitement. "Dad, dad! It's a rowbert! Just like in Transformers! It's a rowbert car!"

So, our van has a name now. We have dubbed it Rowbert, and no doubt we will have many exciting adventures together saving the world from other evil alien robots-- I mean rowberts-- who want to destroy it.

This is totally feeding right into Jeremy's plans to mount a 122mm tank gun on the hood. The only real argument I have against this is that the good Transformers used mostly disabling weapons and not guns. He'll probably come back with some plan to strap velociraptors to the roof. I haven't done a whole lot of research into the Transformers, but there probably aren't any velociraptor restrictions. Oh well.

Any ideas for a theme song?

~Jess

In Which I Apparently Am A Horrible, Horrible Person

Connor went back to school today, which was really nice. He loves having a steady routine, and school had become a really important part of that, so I think he'll feel a lot more comfortable settling back into his usual habits now that the holidays are over.

After we dropped him off at school and had a meeting with his nurse, Jer and I drove to the YMCA, where we tried a pilates class. The instructor was very nice and it was fun, but I think we'll maybe try a class that's a little more high intensity; this one was geared towards beginners and the elderly. We had a very nice, relaxing gentle stretch but the class was too long for me to get in a good cardio workout too before I had to go pick Connor up at school. I think I'll try a circuit course next time; it's sure to get the blood moving!

I left Jer at the Y to do his aquatic training while I picked Connor up and stopped by the grocery store. I'm finally in the mood to do some cooking again, so I bought enough for the next three days worth of dinner menus (tonight we had strip steak with roasted carrots, balsamic glazed pearl onions and sourdough rolls) as well as restocked us on a few essentials.

I parked, of course, in the handicapped spot. This is because I had Connor with me. He rides everywhere now in his wheelchair, which is rated for vehicle use, and that way I just have to roll him down the ramp instead of trying to lug thirty pounds worth of wiggly kid into the store. I put our disabled parking permit up, of course. Connor qualifies for one too and we have the application, although we haven't actually driven down to the DMV and picked up the placard yet. I keep forgetting about it. The only difference between his and Jeremy's is that Jer's is red and Connor's will be blue, so I haven't worried too much about using Jer's for Connor too. At any rate, when I got out of the store I loaded Connor and the groceries into the van, went around the side to hop into the driver's seat, and someone started laying on the horn. I looked around, a little confused, and there was an elderly woman in a sedan scowling and furiously shaking her fist at me. There were empty handicapped parking spaces on either side of her and at first I wasn't sure why she was so angry. Then after watching her furious pantomime for a couple of seconds I realized why she was so upset. It was because I was parked in a handicapped parking space and I'm not disabled.

Evidently she either couldn't see Connor in the car or didn't care, as she pulled into the spot on the passenger side of the van and continued to shoot daggers from her eyes at my head as I climbed into the van. She was still shaking her fist at me as I pulled away.

I chose to ignore her at the time, but I'm still a little confused as to what exactly my reaction should have been. She was obviously extremely worked up over what she considered to be my horrible law-breaking breach of etiquette. What would you all have done in this situation?

~Jess

In Which We Are Still Not Annoyed

Yesterday morning Jer and I stopped by our favorite coffee shop in downtown Puyallup to grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast. We go there often enough that we're considered regulars; the owner greats us by name and gets our drinks started before we order our food.

While they've got great coffee there, this post is not about Central Perk, the aforementioned coffee shop. This post is about the public parking lot just down the street.

Now, Puyallup has a free public parking lot in the middle of their downtown area, which is fantastic. However, the handicap spot in the parking lot is a regular handicap spot and not a van spot. For those of you not familiar with the difference, a van spot has at least an eight foot "no parking zone" next to it. This allows enough room to deploy the ramp.

Our van has a bumper sticker on the window located on the ramp side of the vehicle that asks people not to park within eight feet. However, no one ever looks at this thing because invariably we'll get back to the car and even though the parking lot is half empty somebody has parked right next to us. Yesterday morning was no exception. Whenever this happens it means that Jeremy and Connor have to go back to the sidewalk (since Jer can't push Connor out of the way and push himself if a car is coming), and I have to get in the van and drive it to a different part of the lot that has two spaces open next to each other so that they have room to get in. Then after I park the car I have to get out and walk back to where they are waiting so that I can grab Connor.

It's completely understandable if the lot is full and there are no other spots for someone to park next to us. No big deal-- it only takes five minutes or so. But it does get a little frustrating when there are fifteen other spots open in the lot and we come back to discover someone has parked right next to us again. At least it was relatively nice outside yesterday. It's especially frustrating when it's 38 degrees outside and raining. So we decided we needed to come up with a solution to this problem.

First we discussed keeping a traffic cone in the trunk of the car and putting it in the space next to us when we parked. But people move cones out of the way or run over them all the time. Then we thought about training one of the cats to guard the spot. No dice-- people move them out of the road or run over them all the time too. Plus our cats wouldn't train too well-- Cricket is terrified of cars and Loki would probably try to get the car to pet him. So we scrapped that idea. Finally after much thought we hit on the perfect solution.

We'll use a duck.

Think about it-- who runs over ducks? No one, that's who. Ducks cross the road all the time, often at ridiculously slow paces, and nobody runs them over. People actually put up signs on the off chance that ducks might be crossing the road, so you know not to run them over. Who does that for cats? Also we could teach the duck to guard the car, which would deter would-be burglars quite handily. Those things can bite hard. No one would move the duck out of the way for the same reason. We'll just get it a Tupperware container full of water and keep it in the trunk.

And if we were trapped in the desert we could cook duck eggs on the hood of the van while we waited for help to arrive!

The only other animal that can sit in a road with impunity and not get run over that we could think of is a cow. But a cow, even a very small cow, would not fit well into our van with the wheelchairs loaded in. Cows would probably be better put to use guarding airplanes, a job which ducks cannot do. Ducks and airplane turbines do not get along too well, but you never hear about cows being sucked into those things, so they'd be perfect for the job.

Anyway, that's the plan. Shortly after we finish putting the finishing touches on our Wheelchair Defense System, we'll start work on our Duck Parking Guard!

I think it'll be a hit.

~Jess

In Which I Spend Some Time Behind The Wheel

There are days when I feel less like a wife and mother and more like a chauffeur.

Today was one of those days. I woke up in the morning, got the guys ready to go, and dropped Connor off at school. From there I drove down to post, where I dropped Jer off for an appointment. I promptly turned back around and drove back to Puyallup, where it was just about time to pick Connor up from school.

Connor and I went straight back to post, where Jer was finished with his appointment. Then I drove us to a friend's house, where we decided on a place to eat. After that I drove us to the restaurant, where we attempted to eat between helping to juggle a sad baby and keeping an overstimulated Connor from emitting ear-piercing shrieks.

From there it was a trip back to post, where I dropped Jer off for another appointment. Finally I picked him up from his appointment and drove us all home, a mere ten hours after we'd left. Whew!

I'm not sure how many hours I've spent sitting behind the wheel of the van now, but we usually have at least two days out of the week like this, so it's got to be a significant number at this point. Jer won't be able to drive using the hand controls until he's off the heavy narcotics, which since you have to wean down off them slowly will probably take a while. Thank goodness we have the van; I don't even want to think how much more fun it would be to either be attempting to vault Jer into our SUV or to have to call a cabulance every time he wanted to go somewhere.

So it's probably past time that I got into the spirit of things. I think that in order to play the role of chauffeur properly, I need a pair of black leather gloves and some large sunglasses. Also possibly one of those hats. I'll also work a little more on the being dignified part. I doubt a proper chauffeur is supposed to make the kind of noises I do when I'm lugging the wheelchairs up the ramp.

Once Jer is able to drive again, our roles will be totally reversed, as in order for him to pull his wheelchair up close enough to reach the hand controls we'll be removing the driver's seat. We'll replace the passenger seat and then I'll be the one along for the ride!

I haven't decided whether or not he can wear my hat.

~Jess

In Which Much Is Accomplished

Last night I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher when I heard a crash and a startled yell from the back bedroom. I ran back there to discover Jeremy teetering on the very front of his wheelchair. He'd scooted forward in the chair to try and turn the light off, overbalanced, and the whole chair pitched forward. Luckily he was okay-- but I'm glad that I was home and not off at the grocery store or something, which would have made it considerably more difficult for him to make it upright again. One more thing to look forward to when the house is finished-- light switches he doesn't have to strain to reach.

I spent the whole first half of the day in the car-- the new license and registration came for the van, and we needed it today so that we could get on post. So I dropped Connor off at school in the morning, drove an hour up to the dealership in Everett to pick up both and to have a minor adjustment made to the ramp mechanism, and then turned around and arrived back in Puyallup just in time to pick Connor up. We drove home, where I fixed lunch, and then Jer, Connor and I got back in the car and drove to Jer's appointment at the hospital. By the time we got home it was almost 5:00 in the evening; so much for working on the landscaping today!

However, while I was doing all that driving around, David was tackling the giant wall of ivy, and over the course of eight hours or so managed to uncover the entire retaining wall! I stopped by the house in the evening and was shocked by the amount of work he'd done.

At this rate, we'll have finished some time in the next few days! Though I should probably say "he'll" and not "we'll" as I haven't technically touched any of the ivy yet.

When you've got a hardworking friend armed with a two-foot long pair of hedge trimmers, who needs a goat?

~Jess

In Which Connor Has A Close Call

Yesterday morning I sat Connor up on the futon while I got his backpack ready for school. He sits very well on the couch with one pillow on either side of him, and in the past he hasn't been wiggly enough for there to be any issue. Well, there was a pillow propped up on the edge of the futon, and I ducked back into his room for a second to grab his socks. When I got back less than a minute later he was on the floor, propped up on that pillow and giggling away!

Since I don't think he's discovered teleporting yet, evidently the pillow was placed perfectly so that when he slid down off the futon it formed a gentle ramp all the way to the ground. Needless to say my child will no longer be sitting on the futon-- he'll spend his time in his feeding chair or floor positioner! It's crazy to realize that he's moving around enough that we have to think about this sort of thing. Thank goodness the pillow was there and positioned just so, or we might have had a very sad morning!

I hope Connor's guardian angel gets a pay raise for that one.

Though maybe it was teleportation after all; perhaps Connor was honing his secret ninja skills. We figure the child is going to grow up to be the perfect assassin or spy, because he has no fingerprints. None. There are no loops or whorls; the large lines we all have that crisscross our palms just continue on up to the tips of his fingers. We figure this whole severe gross and fine motor skill delay thing is just an elaborate cover up so that can move about undetected. If I come out in a couple of weeks and find him balanced on the ceiling fan or something our suspicions will be confirmed.

At any rate, no harm was done, but we'll have to start seriously thinking about childproofing the new house. Connor's rolling over pretty well now and he's very, very close to sitting, and so while he's not mobile right now he might very well be that way in a few months! Since we'll be replacing most of the carpet in the house with a more wheelchair-friendly floor, it will be much less forgiving if he falls down on it. Everything's a trade off, I guess. It's so exciting to think about him being able to reach things himself, and even more exciting to think about the possibility of him being mobile, even if it is a more unusual way of getting around like rolling! Six months ago both those possibilities seemed miles away, and now they're just on the horizon. I can't wait to see what he'll be doing in a few more months.

Speaking of moving around: Jer and I now have the dance of getting both he and Connor in and out of our new van down to a science. First I pull Jer (his shoddy wheelchair tires get no traction) up the ramp straight back into the van, where we stop and he puts his feet down. Then I rotate him to the left and he pulls forward into the front passenger area. Next I pull Connor up the ramp past Jeremy and rotate him so he's sitting in his wheelchair just behind the driver's seat. Finally Jer rolls back next to Connor in the rear passenger area and puts his feet back up. After I attach all the tie-downs to the chairs and Jer puts his seat belt on, we're good to go! When we first started doing this it would take us almost twenty-five minutes to get into the car. Now we've cut it down to around five. It's all about practice, I guess!

Things aren't quite so different or scary any more; we're starting to find our way.

~Jess

In Which We Set Sail In Our New Craft

Could it possibly have been a more perfect day?

This morning I faxed our offer in to our real estate agent. They're setting up a meeting to present the offer to the seller, and hopefully in a few days we'll have an answer! I expect that they'll probably want to negotiate, but we'll just have to see. It's just so exciting to have taken that first big step!

At around 10:00 or so my mother-in-law, Connor and I left to go pick up the van! Here's Connor strapped in for his first van ride. His chair is crash-tested and has a special harness and tie down system, so I can have him ride in the car in his wheelchair right next to his Daddy! We haven't tried all three of us in the car yet, but we probably will tomorrow. He really enjoyed riding in his wheelchair on the way home; he giggled the entire way (almost two hours) which tells you he really had a good time! I think he likes the big windows, and I like the built-in mirror (separate from the rear view mirror) angled so that I can see him in case he has another seizure while I am driving.

While my mother-in-law drove to Tacoma to check out a big tent book sale they were having at the mall, Connor and I went home, where I promptly handed him off to his respite care worker and Jer and I went out on a date! This is the first time since August 11th that Jer has traveled anywhere except to a medical facility or our house, so it was wonderful to have that freedom again. First we drove out to Bradley Park, the wonderful wheelchair accessible park in our town, and tried out the paved trails there while we soaked in some much-needed sunshine. Then we headed over to Best Buy, where we spent some time browsing the games and movies.

After that it was time for dinner, so it was off to our favorite Greek restaurant-- the same one Jer and I dined in on our last date just before he deployed. Jer was able to pull up quite nicely alongside the table and eat in relative comfort, which was great! The proprietors recognized me (after my son had a seizure in the middle of their restaurant I suppose I'd be hard to forget) and when I told them that Jer was back from Afghanistan, they made a big announcement and brought out their signature appetizer (it involves cheese, pita bread, and three foot high flames) on the house. Then two different groups of patrons fought over who would pay our bill and finally compromised by splitting it and then also getting us a gift card to the restaurant. Totally unexpected and amazing.

We wrapped up the night with a trip to the coffee shop, and then we drove home, exhausted but happy.

I'll try to get some video of the van in action tomorrow as well as some pictures of Jer and Connor in the van together so you can get the full effect of its awesomeness. Jer and I didn't take pictures together today-- we were too busy out having a great time!

And I would like to point out one last thing that tipped the day over into perfection-- this all happened on Talk Like A Pirate Day. Avast, me hearties-- we be casting off on the morrow for distant shores!

~Jess

In Which We Find Our Van!

Big news-- we found our van! Shopping was a surprisingly painless process, as we didn't have a huge number of places to look or vehicles to look at. There's really only four types of minivans they convert in the U.S. right now: the Honda Odyssey, the Toyota Sienna, the Dodge Caravan, and the Chrysler Town and Country. Of those four, the Caravan and the Town and Country are essentially the same car with a different interior and brand name, so really it's only three cars to look at. We decided based on customer reviews, safety ratings, and reliability to go with either the Honda or the Toyota.

There are only three dealerships in our area that carry adaptive vans, and they're all privately owned, so they aren't bringing vehicles in from other sites or anything-- what they have on the lot is about it. Each of the vans has the same conversion package put in it with a couple of minor exceptions (such as what type of ramp the vehicle has); otherwise the only differences are in the luxury packages and color. We weren't interested in leather seats or a DVD player or anything, so I just went to each of the dealerships, looked at what they had in the Toyotas and Hondas, and then we picked the one offering the best deal. We'll be getting a 2008 Toyota Sienna-- the one in the picture! I'd brought Connor's wheelchair into the dealership and we used a standard wheelchair already there to see what the seating configuration would look like. With the Sienna we can fit Connor and Jer in side by side, and Jer can have his legs extended without any trouble. They're also going to install hand controls for free so that Jer can drive the vehicle himself! Once he lays off the heavy narcotics that is--driving is probably not a good idea right now. Anyway, we're absolutely thrilled about the van and can't wait to take it out for the first time. We'll probably be driving in a week or two! We have to figure out where we're going to go first. I vote for somewhere with chocolate.

On a side note-- all of these vans come with a remote system that opens the door, lowers the entire rear of the van, and deploys the ramp. That thing is awesome; reminds me of a space ship. I want to pull up in front of groups of little kids and deploy it just to watch them freak out. Can't wait to play with it.

In other news, this morning Connor and I headed off for his developmental clinic appointment. Once a year he has a half-day of clinic time where one doctor after another comes in and evaluates him. Then they all get together and write up a big report which we use for his schooling, to figure out what additional services or equipment he needs, etc. He's seen in two different clinics that alternate years; this year we were seen by the neurodevelopmental clinic. So over the course of about three and a half hours we saw a developmental pediatrician, a neurologist, a social worker, a physical therapist, and a geneticist.

A couple of things came out of this year's evaluation. The first was that Connor will be having physical therapy twice a week instead of once a week. The physical therapist said that Connor is right on the cusp of sitting independently, and so she wants a PT to focus exclusively on that for a few weeks to see if we can get him to that next step. How exciting! The second major thing to come out of today was that we are going to have Connor's DNA evaluated in a new procedure that is so specific it should tell us exactly which genes are missing on his chromosomes. This won't change anything for him of course, but it should help us in the future as they figure out more and more about the human genome and which genes do what. If we can help future families facing similar genetic issues we'd like to do it. We're also going to restart feeding therapy. So a lot of good things happened today!

This post is way too long and it's time for bed. I would start a separate blog about what's going on with Jer, but than I'd have to write two posts a day and I'm way too lazy for that. Oh well.

~Jess

In Which Connor Sits Like A Big Boy

When I picked Connor up from school today and put him in the car, he shook his head "no" the entire ride home. He wanted me to leave him at school.

I think he's having a good time.

Major accomplishment for him today-- they have a little wooden chair at school with arms on it, and he was able to sit in it at the table without being strapped in or anything! I can't believe how far our little guy has come. I can't wait to see what he'll be doing by the end of the year!

After school, he and I drove up the road an hour or so to one of the adaptive vehicle dealerships in the area to take a look at vans. I brought along the camera so I could take some pictures home to show Jer. Connor and I will go and take a look at a different dealership tomorrow after his appointment at the developmental clinic. We've put together a general picture of what we want, but we plan to shop around and see what's out there so we don't rush into anything.

I also walked through a house today-- it would be absolutely perfect for us (200 square feet more space, wood, tile and low-pile carpet on the floors, tiny little step up to the front that could easily be ramped, island that Jer could use in the kitchen, and even an apple tree!) if not for the bathrooms, neither of which we'd be able to fit a wheelchair in. Since baths for Jer are complicated enough to manage around here as it is (currently involving the wheelchair, a sliding board, a shower chair, two trash bags, saran wrap, a roll of gauze tape, a plastic box, a pillow, an extendable shower head, about eight towels, and a partridge in a pear tree) I don't really think we want to add not fitting through the door to the mix. And I'd like to point out that while I like to think of my husband as my knight in shining armor, I don't want him to emulate the medieval hygienic habits, thank you very much. Bathing is not optional. So we'll keep looking-- I've got a couple of places to call tomorrow. I'm optimistic we'll be able to find something soon.

Things are looking up!

~Jess