Thursday, November 29, 2007

Thanksgiving, Part II

Well, just to complete the air travel adventure package, DD's trip back to college was not uneventful. She was fogged-in. The flight kept getting delayed and delayed, and finally cancelled altogether. She got her luggage back (again,) I went to the airport to pick her up (again) and we went home for a 4 hr. night's sleep, got up and out before the sun to be back there bright and early. The lines of people on rescheduled flights was pretty incredible. I've never seen so many people there, before.

But, she is back in college-land safe and sound, back to classes, studying, and waitressing on the side. So life returns to normal (??). Or our version of it.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Home for Thanksgiving

My Dahlink Dawtah is home for Thanksgiving. Her university has one of those extended Thanksgiving breaks, which is lovely, especially since she comes all the way from Florida for this visit!

I had been listening to all those warning shows about the airlines and holiday travel, what to do and what not to do. Well, DD had a great deal...she'd finally logged enough miles with her rewards program to earn a free ticket (yippee!)...so, there were really no decisions to be made. She flew back, we stood by the luggage belt to pick up her bags and...
only one bag. Wait a minute. There were two.
Suddenly, we are aware that several other people have that same look on their faces, and are making the same sort of comments were are. Hey! Look at the luggage carts of people going around...maybe somebody grabbed yours by mistake (or NOT by mistake...that's another whole topic for a later blog.)

Ever notice how many people have BLACK luggage? Makes everything look awfully similar!

So, anyway...the airline's story is that it's the government's fault. Ok. I know we like to blame everything on them...but, this? It seems the feds have to check every piece of luggage, but they have a limited amount of inspectors assigned to each airline, and if not all the bags are examined, then only the approved ones go with the flight. The rest stay behind until checked out, then go on a different plane.

Does that sound stupid to anybody else?

So, the airline gave us 2 options: either we could come back when they called us in several more hours to pick it up, and get a nifty $40 travel voucher for our troubles, or have it delivered to our doorstep for free.
DD wanted the delivery. It was promised (in a later phone call) by 11:30 pm. So, by 12:30 we were in bed and snoozing.

3:30 a.m. I am awake. The porch light shines around the edges of my bedroom blind and drives me crazy. Call the airline again. Get a machine. Leave a message. Is it possible they dropped it off at the wrong house?

Turn off the light. Go back to bed. Get all warm and snuggly and just about to drift off, when...


Knock, knock, knock. It's the luggage delivery guy (parked up on my LAWN.) Here's the bag. What about 11:30??? Yeah, well, that's about when they called him to come get all the bags. God only knows where all those other people live, and where on the list we were.


So, DD is home, safe and sound, with both suitcases.

Another holiday's travel adventure over.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

New Advice

I was just talking to one of my student's moms today, and she was telling me her tale of woe concerning her 3 kids' medical issues. It started sounding very familiar. Everywhere I turn, I am hearing stories much like ours, and...if I had stock in Albuterol, I think I'd be a really happy investor right now. After some really horrendous experiences, this mom came to a conclusion, which she shared with me as the advice for the day:

When your child has any kind of medical problem, go straight to the specialist. Call the pediatrician, get the referral (if that's how you have to do it with your insurance), and head straight out...tell them to send it, fax it, phone it, 'cause you're on your way. She saved her daughter's life that way, after 2 pedes said she "just had a cold"...weeks of it...5 minutes with the pediatric pulmonologist and mom's gut feeling was confirmed...the tonsils were so enlarged, the girl was slowly choking to death. Whizz, bang, up to the OR, out they came...and she's ok, now. Other scary stories, too.

So, that's my second-hand advice for the day. I think I'm gonna check out who the specialists we may need are, have their numbers ready, and, if God doesn't choose to spare us from another round of medical problems, we'll be ready.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

A New Concern

My Little Sir has been prone to different allergies, and has had "allergy-induced asthmatic episodes" in the past, sometimes accompanied by croup. Anyone familiar with this sort of thing knows how scary it is to sit with a small child in the emergency room as they gasp for air and cough their lungs out.

We've been back and forth to the pediatrician in the past few weeks, with what was first diagnosed as "just a cold." We had to go to the emergency room one night, with Little Sir using a nebulizer/oxygen/steroids, etc. Then, the ER doc. prescribed an inhaler of Albuterol, along with an antibiotic, which he said I could use, or not use, at my own discretion, since the x-ray showed no pneumonia so far. (So far???) The ER doc and our regular pediatrician do NOT agree on almost all the treatments. (oh, goody.) Back and forth, back and forth, phone calls galore...thank God, CVS has a drive-through. (What a concept!)

Anyway...long story, shortened...

Talked to another mom of a 4-year-old (this one's in kindergarten.) Her son's been through the same thing...she brought the inhaler (with the spacer...I'm learning all kinds of new skills here...oh, joy...) She said she got a prescription for an extra one to keep at the school nurse's office. When she brought it there, the school nurse opened the closet and showed her BASKETS full of the same thing for many other children in younger elementary grades.

Ok. So...the media tells us about the killer viruses around, particularly the one in Rochester area which manifests itself as an ear infection in little kids, but does not respond to any antibiotic known to work on pedes. Only works with a specific adults-only antibiotic, and the only way to tell if your child has this, is to request the pediatrician do an ear tap. (Ouch.) If not treated properly, deafness results. (Again, oh joy.)

My school mailbox is almost daily manifesting the latest warning from the administration. It MRSA, it's scabies, it's______...you name it.

The "experts" say we are over-run with all this because of overuse of antibiotics, and the viruses just get stronger. The mom I spoke about was wondering if her son's school might have particular environmental issues, as well, as soooo many little kids are sick enough with lung problems to need inhalers...the school nurse said, "Hmmmm...never thought of that. Maybe I should bring it up to the administration." (Ya think???)

It's not my imagination. The bugs are getting stronger and more diverse. The international community does not necessarily agree on how to treat these things. (When we were in Turkey, they seemed to use stronger drugs than we do here (when I brought our scrips back, the pediatrician told me we couldn't even get that stuff here, but that it was really good.) And, my mil was told not to let the U.S. hospital but him on any kind of inhaler (???) because it would cause other lung problems. I asked the dr. here, and he had no idea what I was talking about. (Nothing like discussing 4th hand info...))


So...I am exhausted from running from dr. to dr., dealing with medicines and treatments, making nutritious remedies like chicken soup, herbal teas, honey & lemon drinks, shower treatments, Vicks Vapo-rub...take him outside so he can breathe...no, he's cold...take him in the bathroom with the steamy shower running...make sure you dry his hair right away...
Oh, and DH has been sick with several viruses too (including gastro-intestinal. That's just loads of fun.)

Everywhere we go, wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands...

sigh


Saturday, November 03, 2007

Interviews and Other Surprises

Got a call back to another round of interviews, yesterday, which I hear is a good thing. One is a leave replacement (not really what I want...only get sub-pay, no benefits, etc.) and one is a real job opening in Sept.

The same day, I got an email which flattered and terrified me. Let me back up a bit...

Last semester, I had the blessed fortune to bond with 3 other ladies in my program, who had pretty much the same college schedule. 2 are also married mommies, the other an engaged-mommy-wannabe. As this department is especially fond of assigning group projects, we decided to get ahead of the professors and make our own group. (We've all had the horrible experience of being assigned to a partner(s) who does no/terrible work, and have had a stressful time of it, with grades suffering because of it.) It worked out great for us, as our talents compliment each other, and we had a blast working together (at someone's house over wine and cheese...doesn't get any better, right?) Sometimes the kiddies came along and had their own fun time in the other room. Well, one particular project took us months to do, as it counted as 40% of the grade, and was to be part of our professional portfolio...we wanted it to be awesome. We designed a high school math curriculum for English language learners of multiple levels of English proficiency and from diverse first languages. It was very involved, with lots of hands-on, kinesthetic learning, different technology media and translated/adapted texts.

Well, our professor (who, it turns out, is in a very influencial position in this particular discipline's international community) was quite impressed, and instructed the rest of the class that this was the model lesson, what to strive for. She asked us a lot of questions, how we did each phase, and seemed very pleased. Afterward, she took us aside and told us she was on the committee for 2008 international convention, which happens to be in NY this time, and asked if we would present there. Wow! My friend (very quick on the uptake) said, "Sure, if you give us all letters of recommendation!" She said she was already doing that, this was beyond that. Ok ... sure, why not?

I promptly put it on the back burner, and got on with my life, on to the next assignment for the next class, etc. Didn't exactly forget about it, but really didn't think about it. I figured it was going to be a small thing off in a corner room, not so important.

Ha! Well, got an email from the organization, saying our proposal (what proposal???) had been accepted by the committee and that they were very excited about our presentation, blah blah blah...did we need a projection screen, any other tech. devices??? Lots of info, etc.

sigh

so, it's for real.

ok.

I can do this.

You see, I do NOT like being watched, don't
like being front and center, don't like being judged...and here, we will be on display before hundreds of people. Oh, goody.