Growing Family, Shrinking Time

Well, isn’t life interesting.

I tried to update my blog yesterday (in fact, I thought I had updated my blog yesterday) from my netbook using Windows Live Writer (which is what I’m using right now, by the way), but I guess it didn’t take. And, of course, as usual, I didn’t save what I wrote, because “hey, it’s on my blog, why do I need a local copy, right?”. Anyway, it’s been an interesting past few weeks.

Since my last actual “personal” post, I’ve become a grandfather for the second time, my youngest daughter (the mother of my new granddaughter) is in the hospital living an episode of House MD, and my oldest (the mother of my grandson) has come home from Japan, not necessarily in that order.

Much of the last week of March is a blur to me. So many things happened at the same time, or so close together, that I couldn’t keep up and my mind just couldn’t track everything.

First, at 3:26 AM or so on Monday March 29th, we got a call that our youngest daughter, who had been in the hospital with flu-like symptoms (minus the fever) was being taken in for an emergency cesarean-section. The baby was 9 weeks premature, but the odds would be in her favor, and every time my youngest would get sick, the baby’s heart rate would drop, so they figured it would be safer.

My wife and I spent the next few hours (after we knew both mother and baby were OK) finding airline tickets to get her to Shreveport Louisiana. Not a cheep location to fly in to. But we found same-day tickets for about $300 flying out of Charlottesville Virginia, of all places. Charlottesville is about the same distance from our house as Baltimore Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport (always called BWI because it’s WAY shorter), and it’s a MUCH nicer drive!

My oldest came home from Japan on Easter morning, in fact, it was about 12:07 AM when the plane landed at BWI. I shouldn’t complain about how long my day was, because she and my grandson got up at 5:00 AM on Saturday Japan time to get on the flight. I think it was 4 planes and 7 airports and a 38 hour vs. 24 hour day later, they landed at BWI. I made sure to take that Monday off to recover!

Do you have any idea how long it takes a 3 1/2 year old to recover from jet-lag and a 13 hour time change? About 5 days. Monday morning, he was up at 2:30 AM. Tuesday was about 4:30 or 5:00. Wednesday was around 5:30 to 6:00, Thursday was around 6:30 to 7:00, and Friday was around 7:30 or so. He’s still not completely adjusted; he fights going to bed, and fights getting up; but he is still only 3 1/2, so that’s to be expected.

The last fun thing has been that my youngest has been in and out of the hospital since her daughter (who is still in NICU, but progressing better than expected) was born. It seems that the vomiting for three days before the C-section continued for a few days after, as well. All that vomiting caused damage to the lower half of her esophagus (the doctor called it esophageal ulceritus), and she couldn’t eat or drink without being in extreme pain. While the doctors were trying to figure out what was causing the pain, they decided she had sludge in her gallbladder. I guess that would be better than gallstones, but not by too much, evidently. To shorten the story, they now have her on IV protonix to reduce the acid in her stomach and maybe lower the pain. Another doctor has decided that her gallbladder may in fact be bad enough to remove, so they may do that tomorrow (Monday).

I’m not really happy with some of the things I’ve heard about my youngest daughter’s treatment during her stay at Willis-Knighton South in Shreveport. I will say that I’m very impressed with what I hear about the NICU staff and the people that first took care of my youngest did a great job. But this late this past week they moved my daughter from the “Step-down unit” (basically Intermediate Care) to a normal ward, and the staff on that ward must either be over worked or just plain neglectful, because medications were missed or incorrectly charted, or both, doctors made assumptions based on statistics rather than patient history, and some of the nurses have no idea that they shouldn’t wear strong scents that could cause respiratory problems with asthmatics.

So, with my wife out of town since the end of March, I’ve been spending my time driving the taxi, playing with my grandson, working in the office, and trying to decide what I want to do when I grow up (maybe more on that one in a few weeks). I’m considering getting back on World of Warcraft, just because the church guild (yes, the church I go to has it’s own WoW guild, we’re just THAT cool) doesn’t have enough high-level players to raid. I could do one of two things, or both; start a deathknight, or transfer my level 77 hunter to the server the church guild is on. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m close to a decision. Also, I haven’t made it to the “over 30” D&D night at the church every Thursday (I told you we’re just THAT cool) because of one thing or another. This week for sure (unless something happens, of course).

I do really plan to update this with tech news on a more regular basis, but given that the only techie thing I’ve done lately is replace my Windows Home Server box that I build from scratch with an Acer WHS box, there’s not much to tell. I haven’t even taken the time to root my droid yet! But, that’s coming soon, believe me!