Scribblings

Happy Mother's Day, and Billy's Home!

QuickPost | System Overview | Movable Type Publishing Platform

What pretty flowers! I'm hoping that all mothers had as wonderful a day as I did. The best gift of all was having us together. TB, Kristin and I went up to NY to get Billy and bring him home for the summer. It's nice to have him back for a couple of months! To see the rest of the pictures I took today, just click on the pic!

Quick Update on Little T & Other Stuff

I just asked TB to turn off the comments for this blog. I'm sorry to have to do that but until I find a way to screen out the spammers without having to go through and delete all the junk, I just have to do it. I just deleted 275 junk comments and MT only allows me to go at a 20-at-a-time pace so you can imagine how time consuming that is! And I have to delete junk comments at least twice a day so that they don't build up!

I meant to update about our little Tomas. He is doing so much better! He willingly put on the nebulizing mask at the doctor's office when I last posted, thank goodness, and so he got a full treatment. Linda's been giving him his meds and he's been doing much better! He still hacks a little bit but the meds are really helping!

This picture was taken at the restaurant this morning.

Happy Birthday, Billy!

It's hard for me to get my mind around it but my "baby" boy is now 20 years old! This is the first year we are not celebrating Billy's birthday together because he is still at school. He has one more final and then TB, Kristin and I will be going up to NY to pick him up and bring him home for the summer.

In An Emergency...

I'm worried about our little T. Linda took him to the doctor yesterday because he was wheezing and his breathing was labored. It turns out one of his tubes fell out and that ear became infected. The scarier part was that they did a pulse-ox test and his O2 level was only 90%. They had to do a nebulizing treatent. Up until that point, Tomas was very cooperative says Linda but when the nurse came at him with a mask, he began to fight and scream.

It got so bad, Linda says, she told the nurse to stop and leave. Linda held the mask by Tomas's nose and the nurse kept haranging her, saying you're not doing it right! Linda felt that at least this way, Tomas was getting some benefit although the nurse was saying you're wasting the medicine. Okay, now, by then Linda had told the nurse that T is on the autistic spectrum. Aren't pediatric nurses supposed to know what to do when they have a special needs child? Surely there is another way to do this. Tomas has never allowed anything on his head or face, no hats, fake noses or what have you.

Anyway, after 3 hours, they were finally able to come home. By then T's pulse-ox was up to 93%, still low. Linda told me they would have to return in the morning (this morning). So they've been gone almost 3 hours again and I'm wondering what's happening. Will they have to send T to the ER? I'm very worried.

Tomas At Play

Today when Tomas sat on my lap and watched me play Chuzzles, I heard him say, "blue, blue!" Oh boy, was I happy! I'd heard from Kennan that Tomas can run and jump over an object and that he was saying blue and yellow but hadn't seen or heard yet myself. But as I moved my cursor over a blue Chuzzle, he said it and it was clear as a bell, "Blue, blue". His teacher has written us notes that he is progressing quickly through his program and can match colors and shapes. He's still fairly "self-directed" but he's getting much better at complying with requests we make of him.

At dinner time, I was remembering what the early intervention teacher said once about having Tomas sit in a booster seat so that his feet would touch the chair. It's supposed to help a child feel centered. Tomas doesn't like his booster seat but he does like his little chair and table so we moved it close to the big dining room table and it seemed to work. He had both feet on the floor and his own table to sit at and he just seemed much more comfortable.

For some reason, putting on his pants and/or shirt remains an issue. We haven't quite figured that one out all together. I know he prefers his pants to have snaps and zippers. Maybe that's why he's reluctant to put on jammie bottoms or track pants. As for the shirts--we also know he does not like button down shirts. Polos and tee shirts are fine but not always. We are all a work in progress.

I took pictures of Tomas at play the other day. Click the picture to get the rest of the album!

A whole lot of remodeling going on!

Now that there are 7 of us, we decided the smart thing to do would be divide Heidi's humongous room into two. This way, Billy has a room to live in when he's home and we don't have to make Kristin, Heidi, Linda or Tomas double up with anyone. Heidi cleaned out her room as best she could over the weekend and today came Phase I: taking the bunk bed apart and moving stuff out of the room.

Ready, set, go! To see the pictures I took today click on this pic

How did Indigo react? Check out This That & The Other Thing to find out!

Itchies = Shingles

I shake my head in...what's the word? Not disbelief--I had a feeling these blisters and itchies meant I have shingles. Maybe it's a feeling of oh well whaddaya gonna do? Shingles is actually herpes zoster (isn't that a nice name?), the very same virus that causes chicken pox. In fact, it's Chicken Pox 2.0 because you only get this if you've already had it the first time around. Shingles usually doesn't appear until you are over 50 and usually they reappear after you've been sick with something else or are majorly stressed or otherwise have a compromised immune syndrom. Because the virus hides out in your nerves for all these years, when you get an outbreak there might be a little or a lot of pain involved. I am knocking on wood. So far it feels like green flies walking all over me and now and then taking a bite here or there. The doctor prescribed an anti-viral drug which works best if you start taking it within 72 hours of noticing symptoms. For me, that was Saturday and I think I just squeaked in by a hair. Sometimes my eyes itch and sometimes it feels like there are blisters or something inside my eyelids. Sometimes I get tingling or burning. This is just so weird! In addition to the medication, I'm supposed to stay out of the sun which is a very big drag. More on shingles here.

The Itchies!

TB and I have been going round and round with all sorts of ailments and maladies. Right now he has a really intense sinus infection and I'm having an allergic reaction something. I have a rash on my neck and the itchies all over.

At first I thought I was having an allergic reaction to Nova pearls, a spray we use on the cats to decrease their dander. I got a lot of that stuff all over my side of the bed and so I took off the spread, top sheet & pillow cases to wash them. It's not that.

I started taking Zetia within the last 2 days. Could it be that? I didn't take any today.

I also just stopped a 10 day course of 2 antibiotics to treat diverticulitis or diverticulosis, whichever. Could I be having a delayed reaction to one of those antibiotics?

I've been taking benedryl every 4 hours since yesterday--won't be able to get to see the doctor until tomorrow. I am so tired of seeing doctors though!

The New New Blog

ARGH, Word Press sucks!

I re-activated an old blogger blog I had called TNT, gave it a new look, a new name, and here it is:

This, That & The Other Thing

My Feline Friday is posted there! Check it out!

Bandwidth Problems

Since March, we've had to pay over $100 in bandwidth charges! That totally blew our minds away. We didn't think we were getting that many hits but apparently we are! That's good news and bad news. The bad news, of course, is that we really can't afford to keep paying the overages. I decided to move some of my post categories to wordpress and my new blog address will be here. That's where I'll do my cat blogging, yak about books I've read and other silly stuff and this site will just cover news about us. So all my cool widgits and rings and stuff will move too. Oh well...so it goes!

Ten political figures & what you think of them

Ten on Tuesday

1. President Bush: I appreciate his sense of humor, commitment to family and his sense of morals but I think he's also horribly misguided, picks terrible advisors, and doesn't realize that sometimes you have to be flexible and change the direction you are going in!

2. Al Gore: I wish that he was a candidate for president because I like him best. I especially appreciate his dedication to saving the environment. He seems to be a good family man with a sense of morals too.

3. Barack Obama: He just seemed to come out of nowhere, didn't he? I read his first book and was impressed by his honesty about himself as he came to grips with who he is. If Al Gore doesn't run, he would be my choice for the next president.

4. Hillary Clinton: She would probably make the most successful president because she is tough as nails and knows how to get things done. Maybe she would be like Lyndon Johnson, knowing how to use the connections she has to get the bills passed. I just don't care for her personality. She seems very cold and calculating.

5. Rudy Guliani: I admire his behavior during 9/11. I didn't ever live in the city so I don't know how he was as an administrator but he displayed all the qualities I would look for in a leader to feel confident and reassured during such a horrible time--God forbid we should ever have anything like that again!

6. Edward Kennedy: Okay, it's time to retire!

7. Tony Blair: calm and steadfast in the face of an unpopular war his country's become embroiled in. However, he is much more flexible than our president!

8. Kim Jong Il: I think this guy's more dangerous than Saddam Hussein was, why aren't we worried about him?

9. Umar al-Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir : This is a dangerous man too! Yes, there are sanctions against The Republic of Sudan but this man is horrible, on the same level as Adolf Hitler as far as I'm concerned!

10. Mahatma Ghandi: Okay, I know he is no longer alive but he was truly a person to admire and emulate. Why aren't there more people like him in the world?

Trying to get a Tummy Tuesday

I saw a book title that I totally love: All Cats Have Asberger's Syndrome. Someday I am going to get that book because it suddenly helped me understand something about not only LIttle T but also about our gang of kitties--

they don't look when you call them
they totally ignore you when you talk (most of the time)
they don't want you to pick them up unless they come to you first
they don't want to do what you want them to do unless they're willing

Like ... taking a picture for Tummy Tuesday

Mouse was on our bed, rolling on his back and enjoying myself and so I brought out my camera. And what do you think happened? Click on the picture for the whole story!