News
Saturday
Saturday, M12 had a band concert – they did really well! They’ve improved a lot over the year. Then Aaron, IL6, and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings. We’d been intending on eating on the patio, but they had a bee problem and we ended up inside. 😦 Aaron went to D15’s show in the evening.
Sunday
Sunday I took IL6 to the zoo to see the baby farm animals. The tiny piggies were so cute. D15 had another show she was working at.
Monday
Monday was busy. I took Polyphemus to his dental appointment. Later I found out he regurgitated when sedated and they turned him upside down, x-rayed him, and put him on antibiotics. Apparently all while sedated, but awake.
Then IL6 had a doctor appointment with a specialist. She made me feel better about some strange urine results, but encouraged me to talk to his PCP.
Then I took M12 to a rather routine appointment. When I got home , dad was mowing the lawn – a week after his heart attack. That forced me to mow the lawn right then. In the afternoon, I got my pots ready for tomatoes.
M12 had Boy Scouts, and D15 had a celebration for her academic letter.
Tuesday
Tuesday was another busy day. D15 had an appointment. Then I completed a bunch of tasks and errands that were pressing, including seeding grass seed on our bare spots. The kids had nothing special in the evening. Aaron and I had an evening together watching Locke and Key, which IL6 found scary. So we’ll move on to Star Wars.
Wednesday
Wednesday was another productive day. I took IL6 to his autism assessment – I will find out the results in June. Then I wrote a letter and watered the grass seed. I ran two errands. I went on a walk with dad. I bought 8 tomato plants and repotted them. I cooked dinner. IL6 played a computer game. D15 and Aaron went to her Newsies audition and then worked on the 6000 piece puzzle.
Thursday
Thursday, I took dad to an appointment and put dandelion killer on the front yard. D15 went to her show, the rest of us went to Red Lobster.
Friday
Friday, IL6’s 10am appointment was cancelled, so I had a spare hour to water the grass seed and give Polyphemus his antibiotic. I also got a letter written. Then, I picked IL6 up for his 11:30 appointment, followed by a quick trip to the library and another appointment.
After dropping IL6 off at school, I had a spare hour to get stuff done before he got off the bus from school. However, I had a horrible pain in my jaw. It radiated through my teeth to the left eye tooth, up through the lip and the left nostril, and into the left eye. It was throbbing. So I took an anxiety med and slept, thinking that the pain was from clenching my jaw. When I woke, it was even worse. I finally got it to go away with a mixture of Tylenol and ibuprofen. This is the second time I had that pain this week.
M12, IL6, Aaron, and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings. Then Aaron went downstairs for his computer game with his friends, and I sat down to read. But IL6 wanted to watch Star Wars. I tried turning on the Disney app on the TV, but it was a black screen. I went in and out of the app, opening it in different ways. Meanwhile, dad was complaining of being super cold and IL6 wanted me to remove the LEGO head from the LEGO star trooper helmet.
Finally, I got the app to turn on (though failed at getting the head out of the helmet). I was then supposed to scan a qr code from my phone, and follow the prompts. Meanwhile, dad started gasping for breath and continued feeling cold. As I tried, and failed, to correctly follow the prompts on my phone with one hand, I took dad’s temperature with the other hand. He did not have a fever, but was still gasping for breath. I told him if he continued gasping, I’d have to take him to the hospital. I then successfully activated the Disney app on the TV and started Star Wars.
Dad said he thought he needed to go to the hospital, so I told Aaron he’d have to bail on his friends. Aaron began explaining to his friends that he was bailing, but then dad changed his mind about the hospital, so I told Aaron he could go back to his game.
IL6 then asked me to pause the movie so he could get a “movie snack,” so we went in the kitchen and got out the Pringles. Then dad wanted to go to the hospital after all, so I told Aaron to bail on his friends. I remembered to turn off the sprinkler outside before I left, so I considered it a successful evening.
At the hospital, we got roomed pretty quickly. Apparently no one wants to go to the ER on a Friday. They ran a bunch of blood tests, many of which were unfamiliar to me, so I was left asking Google AI about them so that I could make a somewhat intelligent question when the doctor came in. And he mostly made me feel better about the results (except one of them, on which he was vague about it not necessarily being an infection), but then new, unfamiliar tests came in after that, so I had to do more research and form more intelligent questions. (I’m writing this from the ER room at 4am, and have still not seen the doctor again.) Dad also got a CT scan looking for a pulmonary embolism. The results, which I have interpreted without the help of a doctor, because he is nowhere to be seen, are that dad doesn’t have a pulmonary embolism, but he has a minimal ground-glass opacity indicative of a forming infection. (So…not a full-blown infection that would propel us to the ER to begin with? I know not! Because I don’t have a doctor to talk to!)
Week’s Photos
Reading to myself
- Mr Ballen podcast
- Champion of the Titan Games, by Brandon Mull
- The Week: Getting Results?
- Great World Religions: Christianity, by Luke Timothy Johnson
- Children of Anguish and Anarchy, by Tomi Adeyemi
- Survey of Hinduism, by Klaus K Klostermaier
Reading to IL5
- Charge of the Lightning Bugs, by Troy Cummings
- Stitch Head: The Monster Hunter, by Guy Bass
Media Completed
Alexander, Nikki, and Rip battle bugs. Good book, as usual.
These lectures covered mostly the history of Christianity and the various beliefs of the denominations. He finished with a discussion of where Christianity is headed. Dogma was kept to a minimum. Very informative.
Hibernator's Library 