Nope, still not done talking about that appendix

ITEM 1: Going home today--maybe, probably, we hope so? Fingers crossed.

ITEM 2: This hospital has been awesome. The next time I get a Zagat survey for children's hospitals I will give it consistently high marks. The only missing from our room is a reading light, for those (admittedly rare) nights when the kid fell asleep before the parents.

ITEM 3: Suggestion for basement inventors: Please figure out a way to make easily removable adhesive tape for medical use. Oh the screaming.

ITEM 4: When I agreed to try out (well, have Jo try out) Hanes' No Ride Up underwear for the Parent Bloggers Network, I had no idea that we'd be subjecting the "Comfort Fit Promise"--a money-back guarantee!--to such a rigorous test.

Check The Full Mommy to find out how the Hanes undies fared against a sore post-op tummy (and two ways to get freebies for yourself).

Multiplication and division

It's now been two full weeks since that offending little piece of tissue was removed and my little girl is still in the hospital. She had to have another surgical procedure on Friday, round two of ridding her body of the infectious gunk that is so firmly lodged in her gut. So far, she seems to be responding well, and we'll know more tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe she'll even get to come home.

When we got home from San Francisco last Sunday night, I stayed up until 2 a.m. completing a freelance job that had to be in by 8:30 that Monday morning. After I mailed it off, I stared at my bedroom ceiling for another hour fretting about everything on my long to-do list, from unpacking to catching up on work to Full Mommy reviews to weeding my overgrown flower beds.

Needless to say, another week has evaporated and I've done almost none of those things that were so important they kept me up that night. In the hospital, I have wireless but I don't have any ability to concentrate. If it isn't the worry (are 5 CT scans too many for a 40-pound, 6-year-old child? How much longer can this possibly go on?), it's the endless Disney Channel loop, or the nurse coming in or out, or the entreaties to take just one more sip of Gatorade.

These days, more than ever, I feel like every minute spent doing one critical task is a minute stolen from some other equally critical task. Time playing with Opie (an absolute trouper during this whole ordeal, I must note) is time away from Jo's bedside. Fifteen minutes answering work e-mail is 15 minutes not finding something nutritious for us all to eat. A half-hour sleeping is a half-hour not blogging (aka taking time for myself).

This has been the longest and shortest month of my life. Wake me when it's over.

Rebound girl

The bad news is we're back at the hospital.

The good news is that as setbacks go, this one isn't awful. (Although hearing the words "If it was my child, I'd want her to have the cat scan tonight--I wouldn't wait until tomorrow" wasn't exactly reassuring.) Jo just needs to spend a little more time with an IV pump and a couple of syringes of antibiotics.

And as far as amenities go, our local children's ward is kicking SF's butt, what with the superspacious private room and bath. And the slippery vinyl sofa is way better for parental sleep than the slippery vinyl recliner. Oh and here, the cafeteria staff is not on strike, so I can actually eat. Yay for Mayberry.

mayberry mom ... all appendectomy, all the time!

Preschooler on a plane (in 3 acts)

I.



II.



III.

Appendectomy vacation: Not recommended!

Well! So that was a fun trip. Jo was discharged on Friday. That's five nights in the hospital, most of it hooked up to an IV and some other unpleasant tubing; five days without solid food; and at least five tantrums over medicine (taste thereof).

We have been so lucky up to this point with healthy kids. In 6 years we'd never been to the emergency room and the only medical procedure they'd had was one set of itty bitty ear tubes. Now I know it's true that everything else just falls away when your child is sick and really, really needs you. Jeff and I almost fought over who'd be the one to sleep in her hospital room--we traded off staying there and taking care of Opie. I hated being away from her, even when Opie and I were off having little adventures around the city (taking the Muni to the beach: best $1.50 I spent).

She's never been so sick, and she's still not better--she's achy and tired and sad. I'm afraid she's lost any faith she had in doctors and medicine and possibly even the power of her parents to make things right. Not exactly the souvenir I'd hoped to bring home from San Francisco.

In the end, Jeff and the kids got one day of sightseeing and I got one day at BlogHer. I missed the keynotes and the parties and seeing many of you, but I'm grateful for those I did get to see, and for all the warm wishes and good thoughts for Jo.

Scenes from a hospital room

We've had our ups (popsicles) and our downs (medicine refusal) but things are getting better. Very, very slowly, but we're hoping to see more sunshine than fog soon.

Cue Tony Bennett (and why I might miss BlogHer)

Except it wasn't her heart Jo left in San Francisco. It was her appendix.

Instead of Chinatown and the Golden Gate Bridge we are touring the emergency room and children's ward. My big girl has an IV taped to her arm, plastic bracelets on both wrists and three small, heart-shaped bandages on her belly. She hasn't had a bite of solid food since Friday evening.

Yes, our child had a ruptured appendix and instead of taking her to the doctor, we put her on a plane and flew her halfway across the country. You can line up right behind us for the Jerks of the Year award.

She needs four or five days of intravenous antibiotics and recovery time. It's been 24 hours since the surgery and she can barely stand to move an inch or be touched anywhere on her body.

Which is to say: I may not make it to BlogHer. And the thing is, I don't even care. I've been looking forward to it since the minute I drove away from the W last year, and I have lots of new friends I really wanted to meet this time (not to mention old ones to see again). But right now, the only place I want to be is next to this bed, in this vinyl-covered recliner, waiting for my sweet girl to smile again.

If it's Sunday, it must be San Francisco

I didn't really mean to leave that birthday-wish-soliciting post up for so long. But since July 1, my calendar has looked like this:

2 nights home
3 nights away
3 nights home
2 nights away
1 night home
8 nights away

I'm now about to start #1 of those last 8 (up to and including BlogHer). So I'll remain scarce, especially after the geesemice descend in a few days. I've never been very good at planning ahead with blogging. It feels too much like work, after years of writing about Christmas every June in my magazine days. So later, gators!

Like fine wine and fine art

I am getting better with age.

Right?

My presents, speaking of art:

Lousy photo, but you get the drift. If you don't, here is a close-up of the "schuhe":


My husband commissioned it from my sister-in-law. The vase brings our collection of Arts & Crafts ceramics to three oddball vessels:

Individually, they're kind of nutty, but as a group, they work. Aw, just like the blogosphere!

It's just a jump to the left

And then a step to the right. I'm back from Flashback Weekend and my head is still spinning. Besides the fact that visiting my in-laws is already a step into an alternate, back-in-time universe, I also went to my 20th high school reunion. I. know.

In the car on the way there, I stumbled onto every Greatest Hits of the 80s station there was. Scan ... "California Girls" (David Lee Roth version) .... scan ... "Manic Monday" ... scan ... "And We Danced" (Hooters, baby).

I ate one meal that consisted entirely of frozen yogurt (just like my entire 8th grade year) and another one made up of Pop Tarts (just like ... never, my mom refused to buy those).

I stayed in a king jacuzzi "suite" in a roadside motel. Skee-zay. The jacuzzi was in the corner of the (one) room, two feet from the bed.

Mostly I just tried to wrap my mind around the way things change. The way that huge subdivisions sprout up in my once-tiny hometown, seemingly overnight. The way that our old Roy's is now a souvenir shop. The way that the convenience store I once rode my bike to looks so seedy I'd never let my kids in.

And yet all the people are exactly the same. They look the same, sound the same, hang out with the same clique they did 20 years ago. One woman I swear I never spoke to in four years of school gave me a big hug, called me by name, said how happy she was to see me. What is that about?

You're spaced out on sensation, like you're under sedation
Let's do the Time Warp again!

Again with the waterparks

I believe I mentioned at least once (maybe twice) that we recently traveled to the Waterpark Capital of the WORLD. You can read all about it in a two-parter at The Full Mommy. It's multimedia, baby -- includes a mini-review performed by the kids on video.

And that'll have to hold you for a few days. Off to the in-laws' for the holiday weekend. Have a good one!