In Which Jer And I Have A Date

Jeremy and I went out on a long date today!

It's the first time we've spent a whole day together in a while, and we had a really great time.  Our respite care worker came by the house just before lunch time, so Jeremy and I took off to one of our local sushi places and ate a whole bunch of yummy raw fish.  Then it was off to the bookstore.  No date of ours is ever complete without a bookstore and of course, a coffee shop, which is where we spent some time reading our new additions to our library. 

After an hour or so we made a brief stop at the house and then we were off to Seattle to watch a men's roller derby bout.  This was the first men's derby bout I'd seen, and in a lot of ways it felt like we were watching a completely different sport when we compared it to women's derby.  The men have a very different playing style, and the game seemed to be more chaotic and moved much faster than what we usually see out on the track with women.  This is the only men's derby bout we've seen though, so it might have just been this particular bout.  At any rate, it was really fun to watch!    

We ended the night with a stroll around the mall and dinner at a Thai restaurant.  All in all it was a lovely day; it's so nice to get the chance to spend a bunch of time doing things I enjoy with my husband.  Everybody needs a day like that sometimes!

~Jess

In Which The Sun Comes Out

Today was one of those days where the sun came out early and the whole world busied itself with growing.  I dropped Connor off at school and then spent most of my free time outside weeding while above me a steady stream of bees flew back and forth between the flowering cherry trees and the woods.  I've thought about tracking the hive down-- not to take their honey or anything, just to see where they live-- but the garden needed work so they can keep their secret for a while longer. 

My cheeky little hummingbird was out today too; he's claimed the whole of the front yard as his territory and divided his time between guarding his feeder and keeping an eye on both me and encroaching bees.  Every once in a while he'd fly down and hover a few feet over my head to supervise and make sure I didn't turn over anything interesting in my weeding.  Hummingbirds eat a lot of insects, and so he'd swoop down and snatch a gnat or winged beetle disturbed by my digging out of the air before returning to the feeder.  He likes to make little squeeking noises right before he pounces, and the buzzing of his wings as he rushes past my ear in pursuit of his meal are surprisingly loud.  It's adorable and kind of creepy all at the same time. 

The weather turned gloomy and a little rainy in the afternoon, so Connor didn't get to enjoy the outdoor weather.  His school's kindergarten put on a circus show today though, and he got to go and watch the performance.  He had a blast!  I may have to see what kind of children's plays and puppet shows are going on in our area over the next few months; his attention span and sensory tolerance have gotten to the point that he might finally enjoy watching something like that without being completely overwhelmed.

After Jeremy came home I left Connor with him and drove out to the city for some derby-related things.  I started the drive home just before sunset and the tips of the pine trees looked glided.  As I neared our town the sky cleared and a huge double rainbow bloomed in front of me, framing the mountain perfectly as Josiah Johnson crooned over my radio.  It felt like something out of an overly sappy Lifetime movie; I swear I didn't realize perfect moments like that actually happened.  Of course my brain ruined it by instantly coming up with a whole bunch of quotes from the double rainbow song for me.  Oh well.

It was still a pretty great day.

~Jess

In Which I Let You All Know How Jer Is Doing

Over the past few weeks a whole bunch of you have asked for an update on how Jeremy's doing, so I thought I'd let you all know!  It's been about a year and eight months since he got blown up, believe it or not.  Time flies, huh?

The short, quick answer is that he's doing really, really well.

The longer answer is that he's gained back all the function that he'll have at this point.  What that means for him is that he's able to walk with only a slight limp, run short distances and go about his daily business without a cane or any assistive devices.  It's pretty awesome, and way, way beyond what the doctors typically see with injuries of this kind.  I think Jeremy's work ethic has a whole lot to do with that.

Uneven terrain, long distances and really hard surfaces are always going to be an issue, and as Jeremy gets older the amount of functional use he has will change.  Of course that's true for everybody-- I bet I'm not going to be as spry in my seventies as I was in my twenties either.  We don't know what kind of new surgeries or assistive technology will be out there in another couple of decades, so in the meantime Jer's focusing on preserving as much functionality as he can for as long as possible. 

How does he do that?  Well for one thing, he works out all the freakin' time.  Usually he hits the gym a couple of times a day right now; he's able to deadlift twice his body weight at this point and is darn close to doing the same with his squat.  For those of you who don't know a whole lot about weight lifting, what that means is that he's in pretty decent shape.  He figures that the better shape he keeps his body in, the longer he'll be able to stay mobile.  It's a pretty good assumption, and trust me when I say that I don't mind at all. 

So that's your Jeremy update! 

~Jess

In Which Connor Motivates Me To Clean My Couch

So today I discovered that my Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook does not cover how to get poop off of a microsuede couch.  This is a major oversight on Martha's part, in my opinion.  So since she couldn't help me out, I found myself googling something with the word "poop" in it for the second time this week-- this time deliberately.

I am really not liking this trend, people.

But that's what I get for feeding Connor too much applesauce, I guess.  I've discovered that he's a huge fan of the big batch of cinnamon applesauce I made last week from all our farm share apples, and he's been scarfing it down like pudding.  I thought that applesauce was supposed to have the opposite effect from what happened to Connor today, but evidently if you eat enough of anything it'll screw up your system. 

Um, yeah.  So that's your poop explosion update.  You can thank me later.

Other than learning about lots of new ways to clean my couch, today was relatively uneventful.  Connor was once again seizure free, and I'm going to send him back to school tomorrow.  He's more than ready to go-- I told him that he could go back tomorrow and he applauded.  I'm so happy that he loves school so much; it's so cute how excited he gets about it! 

And of course I'm ready for my free time again.  Precious free time, how I love you.  Even if I will spend all of you tomorrow recleaning my couch cushions.

~Jess

In Which We Go To The Emergency Room And My Husband Is Awesome

Well today was kind of a mixed bag.

Since yesterday's attempt at making a same-day doctor's appointment didn't work so well (we ended up with one on Friday) I called our appointment line at six in the morning today to see if I could get in.  They hooked me up with an appointment for eleven something in the morning today.  So far, so good.

So about nine in the morning I got a call from the doctor.  "I'd like you to take Connor into the ER instead of our office," she said.  "We don't have oxygen in our rooms and if he had an apneic seizure here we'd have to rush him down there anyway so I'd rather you have his levels drawn there."  I offered to bring our portable oxygen with me, but she said she'd still be more comfortable with Connor being seen in the emergency room instead of the pediatrician's office.

Fun times.

So I packed the little guy up and off we went to our local cushy private hospital emergency room.  If I was going to have to take the kid to the ER, there was no way I was driving all the way down to our military hospital when we live practically next door to a hospital that not only offers much nicer rooms, but also cable TV.  Because of Connor's glorious medical history we ended up in a private room after about fifteen minutes. 

Connor, I might add, seemed perfectly fine; he'd had no seizures at all, and when they checked his temperature it was normal.  They put an IV in the little guy, drew some blood, took a urine sample and then that was when the hospital had about ten critical patients arrive at the same time and all hell broke loose for the poor medical personnel, who I believe were short-staffed that day. 

So there I was, feeling totally silly, sitting in the ER with a kid who was not only completely free of all the symptoms that made me want to bring him in to see a doctor in the first place, but who was also having a blast.  He got to watch TV!  Lots of TV!  All the TV he wanted!  And he got Mommy's full attention!  As far as he was concerned, other than the whole IV thing this was an awesome way to spend the day.

I was not quite as enthusiastic about it. 

Seven hours later things finally calmed down enough for the doctor to be able to get around to reading Connor's levels and taking a look at his cultures.  Everything looked perfectly fine, so they released us with the diagnosis of "resolved viral infection" and instructions to call them in four or five days and get the lab results for his seizure meds, which have to be sent out.  Connor waved "bye bye" to all the nurses and gave them big smiles as we left, totally charming them all of course.  It's what he does. 

So on the not-so-fun side of things, we spent seven hours at the hospital today for what really should have been a twenty minute doctor's appointment.  But on the good side, Connor is back to his normal, happy self and is not having seizures anymore. 

And after I got home things took a major turn for the better.  Jer, who knew that I would not be in the best of moods when he got home due to the whole seven-hours-in-the-emergency-room thing, surprised me with a bouquet of roses!  Then he watched Connor for me while I went to a skating session to work off some of my bad mood.  And for the coup de grâce, he mentioned something about getting me fitted for custom skates sometime in the next few weeks.

How the heck did I manage to be lucky enough to marry this man?  I have no idea, but I'm so glad I did.  For a derby girl, her significant other telling her they want to buy her custom skates is the equivalent of them serving a twelve course meal and following it up with a bubble bath, massage and a box containing a large sparkly rock. 

Sorry ladies.  He's mine.

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Still Sick And Jer Turns Thirty

Well, today was day four of the inexplicable Connor Fever And Seizure Saga.  We actually thought he was on the mend-- he wasn't really running a fever when he woke up this morning and he only had one 15 second seizure in that period, but then he made up for it shortly after noon, when his temperature spiked again and he had two seizures within a half an hour period.  And I completely forgot to call his physical therapist and tell her he wasn't doing well and that we were canceling, so that was fantastic.  Also I couldn't get Connor a doctor's appointment until Friday. 

This was not one of my more successful parenting days.  I'll start my phone call blitz at six in the morning tomorrow and hopefully make myself annoying enough that someone will find us a cancellation and fit us in.

So it was also Jeremy's 30th birthday today!  I asked him how it felt to be 30, and he said that it feels pretty much exactly like being 29.  I think I was more excited about the birthday than he was.  Oh well.  Connor and I gave him some nice socks and super soft house slippers (our laminate floors are awesome for Connor's chair and my skates but hard on Jeremy's bare feet) and a thick bath robe.  His big present from me was a new coffee grinder. 

When Jeremy bought his very first espresso machine a few years ago I didn't realize it was going to be like a gateway drug to fancier and fancier coffee apparatus.  I upgraded his espresso machine last year for his birthday, but then his grinder no longer ground the coffee fine enough so he needed a new grinder to match.  His latest toy (for those of you who are interested in this sort of thing) is called a Rancilio Rocky Doserless Burr Grinder, and I'm pretty sure it comes with more features than our car. 

It has a similar price point, too. 

At any rate, he's pretty excited about it because this means that he can start roasting his own beans again instead of having to buy them preground, which is apparently sort of horrible sin in the world of coffee snobbery.  I expect to hear the happy sound of our fire alarm going off in the near future!

I'm glad he likes it.  Happy birthday to Jer!

~Jess

In Which I Discuss Topics Entirely Inappropriate For The Spirit Of The Holiday We Celebrated Today

Happy Easter, everyone!  Hope yours was filled, like mine was, with family togetherness and a whole lot of love. 

Also chocolate.  And possibly those little peep marshmallow things, if you like them.  I don't really enjoy the taste of them but I buy them anyway because I have a morbid sense of humor and enjoy biting the heads off small sugary animals at least once a year.  Plus putting them in the microwave is a favorite pastime of mine; it brings back fond childhood Easter memories created when my brother and I had unsupervised access to the kitchen. 

Sorry about that, Mom.

I didn't have any peeps to microwave this year due to Connor's current sicktastic state essentially putting us under house arrest, so I was forced to live my peep gladiatorial battles vicariously through other people's YouTube videos.  It's a poor substitute for the real thing.  Certainly it's less tasty, especially when I was looking for an image for this blog and accidentally typed "poop microwave" instead of "peep microwave." 

I do not recommend doing this ever.  I have now seen some things that cannot be unseen, and am quite possibly scarred for life.  And I just realized that not only did I miss church due to the aforementioned Connor sicktasticness, but I have also now blogged about two topics that are highly inappropriate for Easter-- biting the heads off baby animals and poop.

If the world ends tomorrow I am probably in big trouble.

Anyway, so that picture up there (the one of me and Connor, not anything involving poop and microwaves) is pretty much how I spent my day; Connor had three seizures and is definitely still under the weather.  I'll be taking him in to see the doctor to have them check him out as he's not congested at all-- he's just really tired and still running a fever.  I'm a little worried that he might have a UTI or something that's not going to clear up on its own.  Also he needs his five year vaccinations.  Fun times.

In the meantime, happy Easter to you all!  Microwave a peep for me, okay?

~Jess