Glass half empty

Glass half empty
Originally uploaded by jbellis

On the bright side, the movers didn't lose my electronics. On the other hand, they packed them in the bottom of trash can where I unearthed them under a pile of heavy yard tools.

Crappy Parenting Moment #987?

It is always tougher when Jonathan is out of town.  This happened about a week ago, but I was too cranky/embarrassed to write about it sooner.

For the last month it has been tough putting Isaac to bed.  Pretty much he's been challenging us to see if we can make him stay in his room after it's lights out.  Jonathan and I have taken turns "guarding the door" and escorting the little escape artist back to bed. Repeatedly.

While Jonathan was out of town Isaac upped the ante.  Not only did he get up but he'd yell and throw a fit going back to bed.  This woke Corinna up who'd then cry, nurse, cry, nurse, and then fall back to sleep.  As soon as she settled down, after about 10 minutes, Isaac would get up again.  Repeat over and over.  About 10:30 (bedtime was at 8) my patience was frayed and my baby exhausted.  Isaac came downstairs for the 14th? 15th? 16th? time and announced he was "Stinky!"  I blew a gasket.  I cleaned him up, swatted his behind, and made him sit on the toilet.  I then chased him up the stairs and back to his room, letting him know how I felt about the situation.  Of course this caused Isaac to wail loudly, waking Corinna, who started crying.  Matthew shouted over the din, "can't you make him be quiet?"  That was the final straw.  I yelled back, "I can't even make him stay in the d--- bed!  How do you expect me to make him be quiet?"  I don't think Matthew or Isaac have ever heard me swear before.  They seemed shocked- not sure if it was the yelling or swearing or both.  I closed the door.  Corinna and I stayed in the hallway guarding the door, but Isaac stayed in his bed after that. 


 And I felt really terrible.  Terrible that I lost my patience and yelled, terrible that I'd sworn, terrible that I swatted him when I was mad (he wasn't hurt, but nonetheless), and terrible that I couldn't come up with a better solution.  


Yep, I was a crappy parent that night.

Fortunately things have been getting easier lately.

I am so glad for each new day to start fresh and for the chance to be a little better than the day before.  I am also grateful for resilient children.  I've made plenty of mistakes with Matthew (firstborn and all), and he seems to be turning into a thoughtful, helpful, and loving child despite my shortcomings.  There is hope!

As far as what to do, after we move we are investing in an eye-and-hook lock for his door.  If Isaac stays in his room he can have the door open, otherwise we'll lock the door until he goes to sleep.  His dad and I need the sleep, his baby sister needs more sleep, his brother whom he's keeping up needs the sleep, and he needs more sleep.

The Day is DONE

Thank heavens!!!

All four children are sleeping.  Whew.

I checked on all of them and tucked the covers back on each peaceful child.  No matter how stinky they act during the day, each one looks like a perfect cherub sleeping.

Jonathan is out of town for a board meeting and Matthew, Melissa, and Isaac decided to test the boundaries.  So. Very. Tiring.  To top it off, Isaac wouldn't go to sleep until sometime after 10 PM.  I had to "guard" the door to keep the little toad darling in bed.  I was not amused.  I don't think Grandma was amused either.

Tomorrow is a brand new sparkling day.  May it be a better one.

On hold with the IRS

So I'm calling the IRS. The recorded voice is a pleasant female. The background music is overplayed classical pieces like Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies and Eine Kleine Nachtmusic.
I dunno. I think it would be more honest to have Darth Vader and The Imperial March.
(Our 07 return was a little complicated, and the IRS screwed up. They think we should pay taxes on some of our income twice. I called because I can't find the letter they sent me. They were eventually able to snail mail -- but not fax or email -- me another copy of the letter. Elapsed time: one hour twenty-one minutes. Then I double-checked what one of the agents told me about publication 525, and realized she was completely wrong. So I called back and waited another forty minutes to talk to expert #3 who confirmed my interpretation.)

Hell is two beds and three children

Downtown Tacoma, 7 am

When we flew out for the wedding, we didn't stay with Rachel's parents for the first three nights because we didn't want little kids underfoot for the pre-wedding prep. And we didn't stay closer because even as early as December all the rooms in every hotel anywhere near Puyallup were spoken for by attendees of some sewing convention. I had no idea there were so many people THAT into sewing.

Rachel has been burned before by airlines screwing up connections or cancelling flights altogether, and while going on standby and arriving at 2 AM is no big deal when you are single (as Jeremy in fact did Friday night!) it is serious business with three kids. So we flew out Thursday to be safe.

Andrea picked us up, dropped me and the kids off at our motel, and took Rachel off to a bridal shower. Matthew had been complaining bitterly and at great length about his ear (my sympathy was sorely tested by his desire to remind me every couple seconds that it still hurts) so after dosing him with ibuprofen Rachel asked her dad to drive the half hour up and check him out. When the drugs kicked in Matthew forgot all about his ear, but it was a good thing Dad was already on the way, because it really was red and infected. Dad wrote out a prescription for Amoxicillin, and even filled it for us in the morning. There are definite perks to having a family physician.

Then we went to bed. And by "went to bed" I mean "Matthew and Melissa bickered constantly until I pulled Matthew into my bed instead half an hour later." Finally they fell asleep, but the fun was not over yet. Any time one of the kids woke up, they all woke up. So there was a lot of not-sleeping going on for sure.

Then they got far too early in the morning, and by "far too early" I mean in particular that not even McDonald's was open. They kept trying to have the best of both time zones the whole trip: go to bed on Pacific time, wake up on Central time. Mommy and Daddy did not approve.

I tried to let Rachel sleep in for a bit after the kids got up like I do at home, but it was hard to find places to take them. Watching them in the room with Rachel was of course not an option. (The object was to let her rest.) The Sinden house was too far away, and Isaac in particular was getting more than his fill of his car seat anyway. I did discover that Friday and Saturday mornings the office building across the street was open, and it turned out there was a little reception area at the top floor with a nice view, clean carpets for Isaac to roll on, and a little magnet sand game with two kid-sized chairs.

So that was my refuge, but Sunday morning that was locked up and Isaac and I had no better option than to sit in the minivan while the rain came down. Fortunately Isaac went back to sleep quickly. Often he will do this when he gets up early; just don't try to put him down. But then Matthew and Melissa woke up too. The close McDonalds didn't have a play area so we headed to downtown Tacoma. They didn't have a play area either, and they didn't open 'til 8 besides -- an hour away. So we went back to Fife where at least Jack in the Box was open by now.

To add insult to injury, the "free wireless internet" didn't even work. Damn it. Even the iphone got crappy reception there and failed about two out of three page loads. Fortunately the Sinden dsl connection worked -- until today. Rachel tells me that's dead too now. Good thing I came home early.

Tech support hell

This is my Macbook Pro, seen from the back.  See all the cables connecting the LCD to the rest of the machine?  Yeah.  Those aren't supposed to be out in the open like that.

I spent 90 minutes (!) on the phone with Apple this morning reporting this and a couple minor issues to Apple.  You'd think "My machine is falling apart" would elicit a quick response of, "Okay, send it in and we'll fix it."  But no.  We had to jump through all sorts of hoops first.

I think this guy was new, because when I've had to send Rachel's first-generation Macbook in for much smaller problems it was a piece of cake.

Tech support he'll
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Glucometer Saga Part ??

After lunch I came back up to feed Isaac. His nurse swapped with another nurse at 1:00 because the NICU had some new admits and the nurses got shuffled around. I found her with the phlembotomist using the ISTAT reader (lab reader) to test his glucose. I inquired as to why...his sugar was supposed to be read by his glucometer throughout the day, and 1x in the morning compared with the ISTAT. She'd been led to believe that his sugar was supposed to be read with the ISTAT throughout the day and the glucometer used once in the morning.

So she tracked down Isaac's nurse practitioner who clarified things and wrote a clear (I hope!) order in his charts. Isaac's bedside nurse apologized up and down. Really it wasn't her fault, I understood. I sure was glad to be there to correct this, though. The ISTAT requires so much more blood, and to have it done 8 times a day would have Isaac terribly anemic in no time. The ISTAT lab reader ended up erroring out, so it didn't even get a glucose reading. I showed his nurse how to use the glucometer (she'd never used this type before) and got his glucose number. His nurse in turn made a very clear sign in large letters explaining how and when Isaac's sugars were to be tested and hung it on his crib.

I'm hoping that this is the end of the glucometer saga...

Once the magic smoke is gone, you can't put it back

I was installing a newer version of linux on the craptop (an ancient 800 mhz p3 laptop that I keep for Matthew's use) and unknown to me I had plugged it into an outlet that only worked when an otherwise unused lightswitch was in the on position.  Mid-install, someone turned it off.  When the battery died, so did the craptop.
No problem, I'll just restart the install on a more stable outlet.  Plug it in, it started to boot and died again.  Then I smelled something.  Uh-oh.  Turned it around, sure enough there was smoke coming from the power plug.
Damn.  Time to get a new craptop.

Poor Baby!

When I came up to see Isaac, he was crying in his bed. I picked him up and bounced and talked to him. His nurse came in and said that the poor little guy was starving. She'd just now received his insulin. Apparently he'd last eaten at 3:00 and it was now 8:00! They are now doing ad-lib feedings (on demand) and he woke up hungry right at shift change so everything took much longer. Poor hungry baby!

He is gaining weight like a champ though. He weighed in at 2710 grams or 5 lbs 15.5 oz. Back to his birth weight!

Tonight I bathed him in the tub. He wasn't too sure what to think of that, but he was pretty sure he didn't like it. Except for washing his head at the end. He did like that.

Isaac Update

Yesterday afternoon, the doctors decided to try the long acting insulin, Lantus. The long acting insulin acts kind of like the form of a mesa. The insulin level jumps up sharply, plateaus for roughly 12 hours and then drops down. Judging by his glucose levels, which were all in the low 100s to 200s throughout much of the night, he responded beautifully. He did need a small dose of insulin (it's on a sliding scale and is determined by his latest glucose reading). This morning his sugar reading jumped up again to 430.

Today he has the blessing of two endocrinologists to start the sulfonylureas treatment. According to the endocrinologist it has about a one in four chance of working, and if it works, it works much, much better than insulin. We do know he is able to make very low amounts of insulin. His C-peptide test showed that. This gives me some hope that it is the transient form. It's also oral so if it works, it will save him some pokes. The doctors had to wait until 3 PM to start to make sure the Lantus had completely worn off. Otherwise if it works, it could drop his sugar too dramatically; something his doctors have been extremely careful to avoid. So he is back to the 6 hour insulin doses on the sliding scale.

Speaking of pokes, yesterday they brought up a glucometer to in order to use less of his blood with each glucose test. When the phlebotomist does the testing, she has to use a small thin tube of blood, a glucometer requires just a drop. The glucometer is slightly less accurate, however, and you can't get the K and Na readings from it. The charge nurse didn't approve the glucometer because there isn't any protocol for the NICU department. His doctors were dismayed when they learned that the glucometer had been removed, so his fellow, Dr. Z, talked with the person in charge of the entire NICU and got a special exception for Isaac. When/if his blood glucose levels get below 80 or over 400, then they will also use the regular lab reader.

I listened in on rounds today and they also discussed allowing demand feedings once his blood sugar is better under control. Currently he is bottle fed or nursed every three hours. Before he can eat, his blood is drawn and tested. (His poor fingers and heels are covered with little bandages) Then his insulin is ordered up if it is needed. Unfortunately the insulin must be diluted for him and the dose varies each time so it can't be made up in advance. So the NP writes the order, the bedside nurse sends the order down to the pharmacy, the pharmacy sends the insulin up to the floor, and the bedside nurse must then pick it up. Then she must confirm the dose and patient with another nurse, and finally he gets his insulin and can eat. This is a process that can take as long as 45 minutes. Meanwhile poor Isaac is getting hungrier and hungrier. This morning I bounced him, rocked him, gave him a pacifier (which he rejected), my finger which he accepted for a while, talked to him, and tried every distraction technique I could think of. He didn't cry but was clearly rooting, smacking his mouth, and looking for something to eat. He is a very patient baby. My other two would have been screaming full throttle if required to wait.

Here's hoping that the sulfonylureas works!