In Which It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas Already, Which Is Kind of Nuts

Today Connor and I had a bit of a slow start; after I gave him his morning meds I went back to bed and we both slept in a while.  It felt really strange not needing to get up and get the day started!  I finally dragged myself out of bed and woke Connor up, and we puttered around the house a bit before heading over to my parents' house for lunch.  I love having them so close by now; it's great to be able to spend so much time with them!

Then my mom and I went out and did a bit of what turned into early Christmas shopping, which wasn't our original intent.  Christmas definitely sneaked up on me this year; it doesn't seem like we should be anywhere close to December yet!  I'm totally not ready and I hadn't even started thinking about presents or decorations, but from the way the stores were decked out you'd think the holiday was next week.  What the heck happened to Thanksgiving in the retail world, anyway?  I'm pretty sure that stuff was all on the shelves before Halloween.  The mall had the 50 foot tall Christmas trees up already, which Connor was excited by, though he didn't demand we get them as presents for all our relatives this year.  I guess the kid is growing up and he's too cool to demand giant Christmas trees as presents.  I kind of miss it-- can't believe how big he's getting.  Can you believe he'll be eight next year?  That's crazy talk, people.


Eden spent the whole day out at her retreat and didn't get back until around nine in the evening.  She told me "I had a good time, but I really really happy to see my bed!"  She was in her pajamas fifteen minutes after she got home, and in bed five minutes after that-- I've never seen the kid get ready for sleeping so quickly or enthusiastically.  Evidently the retreat was fun but also exhausting.  She said she'd definitely like to go back sometime, which was great to hear.  I think they do a summer camp as well, so that might be a really good option for her next year.

I'm so glad she enjoyed herself, and I'm really proud of her for handling being away from home so well.  Trusting that we'll still be here when she returns is a huge step for her, and I think a hallmark of growing maturity and understanding that our family is not a temporary stop for her, but a permanent home.  Hooray for our girl!

~Jess

In Which All's Quiet On The Home Front

Eden is off at her church retreat today!  Since we don't have night nursing on the weekends, the house seems really quiet right now with just me and Connor home.  Connor went to sleep on time (hooray!), so I puttered around a bit and then took a long bath and soaked for a while.  That's the one advantage of not having the teenager home-- no competition for the bathroom with a tub in it.  But otherwise I'm kind of missing my girl, and I hope she's having better weather up at the campsite than we're having down here.  It's kind of stormy and rainy at the moment.  I want her to have a good time, and I can't imagine camping in forty degree windy, stormy weather would qualify.

I got some good news today; I checked my e-mail this evening and got a message from our regional care coordinator that our respite care might finally be happening again soon!  I haven't had respite care during the day since May, so I am more than ready for it to start up again.  My parents have been fantastic about watching the kids, but it will be really nice to have some additional support.

Otherwise, not much happened today.  Sometimes quiet days are pretty nice!

~Jess

In Which Cricket Attempts To Shrink And Connor's Chair Gets A Tune Up

Seriously, cat.  This is not going to work.

Today Connor went to school sans wheelchair-- I had to take it in for repairs.  Recently it developed this annoying habit where the brakes spontaneously deploy every ten to fifteen feet with this huge clang.  This, as you might imagine, has been driving me absolutely up the wall, not to mention that it's been seriously impeding getting places in any kind of a hurry.

It's complicated by the fact that while the brakes slowed the chair down, the wheel treads have worn down enough that they didn't actually stop the chair if it's on any kind of an incline at all.  Since large portions of the streets in the Pacific Northwest run down steep hills that end in things like major traffic intersections or you know, the ocean, this had the potential to be really exciting.  So I made an appointment and took it in.

So I spent an hour and a half or so tootling around in Gig Harbor while the repairs were done, and I'm now happy to say that Connor has a chair that goes when it's supposed to go and stops when it's supposed to stop-- sans the giant clanging noise.  Hooray!  It's amazing what a difference a simple tune-up of equipment can make; I didn't realize just how annoying the problem was until I wasn't dealing with it anymore.  Connor seems to enjoy the smoother, quieter ride too.

Eden leaves for her first ever church retreat tomorrow, which is pretty exciting.  It will be the first time she's slept away from home without me there, so she's a bit nervous about it.  I think she'll have a pretty great time once she gets out there though; she'll know quite a few people and it's only for one night.  I think it's a good way to ease into getting used to some independence, and I think it might make her more open to the idea of a summer camp some time in the future.  I have some really fond memories of the camps I attended as a kid, and I'd love for her to have some similar experiences.

It's been getting colder here, and the cats have started spending as much time as they can on laps or burrowed under warm laundry as I'm folding it.  I have seasonal lap cats-- they condescend to sit on me only in the winter time, probably because they think I make a good heating pad.  Then they get really huffy every time I want to move because my legs have fallen asleep or something.

We had a pint sized wool-lined bed we'd bought for Eden's guinea pigs a while back that they didn't care for, so I washed it in anticipation of putting it away.  It was sitting out on the couch for all of five minutes before it became Cricket's new favorite happy place-- despite the fact that it's about three times too small for her to fit inside.  I ended up buying her a more appropriately sized snuggly cat bed so she wouldn't look so pathetic and could fit her entire body inside the thing, but I had to stick the guinea pig bed inside it because otherwise she completely ignored it.  Every once in a while I take it out and wash it and she waits by the dryer until it's done and she can attempt to stuff her entire body into the thing again.  I think she's convinced that if she tries hard enough, someday she'll fit.

Crazy cat.

~Jess

In Which I Spend Way Too Much Time Decorating

Connor had a seizure (he's still getting over that cold) before school today and so I let him take a short nap on my bed while I got ready for the day.  We'd been back there for about ten minutes when I became aware of a smell filtering through the bedroom door.  This was not a pleasant smell.  It was more of a Something Is Very, Very Burned And Or Possibly In Flames Right Now kind of odor.

So this morning Eden discovered that if you put those vegetarian buffalo wings in the microwave and they are not hot after two minutes, which is the heating time on the package, it is not a good idea to put them in on high for six more minutes unless you prefer your fake chicken wings hot enough that they are actively on fire when you take them out.  Thankfully there was no harm done except for the fact that the veggie wings had to be put out in the sink and were inedible lumps of charcoal and my entire kitchen is now heavily perfumed in Eau De Charred Soy.  Yum.  Any suggestions on how to get the smell out of the microwave?

After I got the kids off to school (and then returned to Eden's school with a new outfit as her old shirt apparently smelled rather strongly of burnt veggie wings) my dad came by and we got to work hanging the wall sconces I bought for the master bedroom a few weeks ago.  Apparently what happens when I don't write for five months is I spend all that time and energy redecorating instead.  I've been slowly but steadily redoing our bedroom to make it more functional and welcoming, and I've pretty much got it the way I want it now.  Since Jer hasn't been home I've been making all of the decorating decisions, so the room is quite a bit more feminine than it probably would have been otherwise, but I think he'll probably be able to live with it.

Wall Sconces of Glory

So now I have a shag rug in there, and a super comfy zebra print chair, and a whole station with an electric kettle for tea and hot cocoa and a nice little plate with various kinds of chocolate on it, and lots of books, and plants (my bedroom is a cat free zone, which is why my plants are not all little chewed nubs) and my computer, too.  I'm currently wrapped up in my super fuzzy throw, sipping hot cocoa and stuffing my face full of Andes Mints while I'm typing, and since there's a bathroom back here as well I'm seriously wondering why I even need the rest of the house.  I guess I would eventually die of scurvy or something if I never came out of my room again, but it would take a while.  I've got a lot of chocolate back here.

Squids Make All Spices Taste Better

So anyway, Dad and I put up the wall sconces, and then I stood around for a little bit being proud of them and trying to figure out how to work every conversation I have for the next week around to wall sconces so I can talk about them, and then I got a phone call from Connor's school because his g-tube had accidentally been yanked out during a transfer and they needed me to come put a new one in so I had to stop daydreaming.  Hey, it happens.

After that we went to PT, where Connor tried out a new walker, and then we came home to find a package on the doorstep with my new food-safe tins I ordered to put all my spices in (told you I had the redecorating bug).  I spent Connor's entire nap time hanging my spice rack (two Gamble bottle crates hung vertically on the outside of my pantry wall) and transferring over all my spices to their new containers.  Then I hung a gilded squid over the whole mess, because squids are awesome.  See?

So now I can find all my spices, which will be really, really nice; this arrangement is a vast improvement over their previous corner cabinet home.  The rest of my house may look terrible (with the exception of the bedroom wall sconces, which look awesome) and there's a rather odd lingering smell of burnt buffalo spices throughout the whole place, but at least I'll be able to find my za'atar when I need it!

~Jess

In Which I Sort Of Explain

Hello, friends.  It's been a long, long time.

So it's been nearly a year since I started this whole Parenting-A-Teenager journey, and let me just say that adopting an older child is every bit as much an extreme sport as roller derby.  The last few months have been. . . intense.  We've had a lot going on around here, and shortly after I wrote my last post things exploded and it became evident that it would be best if I took a hiatus from the Internet entirely until it settled down around here a bit.  So I just sort of walked away from it, and I stopped checking my e-mail and Facebook and everything because everybody wanted to know why I wasn't blogging and I couldn't figure out how to answer that question without sharing way more information than would be appropriate or healthy for our girl.  Sorry about that, everyone.

After a few months of intensive counseling multiple times a week we've made some significant progress, and I'm feeling comfortable with the idea of starting to write about my family again. I want to make it clear that we have zero regrets about the choice we made to pursue Eden's adoption and we're still fully committed to her (and should hopefully be finalizing next month!).  We'll be continuing to help her grow and heal over the next few years as she forges on towards adulthood.  I won't be going into any more detail about the last few months to protect her privacy, but I'll just say that it's been an extremely difficult period for all parties involved and leave it at that.

So a quick update on the rest of the family:

Connor's doing wonderfully and is as adorable as ever.  The kid's been working in a walker and that was going well for a while, but he now seems to have lost interest in it so we're taking a break.  He's getting over a cold at the moment, and is currently snoring and snortling away like a little pug dog in his room.  He's on the mend and felt much better today though, so he spent a large portion of his time amusing himself by asking to snuggle with me and then blowing his nose on my shirt.  Ah, the joys of motherhood.

Jer's doing well at Physician's Assistant school and is nearly done with his classroom time.  He's been gone seventeen months now and I am so, so ready for him to be home.  Unfortunately he'll be stationed in California for his year of clinicals so I'll be continuing my sort-of single parenthood for a while yet, but we hope he'll be doing at least a few of his rotations up this way, so we should see a lot more of him.  I've been checking train schedules for the line that runs down the California cost, and we're making plans to have some fun adventures together.

So anyway, here I am again-- thanks for being patient with me.  We'll be returning to our regularly scheduled programming of daily blogging now.  Huzzah!

~Jess

In Which My Computer Is Still Fried And I Whine A Lot

I'm currently typing this in the library, with Connor sprawled out fast asleep across my lap.  My left leg is rapidly going to sleep, but at least he isn't making that glorious noise where he manages to hit three clashing notes simultaneously, which is what he was doing before this.  The other library patrons were not amused.  He's currently recovering from a double outer-ear infection and is still feeling a bit punky; I had to perform mouth-to-mouth on him last week during a seizure for the first time in over a year.  Eden is on the computer next to me, muttering under her breath in Thai as she checks up on how her friends are doing.  Basically it's All Together Time, All The Time right now when the kids are home from school. 

Yes, as Jer told you all a few days ago before the impromptu lesson on neurotoxins (most of our phone conversations sound exactly like that now), my laptop fried.  It would make the appropriate I'm Busily Booting Up And Being Productive sounds, but the monitor remained stubbornly black no matter how many random buttons I pushed.  After trying unsuccessfully to hook it up to a desktop monitor, I took it in to a repair place in the vain hope that I was just being an idiot and had hit the wrong hotkey or something.  Unfortunately the very nice guy there told me that the motherboard is fried, which in a laptop is pretty much All She Wrote.  It was a good little computer and served me faithfully through four years and a very tumulteous time in my life, so I'm sad to see it go.

Being sans computer is a very odd feeling for me.  My parents have very generously offered me their little-used laptop as a replacement when they arrive here, so I'll only be about a week without one.  But I have essentially no access to e-mail, Facebook or anything that requires a sensitive password at home at the moment.  I had no idea just how dependent on Internet communication I'd become until all of the sudden that easy access was missing.  I'm not really appreciating the sabbatical-- I manage a lot of the little guy's care on my computer and I'm sincerely hoping I'm able to pull all of that off the hard drive once I've got the new machine.  Lesson learned: back up your data, kids.

This week has been pretty intense, and it looks like next week will be more of the same.  I've put a lot of miles on the van in the past few weeks between the two kids.  I'm feeling a bit burned out-- especially since we're coming off of two weeks with no night nursing and we haven't had a respite care worker for over a month now.  I can't remember the last time I've had face-to-face social time wth someone sans children, and I've started having long, drawn out fantasies about things like sleeping in past six in the morning and going out for dinner by myself.  I think a big part of my feeling so frazzled is that I usually can vent online, and I don't have that option right now. 

My parents are recently retired and are moving up here just in time for summer, which I'm extremely excited about, and they want to have a chance to spoil the grandchildren by spending some quality time with them.  So I know things will be looking up soon.  I'm especially thankful because it doesn't look like the army will be reinstating our respite care before school is out, which means that without my parents here my 'little' alone time would suddenly become 'no' alone time. 

I think that's one of the hardest things I've had to adjust to with Jer being away, and even after eleven months I stll struggle with it.  I've always needed time to myself that isn't filled with the many activities of the day, and right now I just don't have that luxury.  I've already informed Jer that when he finishes up this first part of his school in January and returns, I will be Going Away somewhere for a weekend By Myself.  I'll find a little bed-and-breakfast, and I wlll take a three hour bubble bath and read six books and drink tea and eat chocolate and sleep for eighteen hours and it will be glorious.  Of course we will go on a vacation together too-- quality time with Jer is one of the other things I desperately miss right now-- but I will stlll take my Alone Vacation and it will be fantastic.

And it looks like my library computer time has almost timed out, so I need to wrap this up.  Rereading this I sound a bit whiny and down; but really I'm doing fine.  I just stored up all my complaining for one post, apparently-- thanks for letting me vent.  This parenting thing gets hard sometimes, and also Eden keeps getting into my chocolate supply.  Now I know why my mom always hid hers!

~Jess

In which something something broken computer

Jessie has deadlined (Army for broken in a manner which makes it non mission capable) her computer.

Now that explanations are complete, this post is about my favorite gram positive anaerobic bacteria.

Clostridium spp.

Clostridium is a genus of about 100 specific species.
General characteristics of the genus include:

- Gram positive: meaning the cell wall surrounds a single phospholipid bilayer. This is important for culture staining and antibody/antigen interactions.

- Anaerobic: meaning the cells are unable to neutralize reactive oxygen species like O2-, H2O2, or -OH. This means that the cells thrive in low oxygen environments. Think environments created in home canning or found in honey or your intestine.

- Spore forming: meaning that the cells will form a dormant, durable spore when environmental conditions are  poor for survival. Spores can survive a long time. Supposedly the oldest known viable recovered spore was 25 million years old in a bee trapped in amber(wikipedia). I'm not sure I believe that yet, but they can last a long time.

- The various species of the genus compete poorly with many of the other bacteria you have probably heard of. Many of these other bacteria are actually normal flora (sort of good for you bacteria) of humans. E. coli and various Staphys and Streps tend to hang out with us.
This is good because...

- Neurotoxins

The neurotoxins are why this bacteria is so awesome.

Clostridium (C) botulinum produces the single most deadly toxin that is known to humanity. The toxin acts by preventing neurons from transmitting an action potential (go command) to muscles. This results in a flaccid paralysis and eventual asphyxiation. 1 microgram/kg is potentially fatal.
Most people recognize the toxin's medicinized name; Botox.

C. tetani produces a slightly less deadly toxin. This toxin acts by preventing the inhibition of muscle activity. This results in tetany (constant muscle contraction) and eventual asphyxiation.

C. difficile can colonize your digestive tract if you have been on antibiotics for a long period of time. Basically, an antibiotic might create a situation where difficile can out-compete your normal digestive flora. When this happens, difficile produces a toxin (not a neurotoxin I think) that causes pseudomembraneous colitis. An easier way to say that is your bowel gets inflamed and you have very foul smelling diarrhea. A severe infection could cause the patient to begin to pass bloody, foul smelling, diarrhea.

Now before anyone reads the above paragraph and starts jumping to assumptions like a kangaroo on atropine + epinephrine understand that if you need an antibiotic you should take an antibiotic.
Many antibiotics tend to work well on specific types of bacteria but not others.

Any time you've gotten sick and the doctor took a specimen for culture but didn't give you an antibiotic immediately was because they were running the cultures through SURVIVOR: Laboratory Version where the losers die out from antibiotics and the winners are incinerated. As such, if you take an antibiotic for your ear infection and difficile takes over, you shouldn't think of it in terms of the difficile is now a super bug and you're doomed. I mean, you might be, but you probably just need a different antibiotic with a different target profile. Think of it this way, you don't use a APFSDS round on a dismount squad, you use a canister round (use google).

Finally, C. perfringens produces a toxin which can cause food poisoning and gas gangrene. If you don't like looking at open wounds and dead tissue you should probably just imagine gas gangrene and avoid google images.

There are many more species but these are ones important from a primary care perspective.

The good news is that most people don't encounter these bacteria because they can't really compete against more common aerobic bacteria (aerobic doesn't refer to a need for O2 in this usage). That being said, don't feed infants honey or home canned food before the age of one. Commercially canned baby food is prepared in a way to destroy any present spores.

Also; dangit Jes I'm a physician assistant student not an english major.