Rowan Tree and Red Thread

I'm home from work to mind the kids. Their mother's in bed, tucked away to help recover from some vomiting bug.

I have a cup of tea. I'm sitting on the steps in the garden watching the kids play, puttering about getting into everything.

It's a very pleasant afternoon, for me at least.

I'm a little surprised but cautiously pleased to tell that we've had our offer on a new house accepted. Lots of work yet to be done and plenty of scope still for financial deadlock as one or other bank may decided to throw a road block in the way, but grounds for a small 'hooray' I think. Particularly as we've been house hunting since forever. Or rather since June - it only feels like forever.

In other news sammywol has a really good bug that's knocked her voice out almost completely. I feel I've gone deaf; I'm asking the poor woman to repeat everything as I miss the first whisper unless I'm looking straight at her and concentrating.

It was lovely to meet fjm and chilperic this weekend, on their holiday visit to Cork. sammywol and I enjoyed a very pleasant meal and excellent conversation at Isaac's, one of Cork's better restaurants and a favourite of our before the kids cramped our eating out habit.

My mother was down from Dublin too, bringing swag for the kids and providing much welcomed babysitting for our meal out on Saturday night.

In all a good weekend marred only by the onset of a cold. I need more ginseng!

So Harney's scrapped the cervical cancer vaccine. Damn it all, Ireland, why did you vote this shower back in last time? Why?

Sick baby. Sick wife. Argh.

Last night I had a sore tum. Hot-water bottle and hard to get comfortable enough to sleep kind of sore. Today things are a bit better, and I'm guessing it was food poisoning and the worst has passed. A great start to the weekend.

Some of you will have already noticed the rotten development afoot in the US Department of Health and Human Services, discussed by (among others) liz_marcs, peaseblossom, and my own sammywol (also here).

Just looking at the text in question I really have to question the sanity (and the ulterior motives) of the drafters of the proposed regulation.

'...the Department proposes to define abortion as “any of the various procedures—including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action—that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”'

As per the clear-thinking analysis at Reproductive Health Reality Check, the proposed change in the definition puts the onus on the individual woman to prove she's not pregnant if she wants to obtain oral contraception, say, from any medical or pharmaceutical practitioner who decides that a contraceptive pill is a tool of abortionists.

This is a monstrous act, and one that clearly discriminates against women. Condoms = barrier method = no problem (subtext: condom = for men, allowable). Oral contraceptives = abortion (subtext: deny women control of their own fertility). By the above definition any act that could remotely be construed as likely to lead to a failed implantation (a hot bath, anyone?) is an abortion, and likely an entirely unconscious one. It's discriminatory bollocks and should be confronted as such.

twistedchick, for example, has links to actions US citizens can take. The rest of us should at least post and kick up a fuss.

From Boing Boing a brilliant and thought-provoking video of Hans Rosling talking about world health, wealth and the power of visualising statistics.

Last night we finished up our Dungeons & Dragons campaign, after about 16 months of play. We offed the vampire mage at the heart of the tomb, hit 7th level and returned to the tavern for ale and whores.

We're wrapping the campaign now, giving PMcH the GM a rest as I take up the GM's reins again to try something new. We haven't really firmed up the setting yet, but I'm leaning towards a Diana Wynne Jones A Sudden Wild Magic style multiple worlds with the PCs all wizards and magic workers from different traditions and worlds. It's pretty undefined so far.

In other news I am, once again, feeling sick as a dog.

Warning: game geekery at its worst follows.

Last night's D&D game had some fun moments. First our party met a pair of Shadow Mastiffs who promptly scared the armoured pants off our fighter and sorcerer, leaving only Fidd the rogue and Grann the cleric to fight.

And fight they did. Aided by a Daylight spell the two smacked down the naughty doggies after much wacking.

Next the party encountered a group of 4 Xorn, whose bizarre appearance put the wind up the rogue something fierce. Nrel the sorcerer webbed the lot and proceeded to execute a text book Baleful Transposition and Cleric of Farhlanggan trick. Swapping Grann the cleric for the nearest Xorn, the group beat the living pebbles out of the Xorn while Grann, using his god-given power of Free Action ran out of the web unhindered. Rinse, repeat, exit 4 Xorn.

Best quote of the night:

Nrel on Grann's vital role in the Xorn swap: "Hah, a trained monkey could do this."

Grann, aggrieved: "Hey, a trained monkey of Farhlanggan, maybe."

We also have to thank the GM, whose lousy saving throws made all this possible.

In other news: still sick, but now armed with antibiotics to stop this spreading to my sinuses. Or so I hope.

Bah. The weekend's round of churning stomach, nausea, sudden sweats and general crappiness has given way to a Monday of barking like a seal, sudden sweats fatigue and general crappiness. Had enough now, want wellness back.

Last night, after juggling two reluctant kids off to sleep, sammywol and I had a very pleasant evening with mizkit, chefted and irishkate. Tea and cake were consumed (note the passive voice to protect the identities of the culprits), and much badinage was indulged in.

So why is it I feel like death on defrost this morning? If I'd known I'd be like this in the morning last night I'd have hit the Laphroaig.

Avid readers of sammywol will know already from this post, but I felt I should keep my friends-list up to date.

My daughter Rowan has had pains on and off in her arms and knees for several months and the GP and specialist have decided it the most likely diagnosis is polyarticulate juvenile arthritis. This is a bit worrying partly because it's one of those conditions that doesn't seem to have any single underlying cause that you can treat, partly because, well, just because we're parents and we worry.

Most of the time Rowan doesn't seem to have any problems; she's active and pain-free. Sometimes she has pains and aches which unfortunately don't respond particularly well to the NSAIDs (ibuprofen for the most part). A couple of times she's had difficulty getting started in the mornings from stiffness, though of course I have that to and blame the prospect of having to face work.

Anyway, investigations are ongoing, and it's early days. Most of the stuff I've read about it suggests that she'll be find as long as we get regular check-ups and a variety of treatments (drug and non-drug like physio, school support and so on).

So now you know.

More upbeat - new pics up at our Picasa gallery.



(ETA: Thanks to doc_mystery for the JRA link (and others) provided above.)

I ate for the first time in the Quay Co-Op today, a pleasant little cafe over a health food shop in Cork, which came highly recommended by work friends.

Now I won't blame them outright, as there are weird tummy bugs going round, but ever since lunch it's been a mighty storm south of the Corcoran esophagus.

Just sayin'.

I'm off work this week, so we planned to visit sammywol's parents for a couple of days. I say planned because that all has changed. sammywol has come down with something suspiciously like the winter vomiting bug, and all bets are off.

Poor sammywol is stuck in bed, at best, and feeling very poorly. Be gone, foul microbes! Out vile viruses!

2008 seems to have arrived safely as I slept. With a 9 month old boy of erratic sleep patterns I was never going to stay up 'til midnight.

Sam, however, was up late. Oscar decided the time between midnight and 3am was perfect play time and Sam's early birthday present left me sleeping as she dealt with the boy.

He seems to be none the worse for his lack of sleep and odd hours. He's currently watching one of his grandparents' dogs expectly skin a tennis ball. I can't tell if he's delighted or horrified. He's certainly mesmerised.

So for 2008 my first and most fervent wish is for health for all the family. 2007 had quite a few ups and downs in this respect and we could all do with a more stable, healthy routine.

Oscar, this means sleeping. At night. Understand?

Happy New Year everyone.

Oscar hasn't been sleeping well these last few nights. He's got a rotten cold and is badly stuffed up and is finding lying down to sleep difficult. So Sam and I are panda-eyed with lack of sleep from multiple interruptions during the night with a restless, snot-bedeviled baby.

At one point last night I headed downstairs to offer Sam a rest and switch over of minders. She was watching an old episode of ST:TNG as Oscar cruised about, wakeful and relatively cheerful. Sam said she was okay and I went back to bed.

In bed, however, I didn't get back to sleep straightaway. As I lay there an odd noise on the stairs caught my attention. I hear the banging sound of stair gate at the bottom of the stairs. Oscar likes to bang this gate, and we usually leave it pushed shut past the catch so it has enough range of movement to bang between catch and step.

Sleepy-headed me didn't join the dots immediately. A few moments later I heard footsteps on the stairs and foggily I thought it was Sam coming to bed. The television was still on however and the steps were very slow - step, pause, step, pause, step.

Click!

I dashed out of bed and found Oscar halfway up the stairs, methodically climbing up by means of the bannisters.

It's all go at our house sometimes.

Compare this report from the BBC and this article at Junkfood Science and spot the difference.

So BBC, agenda much?

(Thanks to fjm for the original link to Junkfood Science.)

Damn it all. For the last couple of days I've had pains down my right side (no diodes though). It started off with a sharp pain in my heel whenever I put weight on the foot, but it's since moved around to include a pain in my hip, my right wrist and in my upper arm. It's all very reminiscent of pains I suffered before from a pinched nerve or somesuch in my back, brought on by some postural problem. Given that I've spent a lot of time in the wee small hours over the last couple of weeks trying to get one small person back to sleep by carrying him about and bouncing him in my arms I suspect that I've buggered me back carrying Oscar about.

Shit. I so could do without this.

Well, I'm pooped. State of play in Casa Corcoran at the end of a long week:

• Sam's back in bed, feeling rotten with some sort of nausea and stomach pains, hopefully nothing post-op but just something she picked up from


• Oscar, who is suffering from some nose/tummy combo that has him awake at odd hours, sore in the tum, and mercurial in mood. A bit like his sister


• Rowan, who was suffering from nightmares last night (thankfully not at exactly the same time as Oscar was awake) and whose mood swings are beginning to wear the nerves thin.

I am trying to stop myself from buying mood-enhancing tech gadets from the web as, while such retail therapy might lift my mood a bit, it's a short-lived thing and the house is bursting at the seams already.

One good bit of news: We had irishkate round to visit last night, and were delighted to discover another LJ-friend come to life in the real world. Now begins the campaign to get her, mizkit and chefted round for some roleplaying.

sammywol is home safe and sound from the hospital, minus her stone-stuffed gallbladder and seems none the worse for her experiences.

Phew.

Good news: my wife, Sam, has had her gallbladder removed successfully and is recovering nicely in South Infirmary. She should be home tomorrow.

Bad news: The ESB, the State-owned electricity supplier for the country, has blown another fuse and plunged a large portion of the city (or least the important bit: where I live) into stygian darkness.

This power cut business is becoming a habit. Usually it's a pain in the arse because I'm restarting servers and services at work. Tonight it's a double pain in the arse because my wife's in hospital and I've two kids to get off to bed. In the dark.

Fucking ESB muppets.

Sam is going into hospital tomorrow for gallbladder surgery. Surgery I'm hoping will go textbook smooth and bring Sam home hale and hearty in short order. I wish this not only because I want her well and healthy, but also selfishly I don't want to have to kiddie-wrangle for an indefinite period.

Oscar still doesn't sleep through the night and is quite accustomed to breastfeeds in the small hours, something I'm just not equipped for. Rowan, not yet 5 years old, is currently treating us to a sample of teenaged unreasonableness, changing personality from minute to minute and generally being a pain in the ass. I hope this is reflected anxiety from the impending surgery she's picked up from us and not a new and unwelcome phase that will go on until she flip-flops again.

It's not all bad of course. My mother has wonderfully taken some time off work and volunteered to come down from Dublin for a few days while Sam is in hospital. My in-laws have offered to come in and lend a hand and our neighbours up the road say they'll get Rowan into school in the mornings next week.

I'm off work all week to man the guns at home and there was no problem taking the time off at relatively short notice.

So it's fingers crossed for swift, professional, and complete care for Sam, and sleeping kids for me.

On my way into work now, after an early start courtesy of the end of Summer Time and Oscar. Awake and active at about 5.00 this morning, he was. He's usually an early riser and coupled with the clocks going back this weekend he's now a ridiculously early riser. Stupid Summer Time.

It's made worse by the expectation that next Sunday my wife is going into hospital for a gall bladder operation. She'll likely be away for at least two nights and Oscar is entirely used to a bedtime routine centred round his mother. I lack a couple of important assets, you see.

Well, he's in for a rude awakening. Unfortunately I will be too, no doubt.

I'm taking all of next week off to man the home front during Sam's hospital stay and subsequent recovery. Thank goodness my job has that sort of flexibility
.

That when I'm in the middle of a fiddly Blackberry migration at work, which of course involves the big names in the college, that the backup system starts to fall apart and I come down with a stupid cold complete with annoying cough, sweats and nose like a tap?

This question may be rhetorical.

I've had enough of headaches. I'm developing another one now and I had two or three over the weekend. Either my posture's shot, I'm coming down with something, or my evil thoughts are finally eliciting retribution.

Bugger.

I'm back in bed after a brief attempt at facing the day. I seem to have
contracted some infection that's left me shivering and achy and unable to
string much of a sentence together.

Sammywol has taken the kids to the park there to rendezvous with
grandparents while I slink back to bed to see if I can sleep this off.

Bah.

I broke a tooth. Part of one of my lower left molars cracked and has left the tooth pulp exposed. There's no pain (so far) but it's left a sharp edge and a visit to the dentist on Monday will be required. On top of that I never found the missing piece so I think I've swallowed part of my own tooth. I hope it doesn't bite me in the arse later.

Fired with an urge to walk at lunchtime and inspired by Map My Run, a website that lets me see how far I've walked around the city (or wherever), I dashed out just now all ready to stomp my way around Fitzgerald Park and the UCC campus grounds. By the time I'd reached the Western Road (about 3 minutes away from my office building) it was pouring hail on my head.

Good intentions be damned. Tomorrow is time enough.

Sigh.

Well, the obstetrician said "that cervix hasn't budged an inch", so we're go for a c-section sometime tomorrow.

Fingers crossed.

Hey, guess what? I'm feeling better. Unfortunately, sammywol, my poor wife, has come down with the same illness and had a damn rough night. The only good piece of news is that our daughter Rowan hasn't shown any signs of catching it yet, so maybe her vomiting at the weekend wasn't a concussion at all but the first symptoms of this now family-wide infection.

I'm keeping a close eye on sammywol as dehydration is a particular risk for a pregnant woman, and our GP said to watch out for it. Overnight she had no luck keeping any fluids down but she seems to have got past the vomiting stage now and is managing to get some water and Dioralyte (an electrolyte replacement drink) into herself.

I am so fed up of these health troubles.

Rowan & I are home again. She doing better but seems to be running a fever
too so there's a likelihood of an infection (probably urinary tract)
coincident with the concussion. Neurologically she seems to be fine though
and that's a big relief.

She's sleeping on the couch now beside Sam and I'm just heading to bed now
for a nap. I don't think any of us had a good night's sleep last night.

Thanks everyone for the good wishes and positive thoughts.

Only this time it's my daughter Rowan who is the patient.

She fell earlier today and banged her head good & proper on the ground. She
seemed fine then but a few hours later she vomited a couple of times and
we're all in A&E now waiting for a doctor to examine her[1].

It's my wife's turn next when offspring #2 arrives in March. Let's hope she
doesn't get jealous of husband and daughter hogging the medical limelight
and try to get into hospital early with a crisis of her own.

[1] We took her first to a late night GP service in Cork where the doctor
examined her and sent her home. One incident of vomiting wasn't too worrying
he said. Later Rowan vomited again and now we're in the A&E.

I am home at last. I was discharged from the hospital around lunchtime; my
wife picked me up and got me home. She then had to do a consultation hour in
college and pick Rowan up from the crèche, so the proper family reunion was
delayed until they got back around 15.30.

It's a small family, just the three of us, but we can still manage a damn
big hug when when the need arises.

It's *good* to be home with my family.

I'm still in hospital, but doing pretty well. My parents-in-law have just
dropped by with a care package from home (Sam and Rowan can't come into the
hospital because of the winter vomiting bug clamp-down). Included was a new
picture drawn by Rowan. It shows three figures, one smiling, curly-haired
blond, one round-tummied, long-haired, and one bearded chap, bald in the
middle. I am ludricrously touched by this.

I'm back. More or less anyway. I was first in the schedule this morning and
was carted down to theatre just after 8am and went in about 8.45. Don't
remember anything from after they started me on oxygen prior to the
anaesthetic.

When I came round they watched me for a while in recovery (I guess; I'm not
very clear on that part) then brought me back to the ward. I've been in the
observation area by the nurses' station there since around 11.00

Unfortunately I haven't seen anyone from the surgical team yet, so I've no
idea on how the surgery went. There certainly a hole in my neck, so
something was done. I'm still pretty wiped out, but really at this stage I
wish I could talk to someone about the surgery itself and how it went.

However, I've just been given a cup of tea. That makes things much better.

And of course when I paused in writing this on my Blackberry to drink my tea
the team were in and told me that despite the inconclusive scans prior to
the surgery, they found a clearly enlarged right inferior parathyroid gland,
which they removed and saw an immediate 70% drop in the parathyroid hormone
levels. I'm to stay in overnight and they'll check the PTH levels and
calcium levels again then.

Which is to say all's going well. Phew.

I'm off to hospital today for a scheduled parathyroidectomy (an operation to remove one or more of the parathyroid glands). The kidney stones I've had, twice in the last three years, appear to be caused by a hyperactive parathyroid gland. The parathyroid produces PTH (parathyroid hormone; doctors aren't imaginative about naming hormones), which regulates calcium levels in the blood. High levels of calcium have almost certainly caused the kidney stones.

So I'm having it out. Or rather one of the four glands in question if it proves to be just a single culprit. I spent some time yesterday on the Web looking at pages on parathyroidectomies (an example for the strong of stomach here, a FAQ here and the inevitable Wikipedia page here).

Summary: gory but with a good rate of success. Possibly an interesting scar I can later blame on a drug deal gone wrong or an overenthusiastic sabre duel with a rival in college.

I'm back from the New Year's celebrations and a brief break up in Dublin visiting my mother, brother and his wife. The Christmas period was spent with sammywol's folks in West Cork, the New Year with my relatives, and now I feel like I could do with another break just spent at home. Unfortunately I'm back to work tomorrow (I should have been back on Tuesday but I took annual leave so as to celebrate my birthday (the 2nd) in Dublin and to ease back into the Cork scene gently.

I feel that I should be treating myself gently because I've got a trip to hospital scheduled for Monday. Recently the very clever people in the Cork University Hospital (CUH) decided that I have primary hyperparathroidism, and it's this condition that has provoked the kidney stones I've suffered from in the last 3 years or so.

This means that I'm into the hospital on Sunday evening, overnight there and get a scan on the Monday morning. If all is ready to go, I'm in on Monday afternoon to have the offending gland excised (it's likely one of the four PT glands and I hope I won't miss it). This done, I'm assured that I won't have any repetition of the kidney stone business. Fingers crossed.

As readers of my wife's LJ will know, our daughter Rowan has chicken pox. Yesterday the spots started appearing and we've resigned ourselves to the itching, the time off from playschool and the chaos it makes of our schedules for the next week or more. Luckily for her, Rowan seems to be mostly unconcerned by the whole thing, and apart from an occasional scratch she's pretty much ignoring the problem altogether.

My boss is understanding so when I have to take time off this week, it's not going to cause a problem, I'm glad to say.

Of course, now I itch.

All over.

I hate auto-suggestion.