Category Archives: health

Good News

Posted on May 20, 2009 | 11 Comments

It all began in early 2007, when Michael’s Mommy noticed something strange going on. Every so often, Michael would twitch inexplicably in a manner that was similar to what someone does when they’re startled. He did this throughout the day at random intervals, and it went on for several weeks.

She contacted the doctor and explained her discovery, but he dismissed it, basically saying it’s probably nothing.

But Michael’s Mommy knew there was more to this. She was determined to show them what she meant.

So one day she set up the video camera, and caught this (it happens at about 22 seconds in, and it’s rather subtle):

She emailed this video to the doctor, who did a complete about face on his earlier opinion, and suggested we send a copy of that video to a neurologist, which we did.

A few days later, Michael had an appointment for an EEG.

All of this is documented here in a post from March of 2007.

As a result of the EEG that Michael had, he was put on Depakote, with the hopes that it would help his brain grow out of that particular brand of seizure, and prevent it from developing into full blown epilepsy.

Every single day for the last two years, we’ve had to give Michael two daily doses of this medicine. It comes as a capsule, but because he’s too young to swallow such a pill, we have to take the thing apart and sprinkle it on something. Ice Cream. Yogurt. Pudding. Whatever substrate we can find to hide it in and spoon it into his mouth. And he’s always been really good about taking it, which made things a heck of a lot easier.

Just last week, we had the two-year follow up EEG. It was what they call a “sleep deprived test.” That is, Michael had to stay up until 10:30 the night before, and then be awakened at 5:30 the next morning. It was just as much fun as it sounds. Here are two groggy parents schlepping into the hospital with one little Energizer Bunny who’s bouncing around like he’s been given a bolus of caffeinated sucrose. Needless to say, he handles sleep deprivation a whole lot different than either his mom or I do.

I won’t bore you with a lot of details, except for one little slice of the experience: The technician who was doing the procedure asked if we could have Michael lie down, close his eyes and hold still for ten minutes. Was she serious? If I’d had my wits about me, I would have asked her if she’s ever actually seen a five-year-old boy.

All in all, the thirty-minute test went well. Michael behaved himself just fine and they got the info they wanted.

The best part of it came two days later, when the doctor’s office called and told us that his EEG was normal, and that our next step would be to start weaning him off the Depakote, so that in just a few weeks, he’ll never need that medicine again.

So I’m using this space to issue a HUGE thank-you to my wife, who had the instinct to notice something was wrong, and the persistence to keep pushing the issue forward until she was heard by the professionals. As a result, Michael will live a normal life, as if it had never happened.

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Posted in health, michael, parenting

Myocardial Monday – HFCS

Posted on January 19, 2009 | 9 Comments

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Last week, Nonna asked about this, and rather than give the topic short shrift, I figured I’d cover it with heaping mounds of verbiage and ridiculous detail. So if you’re ready to learn, here we go:

What is it?
HFCS is a sweetener made from corn. It sounds strange; how do you make something sweet from corn, without it tasting like corn? It’s actually pretty simple.

Corn is mostly starch, and starch is just sugar wearing a fake nose and glasses. It only takes a bit of a nudge to turn the corn starch into the sweet stuff.

On a side note, “sugar” itself isn’t just one thing, but is the all-encompassing name for a group of similar molecules (“saccharides”) that taste sweet: fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose and a ton of other oses. Fructose is the sugar primarily found in fruits, lactose is the sugar that is in milk, and glucose is the sugar that your brain needs to function. That white crystal stuff that’s sitting in your sugar bowl is actually a double whammy (a “disaccharide”) of two sugars linked together: fructose and glucose. In this form it’s called “sucrose” – or table sugar.

Starch is what’s known to the chemistry geeks as a “polysaccharide”, or a big long chain of sugars. Think of it as a necklace made out of little sugar beads all strung together. To turn this pasty molecular chain into something yummy, the starch is “hydrolyzed” (this is the technical term for bonking something with water molecules) and the chain is effectively blasted apart. Before all the little beads end up clattering all over the floor of the Petri dish, they grab the hydrogen/oxygen pairs of the water molecules and change their name to glucose. Now, it’s sugar.

Then, to make it “go to eleven”, chemists take the resultant sugary goop and run it by some chemical workers called enzymes to force some of the glucose into becoming fructose. Thus, the corn syrup becomes richer in fructose, making it “high fructose” corn syrup. Get it?

Here’s a good place to note that your body can do this hydrolyzation thing without even breaking a sweat. This is why starchy food like potatoes and bread can really mess with your blood sugar level; the starches are converted into sugars by your digestive process.

Why is it in everything?
Not only can it make things taste better, it’s used to add volume, make bread softer, preserve food, assist with product fluid consistency and bump up calorie count. It’s the wonder additive that can work wonders. Better living through Science! Yup.

Why HFCS and not sugar?
HFCS is cheap. A whole lot cheaper that sugar. Why, you ask? Especially when sugar comes naturally and HFCS has to be made chemically? For that answer, you have to set the wayback machine to a few decades ago, and take a hard look at what our friends at Archer Daniels Midland have done. I won’t go into great detail here (you can read about it yourself), but suffice it to say that ADM (“Supermarket to the World”) lobbied the government to keep sugar prices high and make corn subsidies plentiful. They played games with the market so they’d come out ahead and could sell their uber-cheap HFCS to anyone who wanted it. And food manufacturers flocked to their door.

Is High Fructose Corn Syrup bad?
No, not on its own. It’s no worse than any other natural sweetener. It’s not going to destroy your liver or turn your skin into jelly, give you lyme disease, chronic fatigue, pigeon toes, rot your bowels or cause you to break out in weeping ulcers. It’s just sugar. The problem isn’t the stuff itself, it’s the abundance of the stuff.

It’s very hard to find any processed food that doesn’t contain HFCS. Go to the supermarket and read the ingredient labels on the foods you buy and you’ll see what I mean.

The HFCS promoters say “It’s fine in moderation.” Well, sure it is. But I challenge anyone to go through a day of normal eating given a typical American diet and end up having consumed HFCS in moderation. That’s like standing out in the rain all day and being told you’ll only get a little moist.

What to do about it?
Don’t stand in the rain. The food manufacturers have to provide an ingredients list, so take advantage of that fact. Stick to things that don’t use HFCS if at all possible. You’ll get enough sugar in the fruits and grains and starchy foods you eat.

It’s really not that hard, and you can actually lose weight without knocking a crumb of food out of your daily intake.

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Posted in food, health, Myocardial Monday

Myocardial Monday

Posted on January 12, 2009 | 7 Comments

I was scrounging through the thesaurus I keep right here hoping to find an “m” word for “healthy”, but came out of it quite disappointed. Michael’s mommy, ever the bright one, suggested for this weekly segment the title you see here. Alliteration is good. Having it make some sense is even better.

Today I’m going to rave about the wonderfulness of a series of books my wife and I discovered fairly recently.

Eat This, Not That gives the real scoop on nutrition, and presents it in a way that enlightens and entertains without making the reader feel guilty.

There are three books in the series. The first gives a general overview of the whole concept, the second deals strictly with successful navigation of the supermarket, and the third targets kids’ foods.

The author names names and pulls no punches in delivering the dirt on products you’ll find all over, how much nutrition they contain, and more aptly, how much non-nutrition they contain.

He compares similar products from different brands/franchises, giving the reader a way to make a smart choice.

The basic idea is that the food industry has taken over our lives, and is surreptitiously manipulating our taste buds to want things sweeter, saltier and more fat-laden than we would naturally. It’s amazing to find out how High Fructose Corn Syrup has made its way into nearly everything you buy at the grocery store, and how even foods that have the outward appearance of being healthy have been altered and processed to the point where they’re no better than the “unhealthy” version of the same thing.

Since reading these books, we’ve learned that there are a few very simple rules to follow when shopping that will save us hundreds of calories every day without having to sacrifice our wants, without forcing us to count calories or measure portion sizes, and it pretty much guarantees weight loss.

This isn’t to say that he’s advocating a particular diet as much as he promotes “wising up” of the shopper to make better food choices to maximize nutrition and minimize empty, useless caloric intake.

If you’re at all interested in making even the smallest positive change in your eating habits, I highly recommend the “Eat This, Not That” series.

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Posted in food, health, Myocardial Monday

The First Steps

Posted on January 7, 2009 | 11 Comments

Slowly but surely, we’re getting on with our new life.

Michael’s mommy is recovering. Her new medications may be helping the crucial problem of fending off plaque buildup in her arteries, but they’re also making her feel like she’s got a bad case of restless leg stomach flu. With a side of insomnia.

Meanwhile, we’re scouring the metro area looking for actual food.

Let me explain.

One of the things we have learned, as a result of this surprise, is that our biggest enemy in the fight for health is the food supply. And not just from restaurants, but from the supermarket. If you’re not extremely careful and wise in your selections, you will load your grocery cart up with more calories than you’ll ever need, and less nutrition than you’d believe.

Even things promising a “healthy” option aren’t necessarily so, since nearly every pre-packaged, processed food is overrun with High Fructose Corn Syrup, sodium and myriad unpronounceable, mysterious additives.

And restaurants have their part in the comestible chaos that reigns out there. Portion sizes are the biggest problem. Since the 1970s, portions have nearly doubled. And not just with the food, with the sugar-drenched drinks as well. Remember when a large soft drink at McDonald’s was about 20 ounces? Between then and now, it swelled up to 42 ounces. Yikes.

All this to say we’ve discovered that the deck was stacked against us. We’re thwarted at every turn.

But we’ve learned our lesson. Our eyes are wide open now, and we know where to steer to find the things that are proper to eat, to maximize nutrition while providing the proper caloric intake for dad, mom and kids.

I’ve long said that I want to be around to see my kids grow up and have children of their own (if for no other reason, than so I can have the satisfaction of seeing them go through what their mom and I go through every day; and I hope Michael has twins). But I very likely would not have made it that far if we’d kept up our standard dietary habits. Every day I’d wake up tired, run down, sore and wishing I could just take a break for a while.

Since we’ve started eating right, I feel ten years younger and a whole lot more alive. I feel like there’s hope for my wife and me to reach our golden wedding anniversary, which is still 45 years in the future.

So watch this space. Every Monday I shall present facts and recipes for a healthier lifestyle. In between time, of course, you’ll be subjected to the usual rambling palaver.

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Posted in food, health

When Everything Changes

Posted on January 3, 2009 | 19 Comments

Michael’s mommy and daddy received a very loud wake-up call last Monday evening.

My wife had a heart attack.

It came out of the blue. She has no family history of heart disease, she doesn’t smoke, and we had what we believe to be fairly healthy eating habits.

But the Emergency Room physician made it crystal clear to me: she was in the middle of a true myocardial infarction.

This isn’t something we’d ever had to deal with before, nor anything we could have expected. We did have signs, but we didn’t know how to interpret them.

In the weeks that followed Thanksgiving, my wife had complained repeatedly of recurring and increasing pain in her back and her right arm. The pain seemed to center in her chest, but included her right arm, her neck, jaw and tongue. Right after Christmas she scheduled an appointment to see her doctor. I took her to the visit on Monday. One of the tests he ran was an EKG, and he was concerned about one of the readings. He arranged an appointment with a cardiologist for Wednesday. He didn’t say he thought there was immediate danger or that he knew for certain what might be the problem, except that he was disturbed by her “depressed ST wave”.

We went home with a couple of new prescriptions for her: Metoprolol and nitro glycerin. My worry immediately shot through the roof when I overheard her asking the doctor about them on the phone, saying “So if I’m having chest pain, I should take the nitro glycerin?”

That evening, after putting Michael to bed, her pain was beyond anything she’d ever known. She’d taken Advil and Tylenol, but they did no good. We weren’t sure what to do, because despite the pain, it wasn’t clear what was going on. There was no tingling in her left arm, no radiating, stabbing pain. The medicine stated what symptoms to look for in order to justify taking it, and she wasn’t having those symptoms.

Finally, the pain was more than she could bear.

So I called my eldest daughter and asked if she could stay with Michael while we were away. When she arrived, I drove my wife to the emergency room at the local hospital.

That’s when we got our confirmation. The attending physician pulled me aside and gave me the news, and showed me the EKG they ran clearly indicating what was going on.

“We gave her the meds to slow down her heart rate, so that the area of the heart starved by oxygen won’t need it as badly. But we need to get her into the cath lab immediately. I already have the cardiologists on the way.”

He spoke as clearly and as sympathetically as he could, and though I was comforted by his words, I felt a fog of disbelief and shock descend over me.

My wife cannot be having a heart attack. She just can’t. If anyone should, it should be me. I’ve got the family history of heart disease. I have the arrhythmia problems and high blood pressure. It should be me lying there.

I held her hand and walked along side the bed as she was whisked upstairs to the lab for an angiogram.

“This is where we part ways,” the nurse said. I didn’t want to part ways. I wanted to stay with her. But I knew she was in good hands.

They told me to wait in the lobby of the cardiac care unit. Probably wouldn’t take more than 45 minutes. They were going to run a catheter up through her femoral artery, snake it along into her heart, inject a dye and use their scanners to determine where the blood was flowing, and more importantly where it wasn’t.

As I stood in the waiting room, I prayed to God. I knew it was His decision, and that His will was best, no matter whether I liked the outcome or not.

In what was simultaneously no time at all and also the longest 45 minutes of my life, the cardiologist came out the doors, locked eyes with me, and gave me two thumbs up. I exhaled a vast sigh of relief as my legs turned to jelly.

“She did really well, and she’s going to the recovery room right now,” he said. He explained that she’d had a 99 percent blockage in the left anterior descending (LAD) artery, one of the arteries supplying blood to the heart muscle, and this was causing the pain. They inserted a stent, which opens and holds open the artery, effectively removing the blockage.

After a few more minutes I was allowed to go back to her room for a visit. She was awake, but very groggy. She showed me the picture they took during the angiogram, of the before and after. The difference was crystal clear: blockage in one, free flow in the other.

Of course, they wanted to keep her there at the hospital for observation. The theory being, if she’s going to show signs of a complication, it would be better for her to do it where they can act immediately.

So for the next four days, I spent my time shuttling back and forth between home and the hospital.

I have my daughters to thank for taking care of Michael while I visited my wife alone. I dragged them along with me so we could have dinner with her there in the hospital in the evenings. I brought her a tall “decaf” (wink wink) latte every morning. We shared the most memorable New Year’s Eve ever, toasting the arrival of 2009 there in her hospital room with sparkling pear juice and plastic champagne flutes.

I brought Michael a few times, and of course he wanted to make the bed go up and down, and turn on and off every light he could find. And he wanted to call the nurse over and over again. He didn’t grasp the fact that it might make her cranky. I offered to give him a good reason to have to stay in his own hospital bed.

My wife is home now, and she and I are completely in agreement that our lifestyle needs to change. We need to eat better, and we need to get exercise.

So now we’re on a different diet. We’re going to be bumping up the fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains and lean meats. Back off on the dairy, limit the sugar, caffeine and fat intake. We’ve picked up a couple of books on nutrition, and will be sculpting a new menu for our family for this year.

And we will be taking walks every night, starting slowly and working our way up to vigorous 30 minute walks. We have plans to go on weekend hikes when weather permits, play tennis or swimming.

Our life, as we knew it, is over. Thank God, we have been given a second chance to do right. We now know that heart attack signs aren’t always easily recognized. We now know that it can happen to us, and that how we treat our bodies has a very real effect on our health and long-term prospects.

One day, everything changed. And it’s for good.

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Posted in health, marriage, Myocardial Monday

Burnin’ Blubber

Posted on June 18, 2008 | 4 Comments

I’m not a prize physical specimen.

My wife loves me, which is very fortunate for me. My kids love me too, which is also fortunate. My daughter once told me she likes the big “pillow” I have in front, as it’s good for laying her head against when watching TV.

The problem is, my being overweight is not a good thing for my long-term prospects.
My health is already in question, what with high blood pressure, heart trouble and sleep apnea. I take enough pills in the morning that I can almost skip breakfast.

Listening to the radio on the way in, the guy who filled in for Paul Harvey today informed me that large amounts of belly fat is the biggest risk factor for heart disease. Then he said a healthy man should have a waist size of less than half of his height. I’m six foot one, but by this reckoning I need to be seven foot three. According to the health web sites, my body mass index has me spilling right out of the “overweight” category. Yikes. And here I’ve been walking around thinking “Well, there’re guys fatter than me. I’m okay.” Guess not.

No, this is definitely not a good thing. Michael is only four. If I’m going to see him graduate, get married and have children, I’m going to need to be around a while longer. I have to do something.

This is not the first time I’ve had this thought, either. I’d begun plans several times to help me drop the pounds. I tried LA WalletWeight Loss once a couple of years ago, but I just couldn’t keep with it. The program isn’t bad; they let you eat pretty much whatever you want, and they don’t ever bring up the dreaded word “exercise.” But they really limit your quantities of food. And you have to journal about every single thing you eat. In a tiny little book. There’s not enough room in those things to write what any average human would eat in a day, unless you write in microscopic letters or in code. You have a two by three inch square space of lines and that’s it. A typical entry: “Breakfast: ½ cup Special K, 8 oz water. Lunch: One apple. Half grain of rice. Dinner: Sniffed slice of whole wheat bread.” I’m convinced their thinking is that if you’ve filled up all the space, you’re through eating for the day.

While on the program, I was constantly ravenous. The “counselors” at the centers, after taking my weight, would reply to my pleas for greater portions with helpful comments like “I can’t understand why you’re still hungry,” and “have you spaced your proteins?” and “drink more water.” Having lost a grand total of 16 pounds (not counting the pound and a half my wallet lost paying for their “services”) in the three months I was actively participating in the program, I’d had enough. Enough of mouse-sized portions and barrel-sized doses of water. I sloshed out of there like a sodden sponge and decided never to return.

But I left with my un-health relatively intact.

I’m surrounded by healthy guys. My brother has been lifting weights and keeping himself in prime shape for most of his life (he got all the self-control genes in the family). He’s my hero: when he puts his mind to something, he goes about accomplishing it without diversion or complaint. My boss is a surfer and cyclist. He does annual bicycling competitions, like riding around Oregon. I mean around the perimeter of Oregon. With a running start, he could probably leap into a low orbit. One of my co-workers is a cyclist and fitness enthusiast too, and is as rugged as hewn granite. To look at him, you’d swear he burns 100 calories a minute just reading a book. On his list of accomplishments is competing in the Iron Man triathlon, placing in the top 20%.

I’m no Iron Man. I couldn’t even be considered aluminum, plastic or Styrofoam. Now, if they had a doughboy triathlon, I’d be a front-runner. First leg: munch three miles of Hershey’s with almonds. Second leg: gulp down two gallons of mint chip ice cream. Final leg: eat 26 glazed chocolate doughnuts.

Well, this has got to stop. And I’ve been saying that for years.

I think it was the photo that really kicked it off this time. My wife took some pictures of me just this last weekend, and I cringed when I saw them. My face looked very much like a ripe tomato; rounded, plump and pinkish. This is not a desirable look.

So I’m hitting the gym at work. And why not? It’s free. Yep, our company provides a free weight room with a fleet of Stairmasters, stationary cycles, open weights and various fitness machines.

Having gone through several semi-successful but clearly impermanent bouts with this gym in times past, I knew what I was doing. I waddled in there Monday to begin my training, dressed down and got on a bike.

This bike had a lot of settings. I didn’t see one called “Geezer” nor did I see a “Marshmallow” setting, but it did have a button called “Fat Burn.” This was supposedly a lower intensity workout than “Cardio”. Well, I wanted to burn fat. So I chose that, entered my weight and age, and plugged in 30 minutes for time. Surely, I can manage that.

Exactly 90 seconds into my ride, my legs felt like burning tires. If I’d seen a cloud of black smoke billowing outward, I wouldn’t have been surprised. My heart rate displayed on the readout at a brisk 97, which would be great if I were 80 years old. The little sticker on the machine says “stop immediately if you feel pain, dizziness or shortness of breath.” I was sporting two out of three. Can I go home now? I think I need a doughnut.

I cleared that setting and stopped pedaling. Guess I’m not burning fat today. That was supposed to be a low intensity session! If that’s true, then the “cardio” setting must be short for “cardiopulmonary resuscitation required.”

I burned a grand total of 27 calories in the three and a half minutes I rode.

Pathetic.

I started pedaling again, set the machine to manual level 3, and gave myself fifteen minutes of ride time.

I made it to twelve before my leg muscles and butt bones told me they’ve been punished enough for one day.

On Tuesday I rested from my workout.

But I went back for more today, and set the level to 7. This time I burned 125 calories. Woohoo! I’m not exactly burning off the Big Macs yet, but I’m movin’ on up.

By golly, I’m determined. Determined to not be a plump tomato any more. I’m either going to lose the weight or grow fourteen inches taller. Whatever it takes.

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Posted in health, parenting

I’m Too Old For This

Posted on April 22, 2008 | 3 Comments

Last night Michael was playing in his “tubes”: long, collapsible cloth-covered tunnels that we bought at Ikea. The game was to crawl through to escape the daddy monster. Every time he’d get to one end, the daddy monster would roar and scuttle on all fours over to get him. Then Michael would scream and turn around and crawl back through to escape.

Eventually this began to fatigue the daddy monster, which had to sit down for a bit and pant. And hopefully not lose consciousness.

“Daddy, you go through there!” Michael said, pointing to the tunnel.

“Michael, daddy can’t fit in there. And even so, daddy needs to take a breather for just a bit.”

“Please?” he asked, sweetly.

“I can’t go through the tubes but I will chase you again in just a minute,” I said in between heavy puffs. “Man. I’m too old for this!” I remarked to my wife.

Am I? Am I really that old? I’m only 44, for crying out loud.

I try to eat right, drink lots of water and get 8 hours of sleep. I have a beer now and then, and an occasional glass of wine. But I’ve never smoked or used meth or anything, so it isn’t like I’m treating my body so horribly. Except for the doughnuts. And chocolate. And cheesecake.

Okay, and so I don’t exercise so much. That I could do better on.

But just in the last year, I’ve noticed my eyesight deteriorating rapidly. I can’t hold things up close to my face and see them sharply any more; I have to trombone them out to about twelve inches away before they come into focus. I actually had to purchase reading glasses at the store a few weeks back.

Seeing photographs showing the back of my head is depressing, noting my ever-expanding pate. My family reassures me, saying: “You’re not going bald. There’s hair there, it’s just… thinner.” Thanks, family. I appreciate your kindness. Really.

And there’s the occasional heart arrhythmia and blood pressure problems I deal with, that I’ve been told by my doctor are fairly common as one gets older.

So I suppose the weariness should be no surprise.

I categorically insist that the gray hairs are not the result of aging; each and every one of them is inscribed with the name of the child who gave it to me.

But it’s not just my own interpretation of the evidence. Recently my wife and I were out at a local mall where she was picking up some cosmetics. Michael was walking between my wife and me, holding our hands. We happened to pass a couple and their kids who were standing by a banner-festooned table, raising money for a kid’s activity for their church.

We’re always happy to contribute to a worthy church function, so we stopped to talk with them.

The parents both remarked about how cute Michael is, and what a wonderful head of red hair he has, and how much he looks like his mother, who smiled and thanked them. Then the dad turns to me and asks:

“Is this your grandson?”

Blink.

Thanks for the validation.

Now really: as I said before, I’m only 44. That isn’t old. I don’t feel old. Inside, I still feel like I’m 28 or 29. That’s what counts, right?

No, what counts is the fact that I look old.

So, I’m thinking a couple of things:

1) I need to hit the StairMaster hard.
2) Just For Men comes in 11 natural shades.

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Posted in dad, frustration, health, moments

Needles and Fingers

Posted on March 23, 2008 | 2 Comments

Michael had to have his blood drawn Saturday. We have to do this twice a year so the neurologist can be sure his anti-seizure medication is at the right level. Hopefully by the end of next summer he can be done with it entirely.

Michael was very brave getting his blood drawn. He usually is; I don’t know where he gets his fearlessness, but it certainly wasn’t from my genetic contribution. Both of the technicians who did the blood draw said that Michael could teach some adults how to take a poke. He can watch the needle being shoved into his vein and offer little more than a slight “ouch.” Not even a wince, to say nothing of a tear.

But it was his insistence that everyone admire the owie he’d gotten the other day that really took the cake. I don’t really remember how he got it, but on that finger was a half-inch long slice as though he’d raked it across a sharp point. Most of the owies he gets are totally mysteries: suddenly his mom or I will notice a fresh cut or bruise where we hadn’t seen one before, with no known cause. When asked about it, Michael usually says “I got a owie,” and leaves it at that.

So this day, probably because he was in a hospital with lots of doctors and nurses and assistants who’d probably feel sympathetic toward his grievous wound, he decided to make it known to everyone within line of sight as we made our way from the information desk to the outpatient services lab.

He held up high his hand with the owie-fied finger extended, saying loudly “Look, I got a owie!”

The owie was on his middle finger.

Yes, sweet little innocent, blue-eyed Michael was giving everyone in the office the bird.

But they all took it very well. And Michael ended up with two Band-Aids, two stickers and a lollypop, for having to endure two pokes.

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Posted in health, michael

The Dawn Breaks

Posted on January 18, 2008 | 2 Comments

Finally, I think Michael is getting over his plague.

He spent the night in our bed last night, and was very still. This is highly unusual; in the past, whenever he’s slept in our bed, he’s been like a rabbit on a spit: constantly rotating.

He was also boiling hot most of the night. As reported earlier, we didn’t have a reliable reading as to his temperature, but just by feeling his forehead we knew it was high enough to be worrisome.

And he wouldn’t eat or drink anything yesterday at all. Not juice, not sausage, not even junk food.

Today his mom resolved that he’d be going to the doctor, since he was in danger of becoming seriously dehydrated.

Except that this morning, while watching a little cartoon blurb called “Captain Carlos”, he decided he wanted some blueberries. Luckily, we had some.

He ate every one.

Encouraged, I suggested he drink some water.

No way.

His mom was grateful he was eating, but really wanted to get him to drink something. “Jello is fluid, ice cream is fluid, popsicles are fluid; any fluid you can get into him is good. I’m glad he’s eating, but he really needs fluids. His lips are cracked and dry, and he’s barely peed at all.”

Since she’s a nurse with many years of experience in pediatrics, I knew that her level of concern was to be taken seriously.

So after she left for work, the idea struck me: fluid injection.

He’s always been really cooperative taking medicine, particularly if it is injected into his mouth via one of those big fat medicine syringes.

So I poured a little juice into a cup, and sucked up two teaspoons (10ml) into the syringe, and without fanfare, I simply said “here you go,” and shot it into his mouth.

He swallowed it without a thought.

30 minutes later, I did it again. No problem.

So maybe he won’t drink juice or water on his own, but I can still get it into him.

It’s just going to take a loooooooong time.

But I’m very grateful that he’s out of the woods and heading back toward health.

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Posted in frustration, health, kids, life, michael

TKO

Posted on January 17, 2008 | Comments Off

Poor Michael.

It’s like his monster truck engine hit the Jake brakes.

What had been a powerhouse of pep and energy has been reduced to a lethargic, inert husk of a toddler.

All last weekend Michael had been sick. Monday his mom stayed home with him. Tuesday I stayed home with him, and his disposition improved so much that we figured Wednesday he’d be back in the saddle and rarin’ to go.

But no.

Midday yesterday I got the call from Ms K that Michael was “not eating anything, and just lying around.” Not a good sign. So I had to come collect the little sack of potatoes, and cart him back to ye olde sick house, where his sister remained languishing in her own particular brand of torpor.

On the way, I bought some cough syrup, bananas and vanilla ice cream. I wanted to get him to eat something, anything. And I figured that cough of his was draining him of his last ergs, so that needed to be addressed.

I knew it was bad, though, when we arrived and he did not protest that his sister was watching “Heidi” and not Monsters, Inc. So we watched that instead. Note to self: must procure a mammoth Black Forest cuckoo clock some day. Those are cool. No wonder Heidi loved the Grandfather so much.

The day passed quickly. Michael pretty much stayed on the couch the whole time, snuggled up in his blankets. He drank water, and some juice. He ate nothing. He even asked for goldfish crackers, but didn’t eat a one of them. Eventually he got bored and cranky, and began lashing out at his sister. I informed him that he needed to apologize. He started to wail instead. So I took him up to his room and told him he needed a nap.

Much to my surprise, he took one.

I woke him up before dinner, asked him to eat, he refused. His mom offered him a fudgesicle, and he agreed to that, provided she’d feed him. In this case, it was welcome. I never thought I’d ever be relieved to hear that he ate most of his fudgesicle.

After doses of cough medicine, decongestant and ibuprofen, he was off to bed.

This morning, he awoke very early and requested water. I actually had the baby monitor on (yes, it’s still there) and heard his plaintive little call.

Later, while I made breakfast, his mom brought him down and reported that he was burning with fever. I felt him too, he was quite warm. He’d gotten over the previous fever Tuesday night, so this had to be something new.

His mom retrieved the digital thermometer and applied it to his ear. After a beep, she made a disgusted snort and stuck it in his ear again. Beep! “He’s not 97.4,” she said. One more time. Beep! 98.6, it read. She tried it three more times and got three more answers.

I believe our thermometer is merely a cleverly-disguised magic 8 ball. It contains authentic-looking temperature readings that cycle through randomly, based upon no particular outside data.

Lord knows we can’t be using thermometers containing mercury any more. Hazardous substance! Those things were the best. You just clamp that thing under your tongue, try not to gag or bite down, and in a couple of minutes you had a reliable reading.

From my youth I remember once my older brother had a thermometer in his mouth, and decided to pass the time waiting for the reading by boxing with a mattress outside on the back deck. Evidently the mattress returned a good right hook at one point, because he bit down. Chomp! Instantly, millions of tiny silver spheres skittered away on the wooden planks and disappeared through the cracks. Had that occurred today, it would most likely render our little plot of land a RoHS superfund site.

When I left for work, Michael was asleep on the couch, his mom next to him drinking her morning coffee. He looked so peaceful.

Poor little guy. I feel bad for him. But I know he’s in good hands, as his mom agreed to stay home with him today. I get my turn tomorrow, should the need arise.

What I find pleasing is how God grants me supernatural patience with him during times like this. When he is at his worst behavior, is his whiniest, least compliant and most difficult, somehow my heart is moved and I cannot help but want to pick him up and hold him and give him comfort in any way possible.

I remember being sick like that as a little kid. Loving comfort from mom and dad is just the best medicine there is.

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Posted in dad, health, life, michael