Psychotomy

Today in te car we had another wonderful discussion about god and dieing.

I absolutely love hate these conversations. Because timespans are not her strong suit yet, at four.

Will I be with god when I die? Yes, of course (I’m not really going into reincarnation just now). But that’s not going to be for a long time

My next birthdays not for a long time!

Uh, yes, but you’re not going to die on your next birthday. There’s a lot of birthdays left to come.

Why do people die? (They know that three of mommys grandparents are dead, and three of mine too). (Oh and the whole “DK could have died” undertone the last year although I don’t think it was ever clearly stated as such to the other two).

Well, when people get really old or really sick, their body can’t support them anymore, so they die to go be with god then. But there’s a long time before you get that old.

When can I be with god?

Well, gods always there. Everywhere, remember. God, and his fuzzy cat. So you’re always with him, but he’s invisible isn’t he?

I like god. His cat is named Patchey and is very fuzzy. I want a fuzzy cat.

Aaaand thankfully that details our train of thought sufficiently!

Posted in: PI by attriel / Tags: Car conversations

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So, growing up, I listened to the Star Wars/Empire/Jedi soundtracks while I read books a lot. So anytime I read the Foundation trilogy (Isaac Asimov), I can HEAR that music playing even though it really isn’t anymore. Listening to that music, I can see the story playing out in my mind.

It’s given me problems in the past, where I was listening to movies or music or something while studying. I had perfect recall of the material, as long as the right background was on. (in those instances, I could usually get decentrecall with any music). Unfortunately, my professors didn’t see a good reason for me to listen to headphones during exams :o

Well, now I have a worse level. When DK was in ICU, we were reading him various stories. A lot of them were favorite stories of his, but there was also the Magic Treehouse series, which he (and I) had never read. So I read it to him, a few chapters at a time.

Now I can’t even think of the series without seeing him on the respirator and all the IVs and monitors and … all of it.

I somehow doubt I will be reading this series to the other kids, or to him for that matter, ever again.

—

I wrote that in October. Since then Bear has had me read them at bedtime sometimes. We started with the later entries, because he doesn’t care. Eventually we circled around and read some of the same ones I’d read for DK and I made it through, but still hard

Posted in: DK, Kitty, Uncategorized by attriel /
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So, I realized I haven’t been near this blog in months, and then I realized that I had posted about DK’s accident.

He had no complications, so surgery was quick to schedule and they could spend their time on the reconstruction rather than emergency patches.  Took most of a day in surgery, but they repaired everything in one bout.  No plates or pins, they used “absorbable” fake-bone stuff that melts into the actual bone structure over time.  Scar from surgery is well inside his hairline.  he’ll never be good rockin’ the bald look, but now his hair has grown back there’s nothing to see!

A week in ICU after surgery, a week in the recovery less-than-ICU ward, then three weeks transferred to the rehab hospital to rebuild his strength to walking and his motor movements and everything.

He’s been continuing with rehab outpatient since then, but seems to be doing largely OK now.  Impulsive.  Lack of understanding of personal boundaries.  Hyper.  Prone to hard emotional dives when he’s gettign tired and denied something.  Or just when he’s getting tired, really.  I should probably mention that at the next followup.  It seems like a perfectly reasonable aftereffect, but they should probably be informed.

Everyone’s settling back into routines.  His siblings are overjoyed at having him home.  Bear and Pi both missed having a big brother around.

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So, they were playing upstairs, and DK climbed up on the windowsill and … fell from the third floor to the concrete below

he’s in PICU now, sedated and drugged, and will remain for a while while they watch for brain bleeding & swelling, before they even approach the issues of facial reconstruction to put his shattered bones back together.  I’m presuming he’ll end up with a metal plate rather than a bunch of pins, but since he’s still growing maybe not.

he’s able to move his limbs, even on command, when the meds are light enough that he has control.  nothing but his head seems to be injured, so far, and now we just wait …

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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so, I’ve been exhausted the last few days, and this morning kiir passed me kitty at 6:30 to deal with b/c he wouldn’t go back to sleep for her. That meant that by 7 we were downstairs playing Peggle (b/c I couldn’t risk Arkham City when DK might be coming down; NTS, gotta buy ME3 or ACR soon)

He napped on and off until DK came down at 8? 8:30? then Pi came at about 9:30, and I made breakfast …

About 11 I decided to take a nap b/c, still exhausted. Kiir suggested taking Kitty with me b/c he was ready for his naptime. He doesn’t fall asleep laying in the bed yet with me.

DK followed us up b/c he wanted to take a nap too, so I turned on the light in his room so he could “take a nap” while we went to the other room.

K followed us in to nap with us.

Pi followed up the stairs in a minute to come play too!! Eventually DK let her into the room Kitty and I were in, so she could come in. And since he let her in, he brought his sleeping bag for a sleepover.

Then Kitty, DK and Pi bounced around the bed a bit playing.  And by 11:15 we just all came back down, b/c so far this nap had simply provided me with a bonus headache.

Posted in: DK, Kitty, PI by attriel /
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So, when I got home, I was told that Pi needed to clean up some before bed.

Then by the time dinner was ready, we were all going to clean after dinner.

Then after bath, b/c kitty really enjoyed the chocolate pancakes :o

At which point we encountered the first bizarre definition of cleaning.  Kitty was hungry and tired, so he wanted to nurse and nap.  So Kiir went to nurse him while I took the other two to clean.  This is fairly standard.  ”We need to clean” generally translates to “You need to clean while Kitty nurses or naps on me”.

Get downstairs, and (issue the second) DK is asking when his Nonnie is coming to visit.  Apparently we really don’t make a big deal of CLEANING unless someone’s coming to visit.  He didn’t quite understand why we were cleaning if she wasn’t visiting.

Then he wanted to wait for mommy before cleaning, because she said we needed to clean so where is she!  I don’t know if he wanted her to help too or wanted her to see him so he got credit.  Either way, he was stalling :o

Issue the third?  Pi doesn’t really help.  And she was tired.

Eventually they were playing throw the pillow and play the drums while I cleaned some to finish the areas we had worked on.  Living room is at least “picked up”, if not actually “clean.”

This weekend “we are going to clean the kitchen!”  Fairly sure I don’t WANT the kids helping, and not sure it’s quite roomy enough for all of us anyway, so I imagine that will be “I’ll watch the kids while you clean the kitchen” :)

Posted in: house by attriel /
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So, apropos of nothing, this afternoon on the train I started thinking about the kids.

Well, technically, it’s apropos of the fact that I’d watched an emotional episode on my iPod and putting away my ticket I saw kitty’s footprint card from the hospital still in my bag.

When DK was born, Kiir’s aunt made a “milestones” book, and it had a slot for his.

Pi’s sat by the table waiting for Kiir to make a scrapbook for her stuff.

Kitty’s has never even made it out of my bag, because there’s just no time to do anything like that, and frankly if it’s in my bag I know where to find it.  Pi’s I’m not sure which box we put it in to keep it from getting lost.  It’s here, I know we didn’t throw it out, I just don’t know where it is.

Anyway, I got to thinking about how I’ve often said I work my job to provide for my family, but my family is the important thing.  And the last month I’ve been working long hours, putting in time at home, etc, for a big deploy.  Yeah, it’s only really the second time I’ve done that since I started this job five years ago, but it rankles.  Because I put my kids on the back burner instead of the other way round.

That got me to reflecting on the fact that I get angry so often and rage for no reason.  I’ll yell, loudly, and it scares DK.  Some of that is his personality, and I think loud noises bother him in general.  But some of that is he’s afraid of daddy.  I am not a fan of that part.

And I get mad about the dumbest things.  He’ll want to quit playing a video game because it got hard, but I’m trying to finish the level so I’ll “yell” at him.  Or he’ll insist he’s done playing, so I’ll turn off the TV and declare it bedtime.  Because he didn’t want to play the videogame anymore?  WTF!

We’ll go up to put Pi to bed (he’ll help me put her to bed, and fall asleep in the process a lot of times, but he won’t go up for his bedtime, just hers).  And we’ll be reading books, he’ll suddenly remember we need to brush teeth (valid).  Then we’ll get snuggled back down, and he’ll want a drink.  And I’ll just lose it.  Of course it’s a stalling tactic, but it gets me irrationally angry.  And I’ll yell at him to lay down, be quiet, and let Pi go to sleep!!!

I don’t even remember the stupid shit that has me raging, but I do know it’s stupid shit.  I know it even when I’m screaming, I just can’t help myself.

And I don’t like that about me.  About me with them.  I don’t want them to fear me.  That’s not the kind of person I am, seriously.  But I don’t know how to control it.  And if I talk to my psych about it, I’m afraid he’ll change my antidepressants, and honestly it took me long enough to get back on this one that actually works.

All that got me to remembering when he was a newborn at the hospital.  How small he was, how dependent.  And I think part of the issue is he’s NOT dependent anymore.  He’s very much independent.  He’ll need help with things, but he wants to do it by himself.

And Pi, now, too.  And she’s so tiny, she can’t always turn the doorknobs, but she wants to be doing it by herself.  She can’t reach the sink, the lights.  But I want my teeny tiny baby back, that I could hold in the crook of my arm, who would lay down on my chest and sleep.

And even Kitty.  He’s crawling around, standing sometimes in the middle of a room, trying to walk.  He wants to be up and doing whatever his siblings are doing, instead of sitting on me being my baby.

Maybe I do need new antidepressants, but I refuse to go back on the one with the super-side-effects-and-withdrawal-like-morphine issues.

Actually, what I really wanted to do by the time I got off the train was go sit at the hospital maternity ward and just watch the babies in the nursery for an hour or so while I recentered.

Of course, assuming I could get into the hospital, I couldn’t get into the maternity ward.  And if I somehow got in, I’d just get arrested, because you can’t watch the nursery, you might be planning on snatching a baby or something.  *sigh*

But it would be nice to just sit there and watch for a bit, and pretend that my babies were still my babies.

Posted in: DK, general, Kitty, PI by attriel /
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So, with Kiir out of town, she suggested I take the kids to the Children’s Museum, since our membership expires again end of the year …

Actually, I didn’t want to, since with the big climbing structure, no one would have any fun.  Pi can’t/won’t go on most of it, and DK loves climbing on it.  Also, according to the rules, I’m supposed to stay with him.

Well, after gymnastics this morning (which she, duh, loved having a class this week), Pi kept asking if we were going to the museum.

Took Kiir’s car for maintenance, turns out it was low on transmission fluid, causing the check engine light and the jerking when it shifted (figured).  I had intended to take them to Toys ‘R Us to each get a toy, and then maybe the dollar store for them to pick out gifts for their grandparents (and I think Pi needs a gift for mommy still).  Honestly, I couldn’t remember who needed to buy what for who, so that was going to be complicated anyway (and was likely to require a return visit after Kiir got home and reminded me of whatever I knew I was forgetting)

They were really good for the 45 minutes at Jiffy Lube, so I said we could go to the Museum.  Got there, and DK immediately ran into the climbing structure and vanished.  Got him back a little bit later, and we went through part of the museum.  He vanished into the climbing structure a few times while Pi played with some of the other bits, and we continued through the museum.  I kindof forced him to do a few things other than climbing, since Pi couldn’t really play on the structure with him.  And I made her sit through some things DK wanted to do.

Eventually near the end, they both wanted to climb again.  So I went with Pi who followed DK around as much as she could.  Eventually we completely lost track of him because Pi and I got caught behind another family after DK had run past them.  He found us again and took Pi up a spiral to the highest “tower” to look around.  I had to help her up, meaning I had to wedge through the spiral too.  And that thing is NOT designed for a full adult.  Especially not an overweight one, erg.  Uncomfortable :o

They came back down and he vanished again while Pi and I went back out to wait for him and she played with a few things.  We ended up on the first floor, and I saw him exiting on the third floor.  DOH!  There was no way I could get his attention through all the noise, so Pi and I went up to the second floor to see if we could find him climbing through again.

Apparently, unable to find us, he either looked lost or asked an employee, because in a few minutes an employee called over to me to ask if he was with me.  He apologized for me and Pi getting lost and said he’d be more careful.

From that I told him that Pi wanted to go into the 3-and-under room, and he declared he did too!  I told him he had to be careful, it was for little kids younger than him, and he was only allowed to go because he was with his sister.  He promised to be careful of the other kids (He has Pi and Kitty, so I wasn’t too worried about it, but I wanted to give him the lecture first, so that if he looked like he was powering his way through, he’d know why he was in trouble for it)

He played nice with a few other kids, helping them push button triggers when they couldn’t get enough force on them, and collecting the butterflies for the butterfly launcher, so fun was had by all.

Then he played on the structure a couple more times before I declared it time to go at 4:55, on a 5pm closing.  They wanted to play soccer in the entrance soccer area, so I let them.  Then the 5pm announcement came on.  I couldn’t quite make it out, but it sounded like “we’re closed, bugger off”, so I told them they were closing and we had to leave.

Annoying note — the McD’s next to the museum , uh, disappeared.  It’s closed. Gone.  Kaput.  I thought maybe they just moved to a different spot, since their old one was kindof cramped, but I didn’t see any arches anywhere.  They said they wanted to go to the Pizza place for dinner, I agreed, and we got into the car.  Pi didn’t make it out of the parking deck, and DK made it about halfway home before passing out.

Which is kind of why I was looking at the McD’s.  I can’t have anything but a Sundae, but they could have fries and Pi would eat the chicken nuggets, and I figured if I could drag things until 6 or later, they might all stay asleep.  Instead, I carried them to their beds at 6:15, and at 8pm DK came back downstairs because he woke up.  Luckily I’d gone ahead and ordered pizza delivery while they were asleep, because I assumed he’d be up :)

Posted in: Uncategorized by attriel /
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So, Kiir went to the airport and left with Kitty.  Leaving just me in charge of DK and Pi.

So, first things first, we should eat dinner!  I took them to Red Robin, since it’s basically their favorite.  Dinner was good and fine.

She brought the check, and I said no to the boxes since they were still eating.  A minute later, she’s just at the next table  taking their drink orders, they both declare that they’re done.  When she finishes, she carefully turns in a direction away from me, and it’s loud so she didn’t hear me calling for her.

Fine, I’ll catch her when she comes back, she’ll be back for the check anyway.  They start being antsy, duh, but it’s just another minute.

I’m not sure how long it was, I’m sure it wasn’t the ten minutes it felt like, but it was definitely a while before she came back.  I think she waited at the bar for 6 drinks.  Whenever I order, I have to wait forever for my bar drinks while sodas come out instantly.  I guess they weren’t QUITE that busy.

Anyway, she comes back, I give her the card and ask for some boxes.  Pi has been asking to go potty for a while, and DK now wants to go too.  So, we run over to the bathroom.

TWO MINUTES LATER!   TWO MINUTES!!!   Come back out and see the waitress talking to the busser.  Who has already tossed the milkshake and the kids drinks into her bin.  Along with both pastas.  And one of the three things of fries.  She started with the full one apparently.

Seriously!??

I understand, it was the rush time (quarter past 7 on a friday).  I understand that I didn’t have anything at the table to clearly state I was coming back (note:  what, I was going to leave a child?)

But I did have a lot of fries, a full milkshake glass, a kids shake, pasta, and a balloon tied to the lamp.  I’m not sure leaving anything would have helped, honestly.

The waitress apologized and offered to have the kitchen make fresh for me take.  Except, you know, the kids were already done with waiting.  And since they swapped out the motorcycle arcade game, they’re not even really all that interested in the couple games out front (well, one racing game where you sit in a chair now, and then a couple carnival claw games; really, they’re not actually interesting, I agree).  She did say “next time you’re in I’ll remember to take more off”, which I guess means like she wouldn’t charge us for one of the kids meals or something?  But, seriously, even the waitresses we get often don’t recognize us.  We really try not to go too often!

On the way out, the manager on duty apologized, and offered to have the kitchen make up new orders to go.  Still, kids?

So, I ended up losing a pair of school lunch pastas and a weekend lunch of fries.  Because they’re busy enough to need to bus tables quickly.  And apparently have no system to define if a table is done or not.

Actually, the lady doing the bussing, tossed the last two sets of fries as I got back to the table.  While the waitress was waving the togo box and telling her that we had just asked for boxes, we were trying to take it with us.  And watching as I came back with two kids.  Honestly, she looked almost malicious at it.  And when we were leaving the table, she mumbled sorry.  I don’t know if she didn’t mean it, or if she didn’t speak much english and didn’t understand what it was supposed to sound like.  Either way, it certainly wasn’t an apology.

*sigh*

Posted in: DK, general, PI by attriel /
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and onwards from http://attriel.psychotomy.net/wp/2011/11/fun-with-prescriptions/

Two weeks ago, just after tday, I called in Kittys scrip for the next portion.  I said that it was for the next portion of a partial fill of a compounded medicine.  She looked in the computer, couldn’t find any record of a current scrip for refills.  She went looking for the paperwork, couldn’t find it any of the places she knew to look, said she’d call back when the pharmacist was available for her to ask.  Called back like two minutes later, pharm knew exactly where to look and poof we’re in business.  Said I’d pick it up Tuesday.

Actually, she was good, I liked her.  She did more than read the screen, she tried to find it and then went to ask the pharmacist.  They need more peopel like her.

It was Thursday or so before we got there to do pick up.  Lady at the window asks for the name, I give it, she walks off.  I yelled after her that it was in the fridge, because I get tired of them looking and coming back never opening it.

She comes back, couldn’t find it.  ”Did you check the fridge” “not there”  How do you spell the name … how do you know you couldn’t find it??? so I start spelling thel ast name “no no, Kitty, how do you spell it? KOT?”  uh, no, K-I-T-, thats enough.

if you’re having that much trouble with tghe easy part … ??? all we have is a refill, oh you already picked that up, are you sure you called it in to THIS cvs?  ”Just get the pharmacist”

Pharm looks up, waves, comes close enough to ask “compounded partial?” yeah thats it!  she tells the clerk where to look aaaand … its not there.  pharm dsays she can mix it in half an hour before they close, she remembers it and doesn’t understand where it went.

So we drive a bit, come back, new clerk.  Starts with the same “whats the name?” I tell her to just get the pharm.  i’m so not going through this again.  Pharm hands her the scrip immediately, waves again, and were gone!

Best part? We’ve only given him his meds a few times since t-day.  he doesn’t seem to need them.  But if the insurance company’s gonna rack me over the rails trying to get the meds and insist on 90-days … I damn well want my 90-days!

And I feel that the pharmacies system needs work, so I’m giving them practice.  Because this is seriously annoying to go through, maybe I can help someone else!

Posted in: Kitty by attriel /
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