Tag: Adam

You may recall that my weekend got off to a, shall we say, less tham optimal start. Do not despair friends, it did get better – well, sort of. No one died or went to the ER, so that’s something right?

Adam and Cheryl came home a little after midnight on Friday/Saturday, but I learned the results of their little adventure shortly after I posted my entry earlier that evening. No, Adam did not have any bleeding in his skull. No, Adam did not have a concussion. No, there was nothing serious (that they could find) that caused his vomiting in the car on the way over. However, there was something, and it brought on my favorite doctor line: “it’s probably nothing.”

The CT scan showed several “larger than normal” cysts in Adam’s brain. Personally, I found this wording odd. I didn’t think it was normal for people to have cysts in their brain, so the “larger than normal” bit was both (somewhat) alarming and confusing. A little bit of googling produced some of the most disturbing youtube videos I’ve ever seen. (I double dog dare you to search for “cyst” on youtube.) The residual nausea kept me up until 2 a.m.

The next morning my sister gave me a call, and the ER trip came up. (Oh, by the way: Adam landed on his head while doing bedroom gymnastics, and we drove him down to All Children’s for a CT. So what are your plans for this weekend?) Being a pediatrician married to a neurosurgeon, she was in a good position to call in a consult of her own. She called back thirty minutes later after speaking with her husband and the chief resident of neurosurgery (two different people) to give us a little more reassurance. Like the ER doc said – it’s probably nothing; but it’s a good idea to follow-up with a neurosurgeon just in case. “And oh, and by the way… could you send us a copy of the films? We want to take a look too.”

How cool it is to have a second and third opinion just a phone call away?

So now Adam’s got an appointment to see a neurosurgeon tomorrow morning.

—

I got into an epic struggle with Ritz Camera on Saturday over an order I placed two weeks ago for a new digital SLR (complete with cancelled orders and higher prices paid to competitors out of spite), but it seems kind of shallow to write about it in any further detail now.

Stay tuned friends, the adventure continues…

Death by a thousand paper-cuts. Nickel and dimed to death. The straw that broke the camel’s back. I feel like someone rolled up all these tried and true cliches like pennies, put them in a sock, and beat me over the head with them.

And I’m not just saying that because my head hurt, although it did.

To start with, it seems like the kids have been a little sick for a month. Not a lot sick, mind you; just enough to keep you on your toes.

Then last night Cheryl’s mom flew out to New Hampshire to see her (Cheryl’s) grandfather in the hospital, and we began to discuss when it might be time for the rest of us to fly up.

And then we get to the meat and potatoes of this entry: Adam’s little head injury.

The first law of parenting states that no parent really knows what the fuck they’re doing. Alright, maybe that’s a little harsh. Maybe this evening has darkened the view.

Maybe I have a bias born of relativism, but (I was going somewhere with that, but I don’t know where anymore) More and more, it seems that life can be a series of decisions, and success often comes from finding an extremely narrow middle path.

I don’t want to be a parent that hovers, who feels they must protect their child from every possible harm awaiting them. Kids need to experience some things for themselves. It’s how they learn. Even in play (perhaps especially in play) there’s much they can learn. Some decisions are easy, like not letting the three year old have access to the cutlery, or letting your ten year old ride her bike up and down the sidewalk unattended on a quiet neighborhood street.

The killer is when you think you’ve made an easy decision… like letting the kids play a little rough (not overly so, and not mean spirited), and the improbable happens.

Adam seemed fine for an hour. Then Cheryl came home from work and he started to get a little irritable. Then we went out for a little Friday evening take-out and he started to whimper. Then we got home and he became inconsolable. Then we decided to make a phone call to find out who, if anyone he should see… his doctor, an after-hours clinic, or the ER. Then Cheryl left for the ER, only to get stuck in traffic (due to an accident). Then Adam began throwing up. Then traffic didn’t ease up. Then Adam kept throwing up. Then traffic still didn’t move. Then Cheryl called me to check for traffic alerts online. Then Adam stopped throwing up and became lethargic. Then Cheryl wondered if she should call 9-1-1. Then I sat at home, on the phone with Cheryl, and went to the bane of hypochondriacs everywhere: WebMD. Then traffic began to move. Then I read about, and lived through (in my imagination) several worst case scenarios. Then she got to the ER with Adam and they did a CT scan. Then Adam perked right up and acted like his normal self.

Then I felt like I needed to go throw up.

I think about this afternoon, and I don’t think I would have done much differently… except maybe alter my positioning so I could have been there to catch. But guilt can be funny sometimes. Not ha-ha funny, but kind of quirky, in a way that’s in no way cute. Somehow I have the capacity to feel guilt, without feeling fault. Maybe that’s really just a sign of rationalization, of a mind working really hard to find an out. Maybe the really important thing is that Adam’s most likely o.k. Maybe today was just one bad parenting day, out of hundreds (maybe thousands) of pretty good ones. Maybe it all doesn’t matter if it only takes one bad one to make the rest seem insignificant.

There may be a more subtle, or creative way of putting this, but I don’t think it’d quite capture the kind of self loathing I feel.

Fuck me.

“What do you want for Christmas, Adam?” Cheryl asked.

“I want a compooter just like daddy.”

How many of you started reading this post thinking it was criminal justice related? Come on, give it up. You thought this was another political rant, didn’t you?

No friends, this one’s just fluff… a cotton-candy piece, if you will.

What I really want to know is this: has the wiring of the brain of a three-year-old boy gelled enough to pick his own paint color for his room? I ask this because we let him pick, and he picked navy blue… a really dark, navy blue. The color swatch at the hardware store called it “Decadent Blue,” but I call it “an hour after sunset.” Does the boy understand how dark his room’s going to be, and if not – how’s this going to affect our electricity bills?

Well, we actually bought the stuff, and we’ve even put up three coats. And no, we’re still not done. We wanted to paint his room because it was white, and somehow it just seems wrong to leave walls white these days. You might think white is pretty inoffensive, but over time it feels like an emotion retardant. Of course now we’re painting a REALLY dark color over the supreme ruler of all light colors. In every other room we’ve been done after three coats. Hell, some only required two.

I put up number four on a small wall this evening, and I can already see spots that are going to need five.

Oh man is it dark. I just know I’m going to be laying five layers of the lighter stuff any day now.

From Adam’s first batch of school pictures:

Adam is sitting behind me in the family room, poking me in the back and doing his impression of DeNiro in “Analyze This!”

“You. You! You’re good!”

Mind you, he’s never seen the movie, and the closest thing he has to an Italian American acquaintance is his German/Irish/English/Swiss/American father who does the occasional impression to entertain the kids.

It’s awesome when one word, spoken in a silly voice, can elicit such a great big smile.

My son had an appointment with his doctor a couple weeks ago because he was complaining about pain in his back. Because my daughter has had problems with her kidneys, we decided we should take him in for a checkup. We were in and out with an order for some testing… an MRI on the kidneys and an x-ray on the back.

The good news was the MRI came back clean. The x-ray however came back showing “abnormalities.” If I can ever get the good folks at All Children’s Hospital to return my calls, Adam will be going back for an MRI on his spine.

There’s a good chance that it’s nothing; and even if it’s something, it’s probably not a serious something, but I don’t like leaving things to chance.