Silver Nitrate Is A Bitch

Why does this bairn look so dispirited? How can a kid be so low on a Friday? And anyway, when you're six years old, isn't life just a gas? Isn't life nonstop freedom from responsibilities? (Of course, to appreciate freedom from responsibilities one must actually experience them first, right?). While it's possible he's just expressing his chagrin at his mother snapping a picture of him in the hospital elevator...

...I think it's probably because he just had an "engorged" nose vein DUG OUT OF HIS NOSE WITH SILVER NITRATE AND BURNED TO SMITHEREENS WHILE HE SCREAMED WITH PAIN IN THE CHAIR.

I have to admit that I almost couldn't take it. I had the strongest urge to shove the nitrate up the doctor's nose so he could see for himself that the pain is not "like a little pinch" as he promised Max but more like a searing gut wrenching pain not unlike pouring boiling water on your bare skin. When we left the office Max asked "Has that doctor ever had that done to his own nose?". Astute question little dude. I seriously doubt it.

The last time he got his nose cauterized it really wasn't too painful but that's because it was a fairly superficial cauterization that works on most cases. They save the torture for the really stubborn big engorged veins; for the real tough cases. To be fair to the doctor, he really was doing what he knows to be the most effective way to stop the bloody noses and I, for one, will be relieved to live a life without being frequently covered with my son's blood. I hate to hear my son begging to be put out so he can't feel such pain, but the nose bleeds are also incredibly distressing to him when they happen, which is all the time. So if this little experiment in torture proves effective, then I will be grateful for it.

We're a little shaken up over here though. He's recovering his color (what little he usually has) while playing on the play station. I can tell there are going to be rough patches today though. He's pretty emotionally fragile at the moment.

When we got home he wanted me to read him a story. Guess what he brought home from school? I'll just tell you because I think you'll never guess: a book about Navy SEALS. Nice. So like a good open minded* mama I read to him all about Navy SEALS which ends with propaganda rules on volunteering. Because what six year old boy is not going to think it's totally cool to join a stealth team of assassins soldiers who get to play with explosives for the "good guys"?! Do I need to mention how heinous I find it that there are books about Navy SEALS available to little children?

There was mention of how women aren't allowed to join the SEALS and Max wanted further explanation as to why that is. I offered the simplest explanation I could which is that traditionally women are the only ones who can have babies and they need to stay out of wars so they can care for them. So he says "So the women stay home to have babies and protect them so they can grow up and become SEALS?"

Yes honey, it's what every mama dreams of.


*Well, I think it's open minded not to care if my kid becomes a cabaret singer, a cab driver, a liquor store owner, a gas station attendant, or a football player. But I admit I struggle very hard not to scream in horror every time he expresses interest in the armed forces.

The Fruits Of Other People's Labor

Yesterday I neither canned anything, nor made any duvet covers. Instead, I ran errands. I went to the newspaper office to exchange home canned goods with the food writer Nicole Montesano. She happened to be at lunch, so the exchange ended up feeling a little more like a nebulous underworld transaction where I informed the lady at the front desk that I had something for Nicole and would she mind delivering it to her desk...and there should be something there for me too, perhaps some quince marmalade, and possibly some pears? The lady said she may know something about an exchange of canned goods. She came back moments later and handed me two gleaming jars. The gorgeous fruits of someone else's labor.

I'm pretty sure the woman was trying to hide her jealousy behind a look that was meant to suggest that I am pretty much as dorky as they come. I wasn't fooled.

What I don't understand is how come I ended up with two jars of Nicole's canned goods yet she asked for only one of mine. That is hardly a fair trade. I think I will need to rectify this in the next couple of days.

This morning Max awoke to a gusher again. It actually started to come out both sides, but not as bad as the worst one he's ever had. However, my freshly changed sheets are now smeared as was I. As I've mentioned before, this is not a particularly pleasant way to wake up. He's now getting them almost every day again. I'm going to find out if there are any kid's swimming classes in the afternoons at the Aqua center downtown. He didn't have a bloody nose for almost two months. He was swimming every morning and I think it really helped. I'm not sure why, but I imagine it has something to do with keeping the insides of his nose moist. We could try getting it cauterized again, but after the trauma of last time, I'm not eager to repeat that experience.

We have a doctor's appointment for this afternoon to investigate the possible reasons his taste is off. I must say, though, that Max is like me and his mind is a powerful instrument capable of suggesting itself into a panic. Being mom to him requires that I tread the delicate line between taking him seriously while allowing for the possibility that his mind has run wild with the possibilities of ailments. It's challenging because people like Max and I are very sensitive to physical shifts and changes and often it seems that we are imagining there is something wrong with us that the doctor sees no evidence of, until a month later when something develops that the doctor can't ignore and it turns out we were aware of a very real issue at the earliest stage. However, being so sensitive also means that every little creak in the bones, every little mysterious pain becomes a sinister harbinger of disease OR DEATH.

Once, when we lived in San Francisco and had no health insurance, I got a cut on my leg that didn't heal after a week. I was accustomed to healing very quickly. I got concerned. But my mind doesn't ever relax, so within a short period of time I became certain that this anomaly meant that I had AIDS. I was a pretty amazingly low risk individual, but everyone knows you can get AIDS from one injudicious unprotected night of fun... I went to the health clinic on Haight Street and had my blood drawn and the cut examined and, of course, nothing was wrong. I just had a resistant cut.

Max is exactly as I am. So I try not to build a case up for him having terrible diseases when he has weird complaints. Like when all his food tastes like coffee. However, since he threatened to stop eating or drinking anything if it didn't stop tasting weird, I made him an appointment. The nurse I spoke with certainly felt that it was important to bring him in with such a complaint.

Today I make pesto.

How's that for a nonsequitor?

The computer won't even be looked at until Saturday. I was shocked when I found out how long this was going to take. So I just might have to download some software to allow me to put pictures from my camera onto the laptop. I am pretty sure that a few more days of no pictures and no one will ever visit me again.

I have walked with my friend Lisa this morning, with the dog too, and now I must jet off to the gym before inertia settles in. So I'll sign off with a little quote from the kid.

We were waiting for our meal to come at the Ram's Head Pub in Portland. We'd been waiting about ten minutes. Max declares:

"I would rather be shot with a grass gun and get itchy all over than wait another minute here."

Grass gun?! (The kid is mildly allergic to grass, but how does he come up with such perfect torture ideas when he is only six years old?)

(You should hear the punishments he devised for that evil sports player who was recently arrested for breeding and fighting pit bulls. The kid is a mini-despot. Now, if only we can make sure he only uses his powers for good...wait a minute...he's right, Michael Vick should be thrown in a little cell full of dog hair so he can get itchy and choke to death on it. Or be thrown in a jail cell with a vicious pit bull and let him see how it feels to fight one to the death...Or else he should be left in jail forever...)

The kid has a point. Michael Vick is an evil human being and if I could, I would throw him to the dogs myself. Bastard. Shit, I didn't want to remember about this guy. That was accidental. It bothers me to think about such awful human beings being out there in the world. Watching animals kill each other for sport is sick.

Fluffy bunnies...Fluffy bunnies...Fluffy bunnies.....


Update: Max and I just came back from the doctor's office. Max's off-sense-of-taste is a MEDICAL MYSTERY. There's nothing apparently wrong with the kid. That's so much better than finding out he has some rare but fatal taste-deficiency-disorder, otherwise known as: TDD. (I should be a medical writer, huh? I've TOTALLY got what it takes!)

On another note: how come I can't sit down and write well on a preselected topic? How come the only way I write well is by rambling on this rickety old blog? How come I can't just sit down and piss gold? (Uh, that last little bit is what happens when Angelina just writes exactly what is flowing into her head, without the necessary social filter.) (Dammit, that's a lie. Do you want to know how that would have come out if I had stuck to EXACTLY what came into my head at that moment? I would have written: "How come I can't just sit down and shit gold?". That is, however, extremely coarse which isn't a style I personally favor. It amazes me that things like that can come out of my brain in the first place.) It was also an amazing segue into a totally different conversation. I guess it's kind of obvious why I'm not the next Anne Lamott.

In Spite Of Weeds

(Plus late nights watching hospital dramas)

In spite of weeds having completely taken over my yard in seven foot tall patches of blinding arrogance, things are ripening and growing in the vegetable garden. This is cathartic as I am certainly not going through the best of times at the moment. A little nasty deja vu is difficult to shake. So I focus my vision down to the micro details so that I may ignore everything else. So look at these pretty little carrots! And the Romano beans are coming in now too. They are difficult to find in my densely tangled bean tee-pee, but I managed to gather enough for a dinner side of carrots and beans slathered in butter, honey, and mustard.

My bee balm is already almost finished with it's first round of blossoms. They are so fantastically weird, like air anemones from another planet. I'm wondering if I'll get another flush if I pinch the flowers?

This is one hell of an eggplant. It's called Rosa Bianca and I've grown it before. I tend to only get one eggplant per plant on this one but I enjoy the colors and the exquisite flavor of it so much it's worth it.

The dill is doing great. The flowers have all bloomed so it shouldn't be long before they're ready to use for pickling. The ladybugs are busy licking the heads clean of any aphids. I have to say they look pretty pest free, unlike the monster weeds growing right next to them.

This is my squash mound. I have learned some things about a big pile of squash plants:

• Pink banana winter squash plants get huge, are aggressive, and prolific.

• I'm happy they're prolific because maybe I'll get enough winter squash to get me all the way through the winter, but it's busy choking the life out of my summer squashes.
  

• Spacing really is important for summer squash. I should have thinned the summer squash and then stood over the mound night and day to direct the winter squash traffic.

To get through this stressful time of not knowing if I get to keep everything I have and love, and being afraid to appreciate it too much for fear that I am just about to lose it all- (why invest the love?)- I am staying up late watching old episodes of ER. Not only does Noah Wylie have a fantastic nose which I enjoy watching while chugging beer, but I really wish Eriq La Salle had been allowed to smile every once in a while. It must have been hard to play such a tightly wound serious individual.

I've come to a few conclusions about doctors and medicine that I'm going to share:

• People expect doctors to be miracle workers but rarely appreciate the miracles they work.

• Doctors make mistakes like everyone else, the reason they get paid so much is because they have a high risk job. When they make a mistake lives are at stake and people are not all that prepared to forgive them for it.

• Without doctors the population of people on this earth would be greatly reduced. Which wouldn't be a bad thing for the earth. Yet for all the lives they prolong and save, we generally only remember the ones they couldn't save. People are so crappy.

• I am deeply happy not to be a doctor. I'm not terribly squeamish about blood, but I prefer not to see people's organs exposed. Or their bones. I'm very squeamish about seeing exposed bone. I saw my own once and almost passed out. I cut my knuckle when a glass broke that I was washing and I saw the knuckle bone. It's incredibly creepy.

• Doctors aren't the enemy in the health care system, insurance companies are.

• Nurses deserve as much respect, OR MORE, than doctors because they do a lot of dirty work with less pay and recognition than the doctors get. I've met a couple nurse Ratchets in my time who I secretly suspected were trained S.E.A.L.s because of their ability to not feel any pain or recognize that other people do, but mostly I've just met a lot of compassionate nurses who remove gross medical implements and papered beds with smiles.

• If ever I am unfortunate enough to have to get surgery, I am going to listen to the undercurrent amongst the doctors and nurses and see if I can guess who is sleeping with whom, who is the most viciously ambitious, and who everyone secretly despises. Hospitals are clearly places ripe with intrigue.

Got Blood?

I went to the doctor for the first time in a year today. Don't be thinking I must be really healthy or something. I mean, it's not like there haven't been good reasons to go to the doctor, there have been good reasons. but the last time I went to the doctor was for my yearly exam which turned into a biopsy for cervical cancer. Ever had your cervix scraped with a wire brush? The doctor assured me it wouldn't hurt (much). I think she's never had it done to her. Why not just use a broken bottle down there? I know, it's possible that I am more sensitive to pain than some. I will only say to that possibility that it took me two weeks to take myself to the doctor when I broke my hip. When I finally came in my doctor sent me off to get x-rays and called me later to say that I must be a "very stoic" person because I had fractured my acetabulum in five places and had not been taking pain medication. Ha! So there.

Oh alright, I'll admit that every time I had to lower myself down to the toilet to pee it hurt so bad I kind of thought I might die.

That wire brush scraping morphed into a little slice of my cervix then being removed with a knife. Even though the biopsy came out negative, I'm a little reluctant to go to the doctor because I'm convinced that they're going to find something I can't afford to have.

Here's a list of my current ailments:

• Sharp pains randomly shooting through the ball of my left foot. (The good shoes have really helped with this)

• Right ankle is slightly swollen and hurts to walk on.

• Hip hurts after exercising.

• Back hurts after hip starts to hurt.

• My right hand ring finger is often stiff these days.

• Never got my bone density test after my hip healed.

• Head might explode at any minute.

• Can't sleep without having beers first.

• afraid I am a thirty seven year old living in an eighty five year old's body.

The Verdict: The back and hip problems are most likely musculature in nature and caused by having weakened muscles from the hip breaking incident. Strengthening them will most likely ease this problem. Lots of stretching and low-impact exercising. And time. There's nothing to be done about the foot. The ankle can be healed by balancing on that foot to help strengthen it up again.

So if you don't get the subtext, here it is: I AM WEAK.

However, just in case there is some systemic inflammation responsible for all my aches and pains, the doctor thought it wise to get some blood work done. I love that phrase: BLOOD WORK. It sounds like some kind of kooky procedure in which you cosmetically enhance your blood or something. The next rich person's fad: GET YOURSELF SOME BETTER BLOOD WITH A LITTLE BLOOD WORK. I can tell you that I am not fond of having needles shoved in my veins to extract the stuff that keeps me alive. Blood itself doesn't usually make me woozy. Needles don't really make me that woozy either. It's the combination that creeps me out.

Here are some highlights of my blood work adventure:

• Max and Rex came to witness the gore for the first attempt. They amused themselves with ghoulish noises and pretend passing out on the floor. This did not amuse the nurse who was trying to locate my veins.

• Apparently, my vein "rolled" away from the offending needle in a willful act of avoidance.

• After about six nurses asked me if I was OK as I waited for a new nurse to give my veins a try, I decided I must look much worse than I felt and should lie down.

• They all kept asking me if I "usually" have trouble having my blood taken, as though I do it all the time.

• I went through a total of three nurses. The one that finally got the blood told me why they had to keep trying to get the blood from the same spot, it turns out that when you have to take "a lot" of blood you don't want to take it from the smaller veins or they could collapse. She also explained that the reason the younger nurses were having so much trouble is that they were wearing surgical gloves which makes it more difficult to feel where the veins are.

So next week I get to get an x-ray to test my bone density to find out if I am, in fact, an eighty five year old.