Exorcise The Demons!

     I had to take Skeletor to the doctor today.  He had a tick on his back a few days ago, and the spot where he was bitten was still looking a little hinky to me.  (Can you blame me for my paranoia?)  Anyway, I took Sassafrass along with us because...well, because I'm pretty sure it's illegal to leave a 6 year old at home alone.  That was just about the only thing stopping me, though.  I would have rather taken a beating than suffered the hell that was this doctor's appointment.  This level of bad behavior in public is nearly unprecedented.  Don't get me wrong, they act a damn fool at home all the time.  But, in public, I can generally count on them to at least give a tiny shiver of fear when I scream at them.  Not so much, today.  There was no one particular thing they did, but the accumulation of all of it.  The screaming, the shouting, the scratching, the hiding in cubby holes, the howling like wolves, the leaping from the exam table like vampire bats; all of these things served to make my blood pressure skyrocket.  It was rough.  (My aneurysm grew three sizes that day.)  I don't think I have PTSD from Iraq, but I tell you this much, I sure as shooting have it from this doctor's visit. 

Medicine, Y U No Work?

     If you're one of the precious few followers of this blog (and bless your bones for that,) then you know I have Lyme Disease.  Or "The Lymes," as I like to call it.  I was just diagnosed a couple of months ago, even though there's no telling how long I've had it.  So, I've been taking my medicine like a good little patient, but it's not working!  I had a brief period of respite for one day last week, but that may have just been a placebo effect.  I'm now done with my three week course of antibiotics, and I still feel craptastic.  And this makes me the crankiest of pandas.  I've got an appointment with a rheumatologist Monday, so maybe something else can be done.  But for right now, I think I will just throw myself a pity party.  Does anyone have any cheese that I can have with my whine?

Medic mommy down! 

Remember

For all my brothers and sisters who never came home.
  Past, present, and future.

The Reverse Mommy Wars

     By now I'm sure we've all heard about the recent Time cover.  (There were boobies, right?)  And we've all seen the absolute shit show that followed it.  It's pretty hard to offend both sides of a disagreement with one picture, but Time did it.  Congrats, Time, you win a blender or something!  But despite my self-deprecating attitude regarding parenting, I actually feel like I don't do too awful of a job.  I'm pretty comfortable with my parenting choices, so people can talk all the smack they want.  I truly do not care.  So, needless to say, the Time cover really didn't do too much other than give me a bit of the old heebie jeebies.  But something that does seem to be a disturbing trend (and by disturbing trend I mean it's happened to me several times and I found it annoying) is what I like to call the Reverse Mommy Wars.  It's what happens when parents compete over whose child is less developed or less healthy.  And it kind of makes me vomit in my mouth a tad bit.

     In spite of my name for the phenomenon, the person who most recently committed this parental hate crime was a dude.  As Skeletor and I sat in the super awesome Vanderbilt Pediatric Department's waiting room, a man and his son sat next to us.  He looked at Skeletor, sizing him up, and asked, "What's wrong with him?"  (Don't even get me started on that.  I've had that happen more than once in a special needs facility.  Some people have no home training.)  I merely said that we were here for an evaluation with a strongly implied "now eff off" tacked onto the end of my sentence.  He then said something that irritated me even more.  He looked at Skeletor and then his son and said, "Well, you're just lucky he's verbal."  And then he proceeded to assess Skeletor and compare him to his son, who was clearly more severely autistic. 
     Seriously, guy?  This is not a competition, and if it was I would definitely not want to be the winner.  I'm sorry that your kid has some struggles that are different from my son's.  But, I'm pretty sure that my son has some struggles that your child doesn't deal with.  Can't we all just get along, people?!  I find it depressing that this type of behavior happens.  Even though we have special needs children, why in God's name would we not brag about all the awesome stuff they do?  I don't want you to feel sorry for me or my son.  We needs no pity parties around our way.  (Unless I'm throwing one.  I'm a hypocrite sometimes.)  I can see that some parents would hold back on this because they don't want to upset parents whose children aren't progressing as well as they had hoped.  But that wasn't the case with this douche kabob.  Instead of focusing on his child's strengths, he seemed to be using his son's disability to form his own personality.  And he was intent on tearing down anyone who might be doing the same.  And that is just sad.  Also gross.  So I would just like to make a plea to all the special needs parents out there.  We can commiserate with each other and give each other a shoulder to lean on, but let's talk about the good stuff, too!  Because even though it doesn't always seem like it, there's almost always more good stuff than bad.  And that's nothing to hide.

It's Friday. I'm In Love.

     Friday is finally here.  This has seemed like the longest week ever!  Anyhoo, Friday obviously means Special Needs Ryan Gosling day over at Adventures in Extreme Parenthood with the lovely Sunday Stilwell.  So, without further ado, here's my contributions for the week. 

Sounds good to me!

My hero!



How I Very Nearly Saved My Not-At-All Dying Neighbor's Life...Again

     As an EMT and a medic in the Guard, I possess just enough medical knowledge to know the worst case scenario of pretty much any injury or illness.  A belly-flop onto an upside down stool equals internal bleeding or perforated intestines.  A malicious Campbell's soup can means tetanus; an unexplained fever for two weeks could be meningitis; a tick might as well be Typhoid Mary.  I don't like the term paranoid.  I prefer hyper-vigilant.  Anyway, suffice it to say that I'm always on the look-out for potential emergencies.

     Last week I was sitting out on my front stoop looking all gangster and nefarious (I like to imagine,) when I heard a series of groans and shouts coming from my neighbor's open window.  Now I remembered my husband mentioning something about the man who lives across the street from us being unwell.  But for the life of me I couldn't remember what exactly the ailment was.  He didn't sound sick or in pain, and I was pretty sure that Captain Gingerbeard mentioned something about the man being a little off.  So I went back inside.  (I'm not a hero, damn it.)
     This continued over the next three days.  By the third day, the man began loudly cursing repeatedly.  I swear I was thiclose to calling 911.  But just as I was about to make the call, the man walked out of his front door and over to his car.  He appeared perfectly fine...other than the fact that he seemed to be suffering from Tourette's.  I don't know if that's his actual diagnosis, but that's what it looked like.  This brush with embarrassment reminded me of a similar event from my childhood.
     My brother, my cousins, and I were riding our bikes around our neighborhood (also looking gangster and nefarious.)  As we passed one of our neighbor's homes, we noticed his front door was open and that the man was lying lifeless in front of his glass storm door.  We high-tailed it straight back to my mom, and proclaimed our neighbor dead.  My mom piled us in our mini-van, and drove the few houses over.  She ran up to the man's door, and jerked it wide open.  And then the dead man sat up.  Or rather the man who was not dead but merely sunning himself like a cat sat up.  My mother was super embarrassed, and this story has been told many times throughout the years.
     So you see, people, it seems that my "storm on the horizon" mentality has been with me since birth.  Well, when it relates to medical problems, that is.  Oddly enough, I have a pathologically optimistic view on pretty much everything else in life.  But, if it's related to the inner workings of the human body, I'm pretty much always under the assumption that the poop is going to hit the fan...sometimes literally.

Bad Nature! Bad!

     The kids have only been out of school for a few days now, but already Nature is exacting its revenge on Skeletor.  I don't know what he did to Nature that was so bad, but I'm sure he did something.  Yesterday morning, Skeletor woke me up by whispering that he had green dirt on his "dinglehopper."  (I didn't really think it through when I chose our family's nickname for a penis based on what Ariel called a fork in "The Little Mermaid."  Too late now.)  Anyway, I'm immediately intrigued/terrified.  I'm thinking most people would be experiencing this range of emotions if those words were the first thing they heard from their 5 year old in the morning.  After I got my glasses, I discovered that the "green dirt" was, in fact, a tick.  Awesome, right?  The last thing I wanted, especially after "The Incident," was to have to physically restrain my kid to remove that bug.  Can you say scarred for life?  However, we were all spared that trauma.  The Captain ran a very warm bath for Skeletor, and I guess the heat loosened the tick's grip.  That brave boy was able to remove the little parasite himself with minimal effort and zero tears or screaming.  Hooray!
     Unfortunately, Nature was not done with my boy child.  The next morning while we were playing on the back porch, Skeletor stepped on a wasp.  For realsies, Nature?  I think you've made your point!  I gave the lad my debit card, and instructed him on gently scraping out the stinger.  Again, he took it like a champ.  But later that day, Nature struck again.  Skeletor broke an outdoor thermometer, and ingested a mouthful of mercury.  (Not really a force of nature, but it came from outside.  So I think Nature's guilty by association.)  Poison control was called, and we were assured that the mercury was only dangerous if it was heated and vaporized.  So...good to know, then?  I don't even want to think about what could happen next, but I'm thisclose to issuing Nature a restraining order.  You hear that, Nature?  You're on thin ice (literally and figuratively!)  Stay away from my family or I'm busting out the aerosol hairspray!