Ambulatory

There was a time when C was first born that I would have done anything to be at home with her. My mind on that front has never really been made up completely--it ebbs and flows as my love for my job shifts around--but I'm pleased with her life at daycare and the example I'm setting for her by doing my own thing, having a job, even if it is way more traditional than I'd like (remember I'm trying to breed some bohemian tendencies in her from the beginning!). With all the time I've been spending at home these days, I realize I would go stark raving mad if I stayed home with her full time, and it makes it that much easier to go back to work. Sure, I miss her like hell, but I'm reminded what a good situation this is for all of us. Nevertheless, I like being out in the world in the middle of the week day. Grannies in the left lane going 20 MPH, kids having meltdowns in the Trader Joe's parking lot, very little traffic. It's like a totally different universe.

I'm at home today with a ton of electrical leads sticking out of my head for an ambulatory EEG. I've wrapped a scarf around my head and like to think I'm looking a little like Little Steven of Underground Garage and E Street fame as I diligently record everything I do. I have guests on their way tonight who can't wait to get a look at my Medusa-like appearance, and I'm trying to resist the pull of back-to-back Law and Order so that my brain waves look extra-smart when they study them; in fact, I'm going to go start a crossword puzzle in a minute. I think there is little reason for this test besides getting me back on the road. Not being able to drive myself around is driving me crazy, especially because public transportation in and around Detroit is pretty shoddy.

It's ironic that the EEG is called ambulatory when, for me, it's anything but. Nate has been saddled with two extra responsibilities since all this happened: pick-up and drop-off for Clementine AND pick-up and drop-off for me, whether it's work or doctor's appointments. For some strange reason this has me feeling guilty; I tend to shoulder more of the logistics on a day-to-day basis, but it's hardly because he asks me to. I think I'm still struggling to come to terms with the way that we tend to fall into certain roles. I don't want to say it's gender--I think it's much more a control-freak tendency on my part than my inner homemaker--but I wish it were easier to nail down. My Donna Reed plan that was working so well for us for a while has totally fallen apart in the last few weeks, and I'm pretty happy with that. It felt good to know who was doing what, who was responsible, but it's more fun to share, to work together now that Clementine can almost lend a hand (we're not trusting her with a knife just yet, but she's really great at organizing the cherry tomatoes!).

It's time for one of my scheduled rest periods, so I'm going to go look as calm and restful as I can so they'll let me have my damn keys back.

Before trauma, fun

I can't let our great time up north be overshadowed by its unfortunate ending. Clementine is blending right in with our nomadic ways, and I think she was psyched to hit the road with Laura and Joey after her few days at work with me. We started by visiting a friend in Interlochen, where Clementine was able to realize her lifelong dream of encountering a real snowman. She has been obsessed with snowmen since their proliferation at Christmas and in one of her books, but seeing one--two, in fact, if you count the baby--in real life was almost just too much, especially since Joey built them.



This was also the first time Clementine got to play in the snow at any length, which she loved until she couldn't her boots on anymore. She especially loved throwing snowballs.



Joey and I hit Crystal Mountain before we headed up to Petoskey to meet the guys. We checked into a fabulous hotel that had very comfortable bed. The only evidence of my head trauma might just be that I have hardly any pictures of Clementine in the hotel or around the slopes at Nub's Nob except for some pics of her very cute pony tails. Holy hell is that girl is sweet.



On the way home we decided we couldn't possible pass up The World's Largest Crucifix in Indian River. My double vision was just getting started as we pulled up, so I didn't perhaps enjoy the oddness of it as much as I normally might have, but I did find the fabulous nun doll museum that was beyond strange. Hundreds of nun dolls in the garb of convents all over the world, strange dioramas of nuns in action, a hall of life-size nuns. Sadly, the gift shop was closed, but I have a feeling I'll be back.







For now, my cool little girl is just happy to be back. But we are maybe a little curious about the Sock Monkey Festival in Rockford, Illinois this weekend....

Double Vision: not just a cheesy Foreigner song

Last Sunday, as we were driving back from a fabulous weekend up north hanging out with some of our favorite people and snowboarding, my vision was a little off. At first I just felt funny, but as the day progressed, things went from blurry to split in two—totally in two. I was trying to keep up a brave front, catching up with phone calls, making plans for the week. But when we stopped for a bite to eat, I realized I could hardly walk and felt absolutely drunk (the kind of drunk where you have to close one eye to see). I nevertheless got myself to the bathroom to change Clementine’s leaky diaper (yuck) but realized we needed to get to the hospital to be sure I didn’t have brain damage.

I wasn’t really sure what had happened, but I got to tell the story so many times over the last week or so I can recite it by heart. On Friday I took a pretty serious tumble while snowboarding, smacked my head but bounced back immediately (I wear a helmet, after all). There were no signs of concussion beyond a little dizziness that night. We spent the next day hanging out, seeing sights, shopping. I was fine. We went out for some night skiing and had a great time for a while—Nate and I were on our own and really enjoying it. We wanted to hit every hill before we took a break to visit Clementine and Laura in the lodge, so we headed over to an easy hill on the far side of the slope. I remember strapping in and following Nate down and around a bend, but then the next thing I remember is waking up on my back much further down the hill. I don’t think I fell because it was very flat there, very gentle and easy and I had no snow on me, no aches and pains that might lead me to think something had happened. I got up slowly and headed down the hill dizzy and disoriented. Nate was waiting for me at the bottom and told me he had been there for five minutes and was beginning to get worried. Needless to say I cut the night short and went back to our hotel. I felt kind of dizzy but still very functional. My vision didn’t start to split until we were on our way home—I thought it was something mild or, at worst, a dramatic overreaction to the end of a fabulous vacation.

Once we reached Detroit, Nate and Clementine dropped me off at the ER at my insistence—the last thing I wanted was my girl hanging around the hospital again, and I was pretty sure I’d be fine or that Nate could find someone to watch her while the doctors patted me on the head and told me to take some Motrin and promise never to snowboard again. I wasn’t at the ER long, however, before a negative CAT scan got the doctor thinking I had a ruptured brain aneurysm—he prepared to do a spinal tap and I freaked out, called Nate who had taken refuge at the home of the people with whom we were traveling (as if they hadn’t had enough of me) and started cursing myself for not having a will. The spinal tap was as awful as it sounds—worse, actually, as there is not so much a tap as an invasive injection that involves the needle scraping along one’s vertebrae (I made quite a few jokes about the lengths I had gone to in order to avoid an epidural only to end up with something pretty similar, but the doctor had zero sense of humor). Without my asking, both Karen and Laura showed up to keep me company as we waited for results, more tests and some kind of news. I’d be embarrassed remembering all of the compromising situations in which they saw me (at one point I remember Karen holding my IV bag while I peed), but the good thing about head trauma is that the memory is the first to go.

Eventually they had no answers and it was almost midnight. They decided to admit me and schedule me for an angiogram in the morning, but I had to wait two hours to get a bed in the ICU step-down unit. Nate went to get some sleep at our friends’ house with Clementine, and I spent the hours until dawn drifting off to sleep and then waking myself up immediately anytime I saw any sort of light in my dreams. It sounds ridiculous, but I was trying not to go into the light. I called my dad at 5:30 AM because I just felt so lonely and scared, but by about 7 AM things started looking up. My vision was slowly improving, my head didn’t hurt too much and a wonderful nurse practitioner told me that other than the spinal tap I had no signs of aneurysm. The neurosurgeons agreed, so then the great witch hunt of what the hell had happened to me began in full. Tests, results, theories, disagreements and an endless parade of doctors ensued.

There are days and days of details that follow and they are all pretty much the same. I was frustrated because I couldn’t leave or see my daughter, doctors stopped by and ordered more tests, everyone had different answers. In the end it turns out that I am OK—probably just suffering from a severe concussion, the effects of which I may feel for 6 to 12 months. I’m still banned from driving, however, until I have this crazy test done later this week to look for seizures. They think that may have been what grounded me on my last snowboard run.

I am back at work today and feeling good, despite the headache. I’m trying hard not to dwell on all this. I will be back on the slopes again next year, I will be fine and I can’t wait to start my yoga again because man, my muscles are sore.

Thanks for all the emails and notes and comments and good wishes. Now let’s talk about something happy.

Helmets may not be punk rock...

...but mine sure did save my life. I was released from the hospital yesterday after three long days of tests, poking, prodding and wondering what the hell happened, and it appears everything is on the mend and there is no lasting damage. I'm NOT giving up snowboarding, and let me be clear: this is not an indication of how much I suck. I was rather awesome and ripped it up pretty well--I just caught a bad break (no pun there since nothing is really broken).

Looking at the computer for more than a few minutes gives me a pretty huge headache, especially since I had my eyes dilated AGAIN today for a never ending series of tests. But more on my experiences soon.

Further adventures in parenting: the hospital edition

That I didn’t title this post “Why I’m the worst mother ever” shows only that I’ve come a long way since crying like a baby when the pediatric orthopedic doctor told me Clementine’s arm was fractured in two places and that he might have to sedate her in order to set it. It’s not that I feel guilty for letting her fall off the couch (OK, I do feel guilty about that, but kids fall, right?). It’s that I SENT HER TO DAY CARE this morning with a fractured arm. After she fell last night and cried a while, she seemed just fine. Well, she seemed like she was in pain at first, but there was no swelling, she was still using the arm and I just didn’t sense in my gut that there was something broken. We read the books, checked the internet, called my sister, but it seemed like it would be crazy to rush her to the emergency room like insane, overprotective parents. Why not give it a night, see how she was doing in the morning and call the pediatrician? Nice gut instincts, huh? I feel terrible and have been replaying every second between her falling off hte couch and finally calling the doctor to see if I really did miss a big sign. The doctors were all very nice in telling me that it's hard to tell with kids, especially if they can't talk and seem as happy as she did. This did not make me feel all that better, but I did talk to another mom whose daughter had fractures for three days before they got an x-ray. It made me feel a little better. But not really.

When I neglectfully dropped darling C. off this morning I asked Julie to keep a close eye on her and she called me within 3 hours to say something wasn’t right. At that point I hadn't seen CLementine awake for three hours since the fall, so that's what I keep telling myself. Julie isn't more caring or more attentive than I. Is she? Her call is how we ended up calling to Dr. and then getting x-rays and then being shuttled to the ER where we got MORE x-rays before they put a cast on her. With hindsight I see thiswhole event is not such a big deal (her life was never in danger), part of being a parent and all that, but it breaks my heart that my tiny, lovely little daughter who is not even 1 ½ years old has a broken bone. I cringe even more when I think that she went almost 24 hours before someone put a cast on it so it would stop hurting her.

Other than a total freak-out both times she was x-rayed and constant crying while the doctor (whom she called “cocktor”) put on the cast, the girl was a trooper. She handled the waiting with a sweet sense of humor, and she charmed all the patients waiting in the ER. The kid went hours without food but was still sweet as a peach. What did I ever do to deserve such a love? We let her eat Mac and Cheese and didn’t force the veggies when we finally made it home for dinner, we read her all the books she wanted and eventually left her asleep (uncomfortably) in her own bed. See? We’re still committed to her own bed. Of course in retrospect all the bitching I did this morning about what a shitty night’s sleep we had last night seems exceptionally cruel when I see now that she was probably calling out to idiot parents that she was IN PAIN, not just that she missed them.

I feel like I’ve been initiated into a new circle of the parenting club—more than half the other people in the ER were parents with kids in various splints, casts, slings and band aids. And we all survived. But know what my sister said to me on the way home? “Oh my god, you’re totally that mother with her kid in the cast.” Hmmm. I guess am. Poor little monkey. Time to break out the summer clothes!