In Which Connor Is Stuck On Tape

Today was a busy day of running errands and phone calls, but I still got the chance to enjoy the return of the warm weather by pulling out the roller skates and going for a long trail skate.  I discovered that closing up my pads in a closed gym bag for the entire winter was probably not the best of ideas; I'm glad no one was trying to draft off of me on the trail because they probably would have passed out due to the smell.  It was, um, impressive.  Derby pads do not smell wonderful under the best of circumstances, and three months of zero air circulation does not improve matters.  Trust me on this one.

I still enjoyed myself, though.  It felt pretty good to be back on skates!

Anyway, the kids both had a good day.  The physical therapist kinesio-taped Connor on Wednesday to try and help him sit up a bit straighter, which would help with his scoliosis.  He doesn't mind the tape at all-- actually he kind of seems to like it.  It really seems to be working; his posture was much better today and he spent less time slumping over even when he was tired.  I'm hoping that a combination of the tape and continued use of the adaptive vehicle (which he can only activate when he is sitting up straight) will help slow down the progression of his curve a bit and also help him be a tad more balanced.  We'll just have to see how the next few weeks go!

Eden had swimming today after school. Once she was home we ate dinner and then after Connor went to bed she and I sat next to one another on the couch and read for a while with our mugs of mint hot chocolate.  So while it was a very busy day, it had a lovely ending.  Mint hot chocolate, books and snuggling with my girl?  Can't get much better than that!

~Jess

In Which We Have A Fun Family Sort Of Day

This morning we all slept in, which was lovely.  Then after a leisurely breakfast, we headed over to the local skating rink for some quality family time!  The rink in our town offers a Saturday morning skating session where wheelchairs are allowed on the floor, so it's an ideal time for our whole family to be able to do some roller skating together.  

Surprisingly enough, Eden loves roller skating even though it's really, really difficult for her.  Her cerebral palsy affects her balance and gait in a significant way, so moving around on skates is really tough.  But she's pretty fearless and, if given the opportunity, would probably be a speed demon on them-- she wants to go as fast as possible whenever we're pulling her around the floor.  

We've only taken her a couple of times as it's tough for me to both push Connor's wheelchair and offer her a supporting hand, but I suspect that once Jer's home it will become a favorite Saturday activity of ours.  This time she really started to get the hang of moving her feet side to side, and I think it might even be possible for her to skate on her own without support one day!  

Connor really enjoys skating too-- I think he likes the feel of the wind on his face, and all the flashing lights and music.  Luckily his seizures aren't the kind to be triggered by lights, or we'd be in trouble.  He spent a good portion of the time carefully waving to all the people on the side of the rink every time we went by them, which was pretty cute.  I think he really liked having his sister out there, too.  

And I miss skating really, really badly since I can't do roller derby right now with Jer gone.  It was so nice to be able to strap on my skates again, even if I was forced to skate really, really slowly since I was pushing the little guy's chair most of the time.  The rink frowns on running over small children, and Connor's wheelchair doesn't exactly turn on a dime.

So after a couple hours skating, we headed home, made some popcorn, and sat down together to watch the first Star Wars movie (technically Episode IV, but it's the first one that counts, anyway).  Jeremy was appalled to discover that Eden had never seen any of the Star Wars or the Indiana Jones movies, and he decided we needed to fix this immediately.  We didn't actually have any of them on DVD (we had a VCR up until we moved into this house), so we had to run out last night and get some so that we could finish up all the movies before Christmas break is over.  

I'm not sure how much Eden followed of the movie, but she dutifully sat through it before declaring that it was "okay," but it "didn't have enough fighting in it."  Poor Jeremy.  He's probably going to make her sit through all the rest of them anyway, though.  Poor Eden.  Oh well; at least Jer and I will enjoy ourselves.

Then we played a few games of Wi Tennis and Bowling, ate dinner, put Connor down for bed and finally played a game of Skipbo before heading that way ourselves.  So it was a fun, relaxing day!

~Jess

In Which Not Much Happens

I woke up this morning and immediately decided that today was going to be a take-it-easy kind of day.  I decided this because I wasn't sure I could physically get out of bed.  I was just a wee bit sore from yesterday's workout.  Basically it felt like somebody had beaten my quadriceps and glutes with a sock full of quarters. 

So other than a little light skating (because seriously, the best way to get sore muscles to stop hurting is to loosen them up with a bit of exercise, even if it's the last thing you feel like doing) I spent a good portion of today either catching up on chores, reading or watching derby.  All in all it was a pretty quiet day, and a good one as far as quiet days go.

Connor didn't have any seizures, which was fantastic, but he seemed a little down in the dumps today.  It might have been the weather; it's turned dark and rainy again, and so we didn't go on our usual walk today.  Also he stayed up until three in the morning last night, which also might have contributed to his crabbiness.  Thankfully he's asleep tonight, which will hopefully mean he'll be in a better mood tomorrow so he'll enjoy his school day.

So yep!  Nothing happened today.  There wasn't even a single velociraptor to liven things up around here.  It was kind of nice!

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

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

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

I took my skates off first, of course.

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

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

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

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

~Jess

In Which I Have A Fantastic Time In Vancouver

I'm back!

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Jess

In Which I Go To The Doctor

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

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

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

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

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

Glorious.

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

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

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

~Jess

In Which We Go Skating

Today we had a friend drive down to visit, and we all went out roller skating.

Our local rink had free admission for military families because of the holiday, so our whole family got in free, which was pretty great.  Connor had a whole lot of fun whizzing around the rink pushed by his dad, who likes to pop wheelies with the wheelchair to make me freak out. 

It's a good thing the kid's seizures aren't induced by flashing lights or he'd probably have a major problem with our local skating rink.  Since that's not an issue for him, though, he spent a whole lot of time watching the various patterns the lights made on the floor.  He seemed to really enjoy himself.

It's kind of crazy, but I've spent so much time at the rinks that not only do I know all the songs they play at each skating session, but I know what time and order they do the activities in as well.  First are the races-- girls and then boys, from youngest racers to oldest-- and then it's the birthday song (if there are any children holding a party there), followed by the Hokey Pokey. 

After that is what the skating rink calls "the bird dance" and what we always referred to as the "chicken dance," only the repetitions never get any faster, which totally sucks all the fun out of the song.  And then they play the modern addition to the rink activities-- the Cha Cha Slide song.  This song is made particularly exciting because it involves jumping, which all the little kids attempt and then promptly fall down, making for a challenging obstacle course on crowded skate days. 

I think maybe I go to the skating rink too much.  Oh well.

~Jess

In Which I Skate A Whole Bunch And Connor Is Awesome

I am kind of ridiculously tired at the moment, as I decided to do a two hour roller derby scrimmage and a two hour endurance practice back-to-back.  This may not have been the smartest decision I've ever made in my entire life, but what the heck-- I love skating and I'm proud of myself for sticking it out through all four hours.  We'll see whether or not I feel the same way tomorrow morning when I wake up and discover just how sore I've managed to make myself.

Oh well. 

Can you believe we've gone six whole days without a single big seizure?  The last time that happened without him taking daily Ativan was at the very beginning of February, believe it or not.  He's had a truly rough time of it the past few months and it's so nice to see him really starting to recover.  I can't tell you how much better I feel too.  It's pretty rough on the whole family when he has a really bad spell, and the past three months have probably been the worst he's ever been except for those first five and a half weeks after he was born.  I'm so glad that he's really getting a break, and I'm hopeful that the trend is going to continue and that this time we've really got it figured out.  He's been on the Trileptal for over a year now, so coming down off of it might just be the one thing he really needed to get them under control.  We'll just have to see what this year brings!

Now if I could get the kid to sleep at night I'd be really happy.  I'm guessing that once he's down completely off the Trileptal his sleep patterns will settle down, but right now he's still wide awake and it's almost midnight.  He also doesn't sleep whenever we change his routine in a major way, and it's Spring Break now so I'm thinking that I'm probably going to be seeing a whole lot of this sort of behavior this week.  I'll just have to wait it out until Spring Break is over and then declare his school time my official nap time until I get caught up.  Productive?  Maybe not.  But a girl needs her beauty sleep, right?

Or in my case, any sleep at all would be good.

~Jess

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Sick Again

Connor's sick again.

Seriously, cold season is Not Fun for us at all.  The kiddo is (of course) running a fever, and (of course) the first indication we had that anything was out of the ordinary was when he started having seizures.  The poor kid has only been healthy for about a week!  He just can't seem to catch a break this season.

I swear I need to build this kid a bubble.  I'd try to construct something, but all I've got to work with is saran wrap and masking tape, and I don't think it would be particularly effective. 

So we're going to at least try to keep the seizures down so that his body will be stronger and able to recover faster.  We'll be using Ativan up to twice every twelve hour period as long as he is still running a fever.  It's a fine line to walk; we don't want to give him too much and get his body used to it so it becomes ineffective, but we don't want for him to go too long without taking it and end up starting up the seizures again.  Hopefully we'll be able to find just the right dosage to keep the seizures at bay without lessening the impact of the drug.

It's frustrating in more than ways than one; not only does Connor go through a lot physically, but he also misses out on school and therapy because we can't send him while he's sick.  Many of the children Connor spends time around in those environments are fragile or have immune system deficiencies, and the last thing we want to do is make one of those children ill.  Still, I worry that Connor's missing out on too much; lately it's seemed like he's spending more time out of school than in it.  There's not a whole lot I can do about it other than to try and keep him as healthy as possible and help him recover when he does get sick.  Oh well.

Hopefully he'll be feeling better soon!

~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 Connor Continues To Be Better And I Pick A Derby Name

No seizures today!  Connor still had a bit of a fever this morning, but he was obviously doing a lot better.  We're going off the Tylenol tomorrow and we'll see how it goes.  I'm happy that the little guy is on the mend!

We had our team photo for derby today, which was completely awesome.  I've chosen an official derby name-- I am now skating for the Trampires as Gita Kraken!  My number is 20K Leagues.

I was planning on skating under the name Lee Viathan, but there's already a Vitamin V on the team.  "Lee" and "V" sound really similar when you're yelling them in the middle of a noisy bout.  So I went with another gigantic sea monster instead, since I thought the general theme was appropriate. 

After all, if there's one thing more terrifying than a gigantic evil squid, it's a gigantic, sort of promiscuous, evil undead squid on roller skates.

For those of you who have no idea what the heck this name is in reference to (and I know you are out there), it's a play on the expression "get cracking."  And also it involves one of these.  And my number, 20K Leagues, comes from Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, in which not just one kraken, but seven kraken make an appearance.  Which is about seven more kraken than I'd generally care to meet down a dark alley.

So anyway, we had our photo shoot and I was dressed appropriately.  Dressing appropriately for the team picture in my case involved a black shirt and skirt, red tights, hair that was teased about four inches off the top of my head and rolled in a sort of crazy punk rock bouffant style, really heavy black eyeliner and mascara, red lipstick, and an awesome red octopus necklace (made by another derby girl!) to complete the ensemble.  Oh, and my skates, of course.

It felt sort of like I was dressing up as my alter ego.  Who is way, way cooler than me and actually able to pull off four-inch high hairdos, really black eyeliner and roller skates-- something that I would normally never be able to do.  I don't have any pictures of me in my glorious Gita Kraken attire, but when one goes up on the Dockyard Derby Dames website I'll be sure to post a link to it so you can see me in my crazy getup.  Also then you can check out the other lovely ladies on my team, who collectively manage to be gorgeous and unbelievably terrifying all at the same time. 

So from now on, whenever I strap on my roller skates you can call me Gita!

~Jess

In Which My Child Needs To Stop Having Seizures

Connor only had three more seizures today, which was a marked improvement over the previous two days.  Fourteen seizures in three days is still not a particularly stunning track record, though.  I'm going to have to give that boy a stern talking to, because really this sort of behavior is totally unacceptable.  Something along the lines of this should do it:

"Tomorrow let's shoot for zero seizures, okay little guy?  Not only do I not care for the frequency of these shenanigans, but the timing isn't exactly wonderful either.  Mommy is in the middle of roller derby drafts, and giving her five or six mini-heart attacks in a 24 hour period does not do wonders for her skating. 

You want me to get onto a team so you can watch me skate around and kick other girls' butts, right?  I thought so.  So quit activating my fight-or-flight response multiple times a day.  There's only so much adrenaline I can produce in a given time period, and I need it all for derby right now.  If you can't manage to tone it down at the very least quit having these things when I'm driving on the highway, sweetie.  That would help considerably in the Not-Giving-Mommy-A-Heart-Attack department, and I'm sure all of the other drivers on the road would appreciate it too.

Not to mention that these little incidents aren't exactly good for your health either. 

So cut it out, okay cutie?  I'm glad we had this little talk."

If my brilliant inspirational speech fails, I'm going to fall back on hoping that the medication increase is just taking a couple of days to kick in and that by the time the weekend is over we won't be seeing any more of these.  Otherwise I'll be putting in another call to the neurologist and we'll go from there.  We haven't picked out any underlying cause as of yet; he doesn't seem sick at all, just tired.  And after having fourteen seizures in three days, who can blame him for that?  Heck, I'm tired too and all I'm doing for the most part is watching them. 

Really, kiddo.  Enough is enough!

~Jess

In Which I Get Back To Skating

I eased off on the skating during the holiday season. This was for a variety of reasons.

The main reason was that I managed to bruise the crud out of my sternum and the ribs on my right side over a particularly violent week of derby practice.  Breathing became extremely fun, as did lifting my arms over my head, carrying Connor, and a wide variety of other exciting activities.  And then I caught a cold. 

Let me tell you, coughing with a bruised sternum is not fun.

My lack of skating also might have had something to do with the fact that it was the holiday season, and that Jer was off of work, and also possibly that I had a large quantity of new books and a huge supply of chocolate that wasn't going to eat itself, you know. 

It was a terribly hard job, but somebody had to do it.

Anyway, so what with the bruising and the coughing and family togetherness and the sitting around eating massive quantities of chocolate there wasn't a whole lot of skating going on, something that after returning to the rink today I am seriously regretting.  However, my chest is finally feeling like it's not going to split open every time I take a deep breath anymore, so it's time to get back to work! 

My leg muscles don't currently seem to agree with me, however.  I believe they prefer the sitting around and eating chocolate, and they are now protesting the return to physical activity.  Loudly.

I intended to ease back into things-- I wasn't planning on spending more than two hours at the skating rink.  But there's something almost hypnotic about skating around in a circle for a while; you sort of lose track of the time.  As a result I spent four hours at the rink instead and my leg muscles are now in open rebellion. 

Oh well-- they'll settle down eventually.  Maybe if I eat more chocolate it will make them feel better.  Chocolate solves all problems.

At least I got enough sleep last night.  And Connor had no seizures or anything, which was also awesome!  So that was a good thing.  I enjoyed the holidays thoroughly, but they're just about over now (and also I'm almost out of chocolate) so it's time to get back to business.  Hopefully Connor feels the same way and will quit with the shenanigans!

~Jess

In Which I Am Now The Owner Of Extreme Floofiness

I am now the proud owner of quite possibly the world's floofiest tutu.

Yes, I know that "floofy" is not technically a word.  But I think that pretty much everyone would understand what I am talking about once they take a look at that picture and agree that floofy is really the only way to describe it.  There are probably at least eight yards of tulle in this thing.

Our respite care worker Joanna gave this absolutely awesome pink monstrosity to me as part of her ongoing quest to convince me to choose a roller derby name somewhere along the lines of Glitter Sparkle Princess Barbie, which she thinks would be hilarious.  Needless to say this is not going to happen, because there is not a single mention of death or destruction in that name even though it is absolutely terrifying-- especially to anyone who has ever been subjected to one of the fantastic plastic princess's music videos.  If I used one of those as a theme song I could probably make the opposing team and the vast majority of the fan base flee in horror before the bout even started, thus winning the game for us.  It would probably not be so good for ticket sales though, so I'll restrain myself. 

Besides, Barbie doesn't dress in tutus anymore.  Barbie apparently dresses in outfits like this now.  Whoa, Barbie.  Put either the tutu or some pants back on, because no one wants to see that.

Anyway, while this tutu is pretty impractical for an actual bout I'll probably wear it to derby functions on occasion, because really who wouldn't want to wear a giant fluffy pink tutu and roller skates? 

But despite its awesomeness, I refuse to name myself Glitter Sparkle Princess Barbie.  Sorry, Jo-- nice try.

~Jess

In Which Connor Tries Out Skating Again, And I Attend A Party

Today Connor, Jeremy and I met some friends at our local roller rink for a couple hours of wheelchair skating! 

I was a little nervous about how Connor was going to react, because this was the first time I'd skated with him since I managed to run him down a ditch and into a blackberry bush.  But I shouldn't have worried, because Connor had a blast!  Possibly he realized that there were an astonishing lack of ditches and/or blackberry bushes in the rink, and that did the trick.  Or maybe it was because Daddy was there, and having Daddy involved in any experience automatically makes it about 800 times better in Connor's eyes.  At any rate, he spent the whole two hours with a huge grin on his face, waving to every single person he passed by. 

Jeremy tried out some roller blades to see how they would work on his feet.  He used to roller blade a lot and so he's very good on them even though his ankles and feet don't exactly function the way they did previously.  He said they felt "weird," but he skated almost the entire two hours.  He spent a lot of that time pushing Connor around the rink while I happily yelled at him for going too fast and reflected on just how lucky I was to have the both of them. 

So a good time was had by all.

After we got home I put Connor down for a nap and did some chores before getting dressed up to go to a housewarming party.  The theme was cocktail dresses and bowling shirts.  Since I didn't have a bowling shirt and-- due to a plethora of army functions over the past few years-- have multiple cocktail dresses, it was obvious what I was going to wear.  So I tried on a few before settling on one that I could still squeeze my hips into and then stopped by the store for a present.  Jeremy, who didn't have a cocktail dress or a bowling shirt and isn't much of a partygoer anyway, stayed home and watched the boy because he is awesome like that.

So I enjoyed myself for a couple of hours at the party and then swung by the house, grabbed my skates and was out the door again to meet a friend at the Adult Skate session going on at one of the rinks.  The session had already started by the time I made it home to get my gear, so I didn't change out of my dress because I was already running late.  Skating in a cocktail dress actually worked out pretty well-- I just pulled my socks and knee pads up over my nylons, pulled my hair back really quickly and stuck my helmet on over that, and I was off!  I didn't really even get too many weird looks-- it's a pretty diverse crowd at the skating rink, and I'm probably not the first person who's shown up there in a cocktail dress. 

At any rate, I stayed out entirely too late but had a blast!

~Jess

In Which I Skate A Whole Bunch More And Connor Has A Good Laugh

Tonight's going to be another short post, because I'm tired!

I got to sleep in for just a little while this morning, which was lovely.  Jeremy made me some breakfast because he is sweet like that, and I took off just after ten, stopped by the grocery store for some snacks, and then swung down to Tacoma to pick up Annie for our second day of roller derby boot camp!  It ran from one in the afternoon until six at night, and I had an absolute blast.

One of my favorite things we did was a game called "land mine."  They scattered a ton of tiny cones all over the track, mixed in a couple of those huge cones (the type they use at construction sites) tipped over on their sides and then ended the whole mess with two walls of eight-inch high cones.  We had to skate as fast as we could until we got to the cones and then try and get through them without touching any.  So we were flying all over the place, hopping around and jumping and wiping out spectacularly.  It was tremendous amounts of fun!

I've decided that land mines of the traffic cone variety are the best kind.

I came out of the whole two-day experience with remarkably few new bruises and a wealth of new knowledge and skills.  Plus I got to bounce a bunch of other girls off the floor.  So that was pretty awesome. 

By the time I got back home after eating dinner in Seattle and then dropping my friend back at her place, Connor had been in bed and asleep for a while.  He apparently had a pretty good day and is currently having very pleasant dreams; every once in a while he bursts into peals of laughter and when we go in he's still fast asleep.  He does this pretty often-- something he probably inherited from me, as I talk in my sleep-- and while sometimes he'll make other little sounds, almost always when it happens he'll let loose with that chortling giggle that is  contagious and endearingly irresistible.

I always wonder what it is that he's dreaming about, but I'm glad that whatever it is it makes him happy!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Fine And I Do A Whole Heck Of A Lot Of Skating

Everything is fine!

I was just so exhausted last night that I fell asleep before I posted.  I woke up about two in the morning and realized I hadn't blogged, but by then I was just so comfy it was too late.

It was an extremely eventful day, though.  I got up at about five in the morning and drove over to my friend Annie's place to pick her up.  Then we were off to Seattle for a roller derby boot camp! 

Of course we didn't actually have tickets for the boot camp, which sold out in October.  But we figured if we showed up and someone else didn't come maybe they would let us pay there and then skate.  So we got there early enough to stop and have an extremely tasty short breakfast at a coffee shop, and then we took a couple of deep breaths and walked into the Rat's Nest, which is what the Rat City Roller Girls have named their practice building.

We were directed to sit down next to the one other girl who'd had the same idea we did; she'd driven all the way from Ellensburg--almost two hours-- on the off chance they'd let her skate.  We sat down against the wall and watched the other girls warm up for a little bit, and then they told us we could stay!  So we signed our waiver (there are A LOT of waivers associated with roller derby since it's an extreme sport), geared up, and were off!

We skated from 8:00 in the morning until 1:00 in the afternoon, which was pretty awesome!  They broke down a lot of basic techniques into bite size pieces so that we were able to really focus on form.  Then we had a one hour seminar on skate care and maintenance, and a talk on nutrition for roller derby as well.  All of the information was extremely helpful and I'm really glad that Annie and I decided to take a chance and go!  We left the Rat's Nest at about 2:30 and grabbed some lunch at a local Thai restaurant before driving over to Fast Girl Skates, where I bought myself a new pair of knee pads (I managed to crack one of my knee pads a couple days ago, and the ones I'd bought at the local sports store weren't cutting it) and an extra set of nuts for my wheels.  Then I dropped Annie off and it was back to the house, where Jeremy was waiting so we could go out to dinner (we had Joanna for respite care all day).  We went out to one of our local sushi places and then made a quick stop into one of our local coffee shops (of course).  After that we ran home so I could grab my skates, and we were off to a skating rink for some fun!

And yes, I am well aware of the fact that I skated for five hours earlier in the day.  But I seem to have the same philosophy about skating that I do about books and tea.  If there's one thing better than skating, it's more skating.

Jer hasn't been up on skates since well before he was injured, so he wanted to try and see if he was still able to skate.  He mostly skated on roller blades, but he decided he wanted to take a spin on some quads.  He looked really good out there-- certainly way, way better than I did when I first tried on a pair of skates a couple months ago.  He said that he can feel his feet when he leans in on the turns, but otherwise I think they worked out pretty well!  I think he wants to try roller blades next, and he'll purchase a pair of whatever works better so we can go skating together.  The artistic skates (the kind the skating rink rents you when you go there) have a raised heel which is nice for him since his ankles are a little stiff, so they may end up being the way he goes.

Anyway, so we skated for about an hour and then ended the evening at (of course) the bookstore. 

Connor did really well on the raised dose of medication and (thank goodness) actually slept through the night last night.  We've got some respite care again today and Jeremy will be getting some alone time since I'll be at the second half of my workshop! 

I promise I'll blog tonight, though.  Sorry about that.

~Jess

In Which Connor Has Even More Seizures And Hopefully We Put A Stop To It

Short blog tonight, folks, because I'm headed to bed early!

After a failed attempt to get Connor up and moving this morning I decided to keep him home from school.  The little guy was grumpy and tired, but it was hard to tell if this was because he was getting sick or because he stayed up until two in the morning. 

He had his first seizure around ten or so, and a second around one in the afternoon.  His neurologist called us back a little later and we talked about what could possibly be bringing these on.  Connor has had six seizures in the past three days, which is not so hot, and a number of those have been the needs-resuscitation kind, which I'm not thrilled about.  He speculated that maybe Connor has gotten used to the amount of Lamictal in his system and it's becoming ineffective.  So we're going to up his dose again to 50mg instead of the 37.5mg he's been taking.  Hopefully this will do the trick and the little guy will quit having these!

So we'll be starting that up tomorrow, and I expect him to be pretty clingy, sad and tired, which is how upping his Lamictal seems to affect him.  I won't be there to see how the morning goes, though, because I'm heading into Seattle with a friend.  There's an awesome roller derby workshop being put on by the Rat City Roller Girls tomorrow and Sunday.  Unfortunately it sold out over a month ago-- before I even made a league.  So the two of us are going to go up on the off chance that someone who signed up doesn't show and see if we can score tickets there.  If it doesn't work out we'll spend a nice morning in Seattle and then head home, but nothing ventured nothing gained, right?

So I'm off to bed.  Or at least, I'm going to try to be off to bed.  Connor's still going strong-- he took two substantial naps today because of the seizures-- so goodness knows when he'll go to sleep.  I hope for my sake it's soon!   

~Jess

In Which Connor And I Go To Seattle

Today after school Connor and I drove up to Seattle to get the little guy's blood drawn for his medication levels.  Due to a mix up though it turned out that the orders for the blood draw weren't in, so we couldn't get it done today.  That was a bit frustrating.

Since I was already up in Seattle and didn't want to waste a trip-- and Fast Girl Skates was right around the corner from the hospital-- I stopped by to pick up a skate key and some laces.  Also new bearings.  Also new wheels.  It took every ounce of my willpower not to buy new skates while I was at it.  That place is seriously dangerous.  I left the store in a much better mood though, so that was okay.

Anyway, so then we went to the bookstore by the hospital, because Connor always gets a new book after he has an appointment in Seattle.  He loves books and is always really eager to go get one, so thus far we've managed to keep the hospital a good experience for him.  I don't really want to think about how much fun these little excursions would be if he started being afraid of the hospital, so I'm going to do my very best to keep that positive association as long as possible, even if I have to employ blatant bribery to do it. 

Also I should probably mention that Connor's not the only one who picks out a new book after his hospital appointments.  So I might have had just a teensy bit of a second agenda there when I decided on going to the bookstore as his reward. 

Um, yeah.  Anyway, we of course had to stop by Fran's chocolates and pick up some salted caramels for Jeremy because the store is right there, after all.  And then we headed home, where I spent the next hour happily cleaning my skates and changing over to my new equipment.  I had just enough time when I was finished to change into my gear (I go straight from class to the skating rink) and then it was off to sign class, where of course I had to show everyone that giant bruise on my thigh shaped just like Diane's skate. 

I've been having this overwhelming urge in recent days to show complete strangers my bruises, which is probably not a good way to convince others I'm not totally insane.  Since it's not really appropriate to go up to people I see in the grocery store and start pulling up my pant legs, I've been contenting myself with working the bruises into casual conversation with people I actually know at every opportunity so that I can show them off.  As in: "Nasty weather, isn't it?  The sky is sort of purple-grey, kind of like this giant bruise I have on my thigh!  Wanna see?"

I'm hoping this urge is something that will pass in time so I can stop completely freaking out people I don't know very well.  Either that or I need to get some bruises in places that are easier to show off in the middle of winter.

~Jess

In Which I Go To The Emergency Room

So I had my first skating-related trip to the Emergency Room last night. 

It was really weird being in the ER for me instead of Connor.  For one thing, they made me wait.  This is not my usual experience.  Whenever we come in with Connor we have a room immediately after walking in and one or more doctors are usually in the room less than two minutes later.  So I'd never actually seen the waiting room of our local hospital before.  They have a pretty nice TV.

Anyway, so I was down at the local skating rink getting some good time on wheels in before next week's practice.  I was wearing my knee pads, elbow pads, tailbone protector and wrist guards, but I'd neglected to put in my mouth guard or wear my helmet since I was already wearing way, way more protection than the typical person wears at a skating rink and was getting some funny looks.

This particular skating time is right after the kid's speed skating team finishes up their practice, so there were little kids all over the rink with those giant inline speed skates on.  Have you seen those things?  They're pretty crazy looking.  Anyway, there were several boys between the ages of seven and nine with these things on, and they seemed to believe that having these skates on meant that the rules didn't apply to them and they were whizzing around the rink, chasing each other and weaving in and out of people. 

One of these kids decided that it would be a good idea to skate in the opposite direction from everyone else.  So here I was, minding my own business when this small blur on wheels was suddenly skating directly towards me at top speed.  I was boxed in by a little girl on my left who was doing that adorable little skate-stomping thing that toddler kids on skates do, and on the right by a really big guy who was really shaky on his skates.  The kid on the speed skates realized that he can't get through us and so decided to do a hockey stop, which now meant he was skidding towards me sideways on his skates.  I figured the quickest way to stop without taking him out was to go down on a knee, which had the desired effect except that my momentum carried the rest of me over said knee and I ended up bouncing off face-first off the rink.

So I got up and shot the kid a look, which was probably pretty effective given the fact that blood was pouring out of my mouth.  My teeth went through my bottom lip, and those sorts of things bleed pretty impressively.  I was sort of lisping when I asked where the bathroom was, and left a lovely trail on their floor as I headed back to the corner to get cleaned up.  I believe I traumatized several small children in the process.

Anyway, so since I'd managed to bite completely through my lip and it was gaping open rather impressively I figured I'd drive over to the local ER and see if I needed anything done to it.  After a pleasant ten minutes or so of admiring the TV in their waiting room (it's a private hospital or I'm sure it would have been about three hours) I was taken back and the doctor glued my lip together and sent me on my way.

Jeremy was disappointed when I got home that my patched-up lip was not more impressive looking.  He was apparently hoping that it would scar more and enhance my roller derby reputation.  He suggested I tell people that I "got in a bar fight."  Nice to know he's so concerned for my well being.  

The good (or bad news, if you're talking to Jeremy) is that lips heal extremely quickly due to good blood circulation, so by this morning (when I took that picture) my lip was only slightly swollen and it looked less like I'd bitten through it and more like I had a canker sore.  By early evening the glue had done its work and fallen off, and I'm relatively sure by Monday when I have roller derby practice again it will be completely gone and if I tell anyone about it I'll sound like my grandfather used to when discussing the fish he caught ("no really, we could use the scales for dinner plates, I swear!").

But despite my disappointing lack of scarring and/or serious bodily injury, I don't intend to repeat the performance to see if I can attain a better result.  Next week I'll be the only skater out on the local rink rolling around in full protective gear. 

I may not like getting those funny looks, but I like keeping all my teeth better!

~Jess