Enlarge my what?

When I was a kid, my dad always complained about all the junk mail he got. Well, no big deal, right? Just toss it in the garbage or recylcling bin. Fast forward... now we have computers and email. We also have a new word for this electronic junk mail. Spam. And we get loads of it! I've heard some people say they get dozens and dozens of spam emails a day. Well, sure it's much easier to send out thousands of emails. It costs nothing. No postage required. No printing costs, nothing. The most common things I see in my inbox these days are emails telling me how I can enlarge my penis. The other things I see regularly are how to get a better mortgage, how to get my pills cheaper, and finally, how to advance or obtain my degree. Well, first of all, I do not have a penis. No enlargeing required, thank you. My morgage? Sorry, I rent. The only pill I take is an occasional Tylenol, and I'm a stay at home mom. That's not a degreed position. It's an on the job training type career. Well, I get my chuckles out of these idiots who send me these emails asking me to give them money for something that I would never use or need. Well, delete is easy enough to click. It's relatively harmless, if somewhat annoying. But this newest thing? Well, I'm just stunned. I am now receiveing junk mail, or spam, or whatever they are going to decide to call it on my cell phone! I'm getting this stuff text messaged to me! I imagine there must be folks out there who actually respond to this stuff. Otherwise, what's the motivation to spend the time doing it? I wish they'd stop. I certainly don't want my car to start trying to sell me stuff.

Scary movies and comfort

My oldest daughter and I watched a suspense thriller last night. The Patriarch opted out. He doesn't handle them well. This morning, she reported to me that she had difficulty going to sleep. To many images in her mind. So, to fix the problem, she went and cuddled with the 3 year old. Apparently, my little lady was supposed to ward off any big bad monsters that made it in to the house.

I'm glad they can find comfort in each other, even if it's a 3 year old comforting a 14 year old.

It's all about blood

Yes, I know that I said that this blog would not be about my children. However, the following story relates an incident that totally took over my whole life for nearly a week, so I thought I'd share. I will start by telling you that two of my children have severe hemophilia. The older one is 6 and we've never, ever had anything so drastic happen in those 6 years.

Last Friday, the Littlest Clan Member was hit in the mouth with our yard swing. He received a cut that then, proceeded to bleed. For hours. Friday evening, when The Patriarch got home, we attempted to give him factor. After three sticks we didn’t get it. I decided we’d try again in the morning. After all. It’s only a mouth bleed. It can wait over night. A messy, bloody night later, we tried again. Got it on the 3rd stick and Dad was the one to get it. Yeah, him! So, we’re good. Or we thought. Sunday afternoon, it started to bleed again. It was then that I suspected a frenulum tear. Turns out I was right. We tried to give him more Factor Sunday evening. No go. Monday, now that I’ve managed to ruin all his good spots, we decided to let the professionals try. Off to the ER at hospital 1. They stuck him twice and were unable to get a vein. We decided to give Amicar syrup a try instead of all this sticking. We ordered it Tuesday, and received it Wednesday. Five minutes after I gave him his first dose (and a hour after he'd thrown up from all the blood he'd swallowed, old blood and clots) HTC (hemo clinic) calls. He needs factor now. Ok. But, they want to decide where I should go, so hold on a few minutes. Fine. While I wait for the return call, I get us packed up, arrange child care for the others, and get ready to go. So, now it's about an hour after that first dose of Amicar and he throws up again, more gross black old blood. HTC calls, says go to local hospital rather than driving to them. Fine. We're off to hospital 2. We actually get taken straight back from triage to a room. Monday, we'd had to wait an hour just to get into triage, with him drooling blood all over the waiting room. We had a fantastic nurse, an idiot/full of himself doctor, and some oral surgeon residents who didn't know what to make of me. Little Man had managed to form a clot at the cut. It was a fairly large clot but they wanted to pull it off. I said no way, until after he's gotten his factor in. Disgruntled sigh (from them), fine. And they left with instructions to our wonderful (male) nurse to call when he'd gotten his med. NICU came, scalp IV in with one stick. Yeah, her. Factor in. Yeah, us! As I was sitting in the triage room, getting admitted, I noticed, under those wonderfully revealing fluorescent lights, how pale he looked. In fact, the combo of him looking pale and bleeding visibly (because we all know THAT's what determines severity, right?) is what got us rushed back to a room - either that or they didn't want blood all over their waiting room. So, we need to check his hemoglobin and hematocrit. Along with that, they wanted a type and cross match his blood, just in case, and get a PTT. A PTT?? What in the world for? Well, because of the bleeding. What? He has hemophilia. Maybe you missed that part. Of course his PTT is high. Ok. I didn't really say that. I just thought it. What I did ask was what would that number change? We expect it to be high. Will his treatment be changed by knowing just how high? Of course not, so let's just do a capillary stick for the hemoglobin. Fine. Unfortunately, since he'd just received factor, his feet wouldn't bleed. Oh the irony! Seven foot sticks later, they had enough blood. The doctor comes in, all full of himself, and tells me he has the results and they are low. What are they, I ask. Well, 12 (that's not low, I'm thinking) and 4.1. Oh! That 12 was the hematocrit, not the hemoglobin. So, yes, that's low. He needs blood. So, now we have to draw that type and cross I'd not let them draw by insisting on the heel sticks. Of course, Dr. Fullofhimself had to point out to me the error of my ways. "If you will remember, I wanted to draw this earlier. Now he has to have yet another stick." Well, after kindly asking him to not speak in such a condescending way to me, I explained that I understand that a type and cross means another stick. I'm well aware of how this test is done. I am a nurse, after all. To which he replied, "I didn't realize you were a nurse. You did not divulge that information to me." Divulge? I guess I'd kept it as a big fat hairy secret. I told him our wonderful nurse knows. The lab folks who came to see us knew. He has just not spent enough time in my company for it to come up. Humph. Well, we need to draw blood now. Yes. Fine. Thank you. So, in comes lab. Evil bad stick lady dug around for quite some time, with that butterfly in his arm at a steep angle, not nice and shallow like we like it, and all the way to the hilt. Fortunately for her, my arms were full of screaming, fighting, crying baby, so I could not physically abuse her in the way my heart wanted to (she later redeemed herself by being the only person in the entire ER to offer to bring me a drink; much appreciated since I’d spent the previous 5 hours nursing almost constantly to comfort my unhappy baby). Next Hero Lab Man give it a go. Lickety split, in and out. I'm baking him muffins. For our fantastic, wonderful ER nurse, too. Anyway, labs are drawn, blood is prepared and we're off. Next, in comes oral surgery again. By this time, I had cleaned up Ian’s mouth and pulled out that nasty clot. Well, residents come with a superior this time. I guess they thought they needed back up to deal with some crazy mom. Dr. Incharge looks in Little Man's mouth, says, “Oh, that’s nothing. I wouldn’t do anything with that.” Then he looks at me and says words that melt my heart. “But, you probably already knew that.” To which I nodded and said yep. He then added, “I always say, listen to the parents. They know best.” I probably looked quite smug as my eyes fell on the residents standing in the background. Next, we were admitted to peds in time for me to watch the last 2/3 of So You Think You Can Dance. Hey, I can't help it. I needed something normal and happy. At around 1 am, the first transfusion was completed. So, now another stick. But, they did a finger stick. I was leery after all the heel sticks. Well, this time blood was running down his finger. Enough blood obtained very quickly. Now he was up from 4.1 to 6.4. Still quite low. The second transfusion is started and is 1/3 completed when the IV gave out. Well, really, the catheter kinked and it was not salvageable. The new plan was now to wait until morning, do another H&H to determine if he really needed more. He was all the way up to 7.5. Still too low. So, now we need a new IV and more blood. Dad came in for this. I was not emotionally or physically prepared to hold him down for more needles. My arm was still sore from holding him as much as I did. He's a strong kid and quite a fighter. Anyway, this IV went in with one try, in his hand. He got his arm all wrapped up to protect that IV and we start the next transfusion. Four hours later, we are done. They give him another dose of factor and send us home. Then, that evening he slipped and fell and bumped his mouth again. It started bleeding. Fortunately, since he'd just had factor 5 hours previous, it stopped right away. I just hope it gets healed up before he runs out of factor again.

Oh, and hospital 2 just called to get my feedback. So, I got to tell them all about Dr. Fullofhimself, Nurse Fantastic-Wonderful, and Hero Lab Guy. It was gratifying.

Harry Potterfied

Well, I'm becoming so, anyway. I had never even picked up a Harry Potter book until about 2 weeks ago. My teenaged daughter just HAD to see the new movie and then a couple of weeks later, just HAD to buy the new book... at 1 a.m.! Well, they went on sale at midnight, but with the lines, it was 1:15 when we left the store. Sheesh. Anyway, she is fully Harry Potterfied. She's on chat groups, fan fic lists... you name it. If it's about Harry Potter, she's there! So, imagine my surprise and disappointment in her when The Patriarch asked her what was the title of book 4, so he could ever so lovingly drive to the library and get it for me, and she replied, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Now, if YOU are truly Harry Potterfied, then you immediate recognize her error. So, as I snuggled down into bed with my smallest clan member, eager to begin year 4 at Hogwart's, I was much saddened by the realization that I was holding year 5 in my hands. I had to wait a whole nother day to continue with the misadventures of this magical pubescent wizard.

What's a Modern Matriarach anyway?

mod·ern [mod-ern] –adjective
1. of or pertaining to present and recent time; not ancient or remote: modern city life.
2. characteristic of present and recent time; contemporary; not antiquated or obsolete: modern viewpoints.

ma·tri·arch [mey-tree-ahrk] –noun
1. the female head of a family or tribal line.
2. a woman who is the founder or dominant member of a community or group.
3. a venerable old woman.

Now that we got that out of the way... I was trying to decide what to call myself. Everything that came to mind was about my kids. Well, I want something that's a bit more separate from my kids. Of course, they are a part of my life. A pretty large part, in fact. And raising them has certainly played a very significant role in defining who I am. So, I decided that while I don't want to focus on them they are a large part of who I am, even when I'm away from them. They have taught me so much about life. They've taught me to love unconditionally. They've showed me that even though "everyone else is doing it" it's not necessarily the right thing to do. I like the word matriarch. It sounds strong. In charge. Very much the opposite of "just a mom" as others tend to look at those of us who don't work outside the home. However, it also conjures up images of the Old Testament folks, you know, the patriarchs and matriarchs... Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and finally Jacob with Leah and Rachel. Probably that semseter of Bib Lit I took in college. Anyway, so I'm thinking matriarch and I'm thinking Old Testament. Well, I decided I'm a modern matriarch, not an Old Testament one. I am the female head of my family (or clan) and I'm most certainly not antiquated or obsolete. So, there you have it. Modern Matriarch!

Of course, some people will tell you that really, definition 3 suits me better. A venerable old woman. Those people can just go away.

Here we go...

I've really been enjoying reading a certain other blog and I thought, "Hey, I should do that." I started blogging almost 2 years ago when I discovered I was pregnant with baby number 6. I then continued because it was a very easy way to keep the grandparents up to date on what's going on in my clan. I soon discovered that there are things I want to talk about that my in-laws may not appreciate so much. There are things I want to talk about that little, if anything, to do with my clan. So, here I am, boldly striking out on my own, away from the safety and comfort of talking about The Clan. I suppose we'll just have to see where it goes!