Medical update on Cameron

Let me be clear...what I say here is in no way an insult to my son. I'm what the medical community call obese. But, we normal people would call me a fat-ass. So, when I discuss my son's weight problem it is not to be mean, but in fear for his health.

A year ago, Cameron was 66 pounds and 48 1/4". Sort of a normal weight for a kid his size. In the past year he has grown about 4 inches and gained 25 pounds. Seriously, he's starting chub up. If you look at him he's not obese. But he's pushing it. He's 91 pounds and 51 1/2" this week.

When he first started his meds up here 2 years ago his weight dropped from 61 1/2 pounds to 51 pounds. For a child who wasn't even 4 feet, it really showed. He was skin and bones again. We put him on pediasure and eventually changed his meds to 4 hour pills so he'd get his appetite back. It came back alright.

We know why he's so big. The kid sneaks food all day and all night. We've been through periods of him hiding food. Imagine making a bed and finding cookies and candy under the pillow. We've never denied the child food. In fact, when he's on his normal ADD meds we are pushing food on him.

We don't want him to have a weight problem so we discussed it with the doctor. We've opted to change him back to an 8 hour dose. For the sleep problems we are giving him melatonin. So far it does not help. But the bottle is old. I'll get a new one this weekend. Not real confident it will help though. Nyquil won't even put this kid out! He can sleep, but he does not get to sleep until 3-5 a.m. We'd like to get him to sleep by midnight and up by 10. Before you tell me to just get him up earlier...we tried that and he still stays up. He's just grumpier and more oppositional.

Doctor said it takes 3 weeks to change a pattern. I'll update in 3 weeks.

Beware of the flu

About a week and a half a go Glenn started to complain. By started I mean, I finally started to listen as it had been a few days of whining and finally I figured it must mean something. He started with a sinus infection. No biggie there. This happens several times a year. Dude, take an advil sinus, a pain pill and please leave me be. Can't you see I'm playing backgammon here and you're interrupting my concentration?

Tuesday he asked me to call for a doctor appt. so he could get some good stuff. Of course he had particular demands regarding appointment time. Must be early a.m. or late p.m. Seriously, I'm thinking if you're in that much pain you take what you get and run there as fast as possible.

Then the fever started. That got my antennae up. Never had one of them there buggers before. Had to call and reschedule for asap. They got him in Wednesday afternoon. And my darling husband stayed home and whined all morning. I swear men are the worst sick people I ever met. Me, when I'm sick, it's give me some drugs, turn down the lights and leave me be. Men, they need rubbed, coddled and well...they just need lots of attention. If they could take out a full size ad in the Pennysaver announcing that they are sick, they would!

We went in Wed. afternoon and it was determined that there was a sinus infection AND the flu. The doctor took out the H1N1 swab but knowing we were sans insurance opted to skip the test so we would not get stuck with a huge lab bill. She gave Glenn a prescription and 3 days of sample Tamiflu. Now, if you're doctor wants to give you a partial regimen of Tamiflu DO NOT TAKE IT!!! You cannot get the remaining days at the pharmacy. You MUST buy the entire 5 day regimen. Doctors new recommendation, take 3 days and you should be fine. I've been seeing these awesome commercials about FREE antibiotics at Giant Eagle. I thought sweet...free drugs. Well, not what Glenn needed. He needed augmentin at $113.00. We opted to change the script to one of the 10 free products. Not as good, but we can always hope it kicks it.

Some chicken noodle soup, loving and bed and I figured my man would be good to go by the weekend. Yeah...not so fast there cupcake! By Thursday night his fever was 103 degrees. I called the doctor, talked for a minute, he could barely hear me so he took my number promising to call me back. It's been a week and no call yet! The fever broke with that little scare and I was happy as a clam. Yeah...again, not so fast there cupcake.

Glenn woke up Saturday morning at 6:15 with chest pains. No left arm pain...okay no heart attack. No cough...okay no pneumonia. My mom had pneumonia a few years ago and ended up on a ventilator for 2 weeks so I was a bit scared. I decided to research the pneumonia on the internet and what do you know? No cough required. I yanked him up, dressed him and flew to the emergency room. I figured a few drugs was better than a big ass machine breathing for him.

He was hustled right into a room, hooked to a heart monitor, stuck with IV's in both arms...simultaneously...the look on his face scared me. Good thing I went to the bathroom before we left. Then they did an EKG and a chest x-ray. Now at this point the only test I really think he needs is the x-ray to see how his lungs. were. Doc came in and informed us that there was abnormal rhythms in ALL parts of the heart. Old man say what!?! Well, that leads them to believe it's an inflammation of the pericardium sac. Happens when you have a viral infection. But, just to be sure, lets give you some drugs and watch you for awhile. A call to the cardiologist confirmed the first docs guess. A spray of nitroglycerin showed that it was not a heart attack as the pain remained so they gave him the toredol for pain, which helped. The bloodwork showed his cardiac enzymes were up so they decided to keep him overnight to be sure he did not get worse. Yeah...we have no insurance so let's just be sure that we're kept in debt to the medical community for a good long while. But, seriously, I was glad someone cared enough to watch him rather than send him out to the stress house he calls home.

They did an echo-gram on his way upstairs. I assume there was no more information from that other than the cardiac enzymes meant he had myocarditis (inflammation of the heart itself). The nurses upstairs told him that he had given them a scare that morning. I'm glad the doctors and techs were professional enough not to scare us initially any more than necessary.

He stayed overnight and came home at noon on Sunday with instructions to stay home and rest for 2 weeks. I'm sorry, have you met my husband, the pacer? He stayed home Monday and rested but returned to work on Tuesday morning. His boss told him that he could bring a lawn chair and watch them work so he could still get paid. Sounds like a sweet deal to me. But then I'm lazy! He took his lawn chair Tuesday and picked up trash. By Wednesday he was back to working with breaks throughout the day.

He goes back to the cardiologist on Sept. 30th. They will do an EKG to see if there is any improvement at that appointment. Luckily, the EKG is only $20 and the visit should not be more than $89.50.

Today, my kids woke up with coughs and aches. I have the start of a sinus infection. Sounds like it's our turn. I imagine Glenn will vanish as our illness increases. I'll be forced to nurse Cameron through this alone while I'm sick. Kelly is much like me as she just wants to be left be.

Hope everyone reading this stays healthy. I'll let you know what the doctor says next week.

March on DC

Bryan, Laurel, Linda, Sharon, and me just before we left for home
At one point this lawn was covered with protestors


This man walked with a cast on his leg



This does not do justice to the real crowd
This was a section looking from the west lawn
You do not see all the people on the mall, the
lawn behind the portable potties, east lawn, behind
us on the west lawn, down Pennsylvania Ave or
even the ones walking the side streets pouring
into the area.

Last week, my mother in law, aunt and I marched on Washington, DC to tell our legislators...ENOUGH!!! Enough big government, enough spending, enough interference in our lives and enough corruption.

The news outlets are reporting 75,000 people attended. I beg to differ. The march was scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m. in Freedom Plaza and proceed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol lawn. The crowds at 7:30 a.m. were so large that the march was forced to start 4 hours early. We arrived mid morning and the march was still in full force with thousands of people pouring into the city from all sides. We proceeded to haul booty down Pennsylvania to meet up with Bryan and Laurel, Glenn's cousins.

The wait for the actual program to start seemed to take forever, but the speakers scheduled for Freedom Plaza moved to the Capitol lawn to speak.

We anticipated that there would be places to sell T-shirts, hats and even food. None were to be found. Fortunately, there were about 50 portable potties lined up along Pennsylvania. Yet, the lines were 1 1/2 hour wait for use of them. Luckily, we found a restaurant nearby with no waiting. It was the University of Wisconsin Alumni meeting site and I kept hoping to spy Greta Van Sustern when I wandered through. I never did :<.

The crowd was the most fervent in their beliefs, yet, well-behaved that I had ever seen. Those who spoke with officials noted that the police commented this was a very large crowd and very well-behaved. It has to be noted that there were no arrests or citations issued the entire day. We all took our trash and left only our desires for a better country behind.

The bus ride was long, 5 hours each way. I was so tired after leaving at 3 am and returning at midnight with hardly any sleep since Friday morning. I know this blog is boring, but I mainly wanted to get some pics up.

Nope, not gonna do it

Yes, I must be on a mission today to blog for a record. I just seem to have a lot locked in my head with noone to say it to. So my faithful friends and readers, you get it all!

I've joined a social networking site for people who support and/or are going to the march on Washington next week. I've clicked on many articles and read the follow-up comments. I can't tell you which one this came from, okay I can, but to protect this idiot from future comments about his intelligence, I will not.

Post American
September 4, 2009 • 12:39 am

You do realize that in 8 days some of you will be in handcuffs, shot, billyclubbed, or even be without fingers, right?

You do realize that the good civilians of Washington DC will need to be forcefully defended from the likes of you people, right? Especially since DC has a large African American population.

For every ten of you cowards, there will be one Timothy McVeigh, James Von Brunn, or Scott Roeder in your midst. You do realize that some of you more “level headed” types will be caught in the crossfire when these whackjobs do something stupid, right?

Why do you think Limbaugh, Hannity, and even Beck have not pushed Sept. 12 and have only thrown a few words your way only because the date is coming near? They know what is going to happen and want to distance themselves from it. I will laugh so loud when Hannity and Beck start condemning you guys for initiating violence in DC. They need you to maintain their millionaire lifestyles but do you really believe that they are going to throw their lot with a bunch of rioting white trash?

Battered, bloodied, and bruised, condemned by your very own “leaders”, and nothing will come of your efforts. Health care will pass and Democrats stay in power indefinitely.

I can’t wait for Sept. 12.

Really? This is the response that peaceful protesters are going to get? I've never protested before. I haven't even attended a tea party. And for the record, even if I had, I would not be a teabagger. Jeanine Garofolo can bite my....never mind. She's probably a real teabagger. But, I digress.

When Cindy Sheehan continually protested outside of President Bush's personal home, not the White House, his personal home, noone threatened her. I did not believe in what she was doing, but I believe in her right to do it. She lost a beautiful son in the war on terror. She chose to handle her grief as an advocate for peace. Good for her. I wish we could have peace in the world, and purple unicorns holding puppy dogs while eating ice cream. But honey, it ain't gonna happen as long as other people and even our own schoolbooks teach hatred toward our country. We have the right to defend that which our founding fathers defended. Many were lost in our fight for freedom. We will not go gently into that good night. We will fight for the rights of everyone, so that they may have a chance at the same freedoms and liberties that she enjoys by protesting against the leader of her country without the threat of being beat, dismembered or even losing her life.

Why do I not have the right to peacefully protest against a government which I oppose? Why am I a teabagger if I choose to protest? Why should I fear for my safety, freedom or life for choosing to protest? I should not have to even think about fearing for my safety. Our founding fathers promoted a tea party to protest the high tariffs the King of England was imposing on us. Should we not have the same right to protest against the high taxes this administration is imposing on us and our children. My son will not work for 5 1/2 more years, yet he knows his employment taxes will already be higher just because of the actions of today.

I will not go gently into that good night. I will fight peacefully for the rights of every American, liberal or conservative, Christian, Buddhist, atheist or otherwise. Why? Because I believe that it is my responsibility to stand up and tell the government when they are taking too much control of our lives. We each have the right to be a liberal or a conservative, to worship or not worship the God of our choosing and to raise our children as we see fit, providing we do not abuse them.

See you in Washington next week. If I don't stand up for your rights, who will?

A Pattern

I homeschool my kids now. So having them be exposed to speakers and programs that I don't agree with at school is not really a problem for me anymore.

The whole Obama speaks at schools thing scares me and I didn't quite get why. Have presidents before him spoke to children directly about staying in school? Yes. Did parents oppose it? Yes. Did parents keep their children home from school or out of class when said Presidents spoke? Probably not. So why is there such a big stink about this president speaking to the children of our future? I think I found the underlying answer.

This morning I could not sleep so I was watching Fox News Saturday. The hosts had on a mother from Texas. Although it does not matter, let me mention that she was a well spoken black woman. I only mention it so we can put the race card back in our pocket and move on. She nailed the reason for me.

This president has shown that he can't be trusted! He changes his story like Cameron changes his underpants. Well, maybe a bit more than that. I mean his story not Cam's...well you know.

We just can't trust that what he's doing and what he's saying are matching up. I considered looking for the speech on cable news to tape and watch. That way if he truly did follow the script of just encouraging our youth to stay in school and better themselves, maybe my kids could watch it. However, the transparency of this government is an oxymoron. They will release the script on Monday, a holiday and the day before the proposed speech, thereby giving the parents and administrators of our schools virtually no time to read and decide intelligently what to do. It gives no time for the parents to contact the schools and have an informed debate with the administrators to decide whether or not to have this event. This event is being rammed down the throats of our children on virtually the first day of classes for many. Overwhelming the system anyone?

I understand that the Butler School District in PA is not participating. Yeah!!! As for me and mine. We will be doing regular school. Actually, Kelly will be working during the speech so I only need to keep Cameron from CNN. Not too hard as we don't watch that channel anyway.

Happy Labor Day everyone. Remember Monday is to show gratitude to the WORKERS. I feel that pretty soon we won't need this holiday as Socialism will prevail and there will be no reason to work.

Yep, I'm over it

I am known for two things in this life. 1. My ability to sleep very, very late and 2. My lack of patience for idiots and inconsiderate people.

I have expressed my dissatisfaction with the government since the first stimulus package passed in the fall. However, to date, nothing has affected me personally. More about that later.

Yes, I watch Glenn Beck and learn much. He is taught me that Obama is a follower of the beliefs that teach "overwhelm the system." I didn't quite get it until yesterday. I am going with my mother in law and husband's aunt to Washington, DC next Saturday to march on Washington to protest the big government we are being exposed to. In lieu of carrying a sign for 22 hours (time the bus leaves to when it returns) we are making t-shirts. I pondered what it is I am protesting next week. Then it dawned on me that I am protesting so much. This administration is getting stuff half done, getting us riled, putting stuff on the back burner and moving on, rinse, repeat. We are still protesting the huge stimulus package that is only 15% spent, the cap & trade bill, healthcare reform and an all out case of perjury. To the best of my knowledge, each elected member of congress must swear and affirm on the religious book (Bible, Quran, etc.) of their choice to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. I don't see anyone upholding or defending our Constitution. They are on an all out mission to change or do away with the Constitution. Then it dawned on me...they are overwhelming the system!!!

I have seen signs on the major highways around here touting our Stimulus dollars at work. Frustrating? Yes. But, I could always find a way to get around the backups. Take another route, avoid driving to that area, etc. Now, I am being subjected to a 2 month assault on my senses. Last week, we received notice that our road is being milled and repaved. Now, in Florida we didn't have to mill and repave our roads. Was it because the contractors hired to do the job were required to do the job right the first time? Or is that the seasons take a toll on our roads? I don't know. The running joke is that Engineers in PA have a special skill....they can pave a road with potholes built right in from the start. So now I am being woke up every morning to dump trucks parked in front of my house, backing up with their incessent beeping at 7 a.m. *violation of fact 1 above,* sounds of huge barrels scraping (really it's the bulldozers digging the road, but barrels is what it sounds like to me), backed up traffic and the ever lovely sight of road crew construction guys bending over and showing me a bit too much at any given moment during the day. Yesterday, I checked my mail and looked in the truck parked on the road in front of my house. The driver had a pillow on his steering wheel and was sound asleep. Really, we are paying millions of dollars so drivers can nap? Today was the last straw for me. I came home from Wendy's and the bank. I sat in traffic 1/2 mile from my house for 15 minutes. Cameron's twisted frosty melted and my patience was gone. *violation of fact 2, above* I called Glenn, thinking that he was still at work, and told him to go out and tell the little sign man to flip or I would walk up and beat him with it. Instead, Glenn told me to turn around. Many cars opted to turn around, but, I just knew that if I did it the traffic would finally move. My response was to hang up on him. Hello, I don't need logical ideas I need someone to side with me and tell me "yes they are idiots my dear, feel free to beat them, I will bail you out." I kid! Finally, I gave in, turned around and damn if the traffic next to me didn't start to go. I tried to turn around again but the guy behind me would not allow it and decided to nap on his horn. I was forced to drive 2 miles out of my way to come in the other way. I just knew that there would be a long line of traffic that way now. Nope, I slid right through. Finally, the Gods have smiled on me. My mom called in the midst of the roundabout drive and bless her heart, she did not offer logical ideas, she just said "don't get in trouble, call me when you get home." I have decided that there is no way on God's green Earth that I am coming in via Eat n Park. Yes, most of my business is at that end of town and I hate the Greentree/Washington Ave light, but my sanity means more. I think the life of the sign guy is a bit safer if I follow my new rule. Oh, did I tell you that we have 4 sign guys. 1 at each stop point, 1 at the side street (okay, someone needs to be able to direct us out there as the other one is around a bend) and 1 in front of my house. No reason other than to give me entertainment.

Glenn's experience with them is no less lovely. He works across the street tinting cars in his shop. This morning he woke me up to tell me that...the road crew in their infinite wisdom dug a ditch in front of their shop. He had one car in the shop prior to said ditch digging. Two more cars were scheduled to come later. He could not get the car out nor anymore in. His boss gave him 2 options. 1) Call the customers and reschedule for Sunday. Sunday!!! Can he please have a day off? or 2) take some wood and fill the ditch making a ramp to drive the cars across it. Sounds like a cluster****, well you know, to me! He filled the ditch with wood.

I know that I have 2 more months of this. I try to find the funny, but when you have spilled twisted frosty all over your car and a husband mad about it. Funny is not easily found.