This One's A Dud

Not *reaaaalllyyy* a big deal, but definitely annoying and somewhat untimely-- my dad needed my car (which was really his car) for a long road-trip to pick up my grandma from Maryland, so he swapped his for mine (which used to be my grammy's). Less than 90 minutes after I had his, the tire blew. I waited until the morning to do anything about it since it was after 9pm and freezing cold, and AAA came within an hour and a half or so of my calling for assistance. The guy who helped me got the spare tire out of the trunk (it's a '99 Cavalier and the spare is just as old, so I was pleased to see that there was more than a pile of dust and rusty rims in there as I was expecting a geriatric family of moths to fly out when he opened the hatch under the trunk!), put it onto the car and inflated it a bit. I was good to go!

Phew-- no sweat off my back.

Then I drove my grammy-mobile to the tire shop and (also amazing) they were able to patch the tire! As soon as it was all done I drove to my parents' house and traded cars again as by that time my dad was back from his trip.

Easy come, easy go-- and thanks, dad, for swapping cars with me in the first place!

A Good Roommate Is Hard To Find

I know that time seems to pass by so quickly when you're in the midst of a busy life, but it really is uncanny how fast a year can go without your ever realizing it. Such is the case with my first year in my (now not so) new apartment. I'd written about it in my last blog post (not the recovered tree one from 2007, mind you) and was extremely excited at the prospect of moving out of my parents' house again after having lived there since finally finishing with my undergraduate work at university in 2005.


Well, a year and some months later and that roommate, the girl I'd previously described as "a friend from work" that I was excited to be moving into an apartment with, turned out to be a dud. Actually, worse than a dud. The year itself was OK-- I mean, work was hard and with its own issues, and a lot of family stuff was going on, but my new living situation somewhat took up a lot of the free space in my brain. And I think it was a general toss up between what a relief it was to again be in an apartment on my own versus how crazy and ridiculous and borderline scary my roommate was.


Let me start from the beginning-- this girl, let's just call her Maria for lack of a better name, didn't initially want to live with a roommate. She was 30 or so at the time and her lease was going to expire at the end of June, so she needed a place to live. But she'd been living by herself for a few years and wasn't so keen on living with someone who wasn't a boyfriend, who she didn't have at the time. Knowing this, I groomed her into believing that splitting the apartment with me would be the best idea (so really the disaster of a year with her was all my fault!). After some coaxing and some budget proposing, she agreed. The entire place was $1600/month in rent and it was big. Not new or glamorous or particularly sturdy, but big. So for $800/month plus cable and utilities we each got two bedrooms and a shared living room, kitchen, bathroom and deck with street parking. Not too bad. Her two rooms were adjoining, and mine had a view of the Hudson river and the Tappan Zee bridge. Two nice touches that helped to seal the deal, I think.

Maria moved in at the end of June and I moved in at the beginning of July, and at first things seemed to go pretty well. I should have guessed, however, that something was "off" the first week we lived together when her sister called the cops and filed a missing persons report on her because Maria hadn't called to check in with her in a couple of days. So for three days the police came to my apartment, at all hours, to look for her. When I finally got in touch with her and told her to go to the police station to let them know she was OK, she refused, stating she didn't feel like it... what a naive idiot I was to think that'd be the extent of her craziness! But then I started to notice a few more little things the continued to bother me... like she never cleaned up after herself except for washing her own dishes. So our kitchen and bathroom got kind of dirty. And she never washed her dog or vacuumed the rugs, so there was black pet hair everywhere, and on the rare occasion that she'd attempt to clip her dog's toenails, she'd leave the little black bits of nail on the rug as well. Dirtiness wasn't her only flaw, either. She seemed a bit inhumane to her pet, we'll call her Jasmine for lack of a better name, who she kept locked up in one of her adjoining bedrooms for the most part, even in the summer despite not having air conditioners in her windows. She took her to pee in the mornings before work, often came home on her lunch hour to walk Jasmine, but then would come home and forget to walk her again at night, which would result in a puddle of urine or a pile of poo either on the kitchen floor or on the back porch.

And how can I forget the time she stopped wanting to take turns taking out the trash? It had been 95* outside for over a week and I had been out of town. When I returned, I spent some time cleaning up the disgusting kitchen just so I would feel safe preparing foods there again... and out of the corner of my eye I noticed movement from the window in the kitchen on the back deck. I saw that it was birds-- very sweet finches and doves and other small birds. How sweet! But then I remembered that we really didn't get birds on our back deck and wondered why we had them all of a sudden... and then I saw why. Maria had left a bag of trash out back for who knows how long, and an extended family of maggots had grown inside the bag, attracting all of the birds, which had pulled holes in the garbage bag to get at the maggots-- which were squirming all over the deck under the bag. Ugh.

Maria also had sticky fingers and a very creative imagination with how she seemed to procure items that didn't belong to her. For example, I had bought a ton of chocolates and candies in bright colors and filled up several clear glass vases that I have on display on the bookshelves in the living room-- it was so pretty that way, and passing through one could have a sweet treat. But within a week $25 worth of candy and chocolate was gone-- demolished by Maria. And then there was the episode with the hand soap in the bathroom. I had filled it for an entire year with soap refills and two months before she left I got sick of it, so I let it run out and waited for her to finally purchase a refill. Four days later soap appeared in the pump, but I recognized the smell and noticed the absence of a bottle of body wash that I had been keeping in the linen closet. When I questioned her about it she lied and said she filled it with "just some soap that I had lying around," which I clarified with her was *my* soap that *I* had lying around and why didn't she just go out and buy some instead of telling a lie about it and taking my stuff. She called me a petty bitch and asked if I was going to penny pinch for the rest of the time she was going to be living with me.

I wondered if I was still being a petty bitch when I felt anger and disgust after discovering that she'd been logging onto my computer to print out school materials for herself and had exhausted my printer ink completely, leaving me unable to print out a boarding pass the morning of a flight. And when I'd discovered naked pictures of her that she'd downloaded to my computer's hard drive, evidently to email to a boyfriend, of whom I also found naked pictures. I guess she thought she had gotten rid of them, but the recycle bin on the computer doesn't empty itself! So I got to see her boyfriend's erect penis, Maria's spread-eagle vagina (the X features in red were added by me to keep this blog from being too XXX rated!), and a bunch of other nauseating displays all over my 19" flat screen monitor. Blech.

And then the month before she moved out, she cancelled the electricity account. Sigh. I didn't feel like living in the dark or in the 100* weather we were experiencing this past summer, so I opened up another account, but she refused to pay her part.

When she finally moved out, I made plans not to be around as things between us had become somewhat strained. So Susan and I went to Virginia for the weekend... but not before I put locks on both of my doors. I didn't know what she was planning, but I didn't want her touching any of my stuff on her way out.

On returning home, I discovered that Maria had shorted out the power by leaving the microwave running without any food in it... as I noted by seeing the dial time down from 25 minutes on high when I flipped the switch on the fuse box. In shorting out the apartment's electricity, the fridge had shut off, ruining hundreds of dollars worth of my food. I figured it was her parting gift and was just glad for a fresh start and to be rid of her.

But I was mistaken! One more grand interaction which culminated in a visit from the police-- complete with her screaming and banging with all her might on the front and back doors to the building, honking wildly on the car horn, getting a neighbor to let her into the building by scamming them about what she was doing at the apartment, and then climbing out the window on the landing outside of my front door, climbing onto the roof of the front porch and banging on my bedroom windows, apparently trying to push her way into my room via dislodging the air conditioner perched in one of the windows. All because she'd left her computer router and a bag of dog food in the apartment and she wanted them back. At 11 o'clock at night. With no advance notice.

So yeah-- that basically sums up my year with Maria. I'm glad it's over... but it sure does make for some good campfire stories.

Goodbye Big Tree

[NOTE: I just found this post and realized I'd written it in July of 2007 without ever publishing it. So for posterity, here it is.]

I moved to the house I currently live in sometime around the 9th year of my life. Before that I'd lived in a condominium a quarter mile away and before that, a roach-motel of an apartment in Mount Vernon, NY until I was about one year old. The house itself was built during the early 1950s and the trees that are/were on the property have been there since the inception of the neighborhood.

Sadly, about 8 years ago the big Maple tree in our back yard got sick. Despite nitrogen injections and heroic efforts made by my mother and the people at the tree-rescue company, the tree died and had to be cut down so it wouldn't fall onto the house during a heavy storm. That was a sad day as not only was the tree beautiful, but it's leaves provided tons of shade for the back yard, it's roots a grave site for many of my childhood pets, and a lovely branch from which my tire swing had hung.

Then, in the last few years we started to notice that the Japanese Maple growing in the front yard wasn't as robust as it had been in the past. Fewer and fewer leaves were coming back spring after spring until finally, this spring, nothing grew back-- this tree had died, too.

Sigh. It was really unexpected, as you can imagine, when the town arborist made a visit to our front lawn to inspect our "sick" tree. No, not the dead Japanese Maple. The arborist told us that our beloved gigantic Ash had to come down-- the only remaining of the great living trees in the yard. My whole family was shocked-- this was a gorgeous, healthy looking, leaf-laden tree which appeared to be thriving where it was next to our driveway. For days my mom argued with the town about the fate of our tree, but in the end, they told her that it was afflicted by some kind of blight and that it was a public hazard.

So, on July 8th, the men from the town came and cut it down. The three of us went into the yard and tried to stop them, but the guy basically told us that if we resisted their work, he'd just call the cops. So we stepped aside and let them do their dirty work of ridding our front yard of shade and beauty. Ugh.

Since then the yard has been noticeably sunnier (and uglier). I've been looking in planters' catalogs and wildlife books trying to pick out the types of trees we should plant in the next year or so. Maples are always a good choice for this area since they're hardy and beautiful and provide a good amount of shade... but we're also considering some more ornamental types of trees. Who knows what we'll decide, but when we do, I'll post pictures of that.

UPDATE from 2011: My parents and I never did replant in the front yard, and it remains uneven and extremely sunny (uncomfortably so in the summer). I tried adding a few small flowering shrubs in the planting beds we have in the front and back yards, and it does look a little better with the delicate hot pink flowers in the spring and summer, but they don't provide any shade and nothing compares to the majestic beauty of an old growth tree. Hopefully at some point in the future the front yard will again be the home for some beautiful shade trees. Perhaps when I move back in... I guess only time will tell.

Not Buying A Home

Ok, so if buying a home doesn't quite work out, and you've got to get out of your parents' house come Hell or high water, there's always renting, right?

Well that's what I did. After looking at a bunch of places all over the county, and after having made two unsuccessful offers (not on the unit mentioned in the previous post, but on a completely different condominium that was being sold privately) on a place and being disappointed and then finding the condo of my dreams right where I wanted it to be, I thought I'd be all set. But, some things just don't work out the way one might expect, right? Part of life being interesting, I guess.

But, as luck would have it, an old friend from my childhood with whom I'd recently reconnected through an online social forum mentioned to me that she and her roommates would be moving out of her apartment but that she would be moving to the basement studio, and that her 3 bedroom unit would be available. I jumped! My prospective roommate, (I'll use an alias here for privacy of my roommate) "Maria", and I went to visit the place one night after work and as soon as I saw that it had potential, and knowing that the rent was affordable, I made the confirmation call to the landlord that I wanted it.

It worked out great-- today "Maria" and I and my friend Susan went to the place to see it one more time, work out details of a renter's agreement, and to pay the deposit.

So it's final! And as much as I REALLY wanted to be a homeowner, I know that that'll come in time. But what's more important is that now I'll be living away from home, with a friend from work, and that I can once again be a free lady. Phew! I can't wait!!

Now, I also can't wait to be a homeowner, but I guess all the good stuff in life takes time...

Buying A Home

I've been entertaining the idea for quite some time, especially since living with my parents isn't all that cool anymore! So lately I've been going to open houses and scheduling showings in my area and the more I see other places, the more I realize how much I like this one particular condominium that I saw. It's in the same complex that I'd lived in as a child, which is maybe why I like it so much, but it has a pool and meeting room at the clubhouse, great parking, no pet restrictions, low taxes and maintenance fees, and is in a fantastic school district with great district amenities (gigantic pool and tennis courts at the school).

The unit itself is in a bit of a state of disrepair as it seems it has mostly not been updated since the complex was built except for newish flooring and paint and a new sink in the bathroom and appliances in the kitchen. It does need all new windows and new sliding glass doors out to the terrace, a new terrace railing as the one that's there is really wobbly and rusted out, a new kitchen counter/cabinet as the existing one isn't connected to the wall very well (I leaned on it to sign the sign-in sheet and the entire counter moved up and down), and new carpeting as there was a big iron burn in the master bedroom and my mother said she could smell dog urine in the rugs, plus the bathtub has three big circular rust stains in it, so that'll need to be changed, too. Aside from the wobbly counter in the kitchen, there will need to be updated in the cosmetic department since the counter tops and cabinets and hardware are all original, and it looks like the insides of the MANY closets have never been cleaned or painted, ever.

I really do like it though, so I hope I can put an offer on it that the seller will like. There's already an offer in place, but no contracts have been signed and the seller is still entertaining other offers in the meantime. Hopefully the realtor and I will be able to take another look at the place... I'd really like to be a homeowner!

I'm so excited... we'll see what happens and I'll be sure to keep you all updated!

Wow-- It's REALLY Been A Long Time

Okay, so it's been almost a whole year since my last post. I bet all of you loyal readers are jealous because my life is so exciting that I don't even have time to post a few entries here and there. But have no fear, I'm here to throw you a bone and give you some updates on the craziness that's happened in my life in the last 11 or so months (or what I can remember of it!).


Over the summer I participated in the 2008 Boston 3-Day and faced the biggest challenge of my life-- successfully! Walking those 60 miles were fantastic... so much so, that I even signed up for this year's walk. So... if you're interested in donating, please visit http://www.the3day.org/goto/emilyharper2009 for this year's fundraising site and give all that you can. The funds that you give help with breast cancer research, treatment and education and the whole thing is tax deductible. If you can't donate online, there's a link on that page to print out the paper donation form to mail in. Please help!

Hmmm... what else has happened lately. Well, in August, my mom had a spine surgery that was unsuccessful, and now she's in even more back pain than she was before. I stayed with her the entire time she was an inpatient, which I think was three days. She had the surgery at NY Presbyterian, Weil-Cornell campus, and I think the very best part of the whole event was the room she got after leaving PACU. She had a private corner room on the 14th floor (I think) overlooking the East River and the 59th Street Bridge, and from one of the many floor-to-ceiling windows, I think I remember seeing the Empire State Building. It was like living in an airy $8000/month studio apartment in a luxury building with room service, except my roommate was constantly screaming in pain and needed to be helped frequently to the bathroom to pee.


Then in September I went to the Dominican Republic with one of my friends and stayed with her and her family in a tiny three bedroom house in a *very* small village outside of Azua about an hour or so away from Santo Domingo. It was a great trip but ended with an unintentional weight loss of about 15 pounds, which normally wouldn't be such a bad thing. But when you consider traveling internationally with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and your period as a bonus, it doesn't sound so hot. But other than that, the trip was great. Also in September was Kate's bridal shower weekend which included two (not one!) bridal showers in Rochester and Auburn and a visit I did up to Buffalo to see Melissa. It was such a nice visit, so nice to see everyone!

In October my dad was diagnosed with cancer, so that month was filled with attempting to figure out the big "what's next?" as far as his plan of care. He started an aggressive plan of chemotherapy and radiation, had a feeding tube surgically placed in the operating room, and began his healing process which is still going on as he's still unable to swallow (thank God for the feeding tube!). Though his recovery seems slow, I know he's doing a lot better, and we're all pretty much just passing time until his follow up diagnostic scans, which I hope will take place early in April.

Also in October was Kate and Ryan's wedding. Yay! I was the Maid of Honor (yes, I know this is the third wedding I've been in...), Matt was one of the Groomsmen, and the coolest parts of the whole day were sharing in the ceremony that Kate's dad performed at the Downtown Rochester Public Library (gorgeous!), and having me and Matt as the witnesses to sign the marriage license. Aw! The reception was a blast and the whole weekend was a big success and a lot of fun... except for the speeding ticket that I got on the way up to Rochester (which, I have to say, was completely devastating and undeserved-- I was attempting to avoid hitting another state trooper whose ass was hanging out into the highway as well as trying not to get rear-ended/rear-end the people in front of me-- but alas, I pleaded not guilty, was charged with a lesser offense, and mailed my $285.00 in like a good citizen afraid of losing my license!). Wow... that was a big digression. :)



November held another vacation-- this time my very first cruise, as well as my very first vacation with someone other than Susan. Her friend, Mike, attended with us and made the whole thing an interesting experience with an odd number of people. The trip was great though-- the boat was beautiful, seeing the Florida Keys, Cozumel, Mexico and Belize City, Belize was great... as were all of the excursions we took in each port of call. In Key West we took a historic train ride around the island, which was fantastic, then spent the rest of the early afternoon walking around and shopping in souvenier places. In Cozumel the three of us took a catamaran ride to a place where we got off and went snorkelling in the open water, then back on the boat to a private island/beach where we got stung by tiny jellyfish while playing in the warm clear water! In Belize, Mike and Susan and I split up and I went on a trip zip-lining through the tropical rain forest and then tubing through a crazy system of caves. They were all such fantastic extra little trips! On the boat I did everything from resting poolside in comfy chairs to rockwall climbing, to going to the gym (ok, only once, but I went!), to doing karoke TWICE! It was such a fabulous time-- I'd definitely do it again!

I don't remember what happened in December, but January was ok. I stayed home for New Year's and went up to Boston for the six days afterwards, which had been the longest trip I'd taken to Massachusetts since the Boston 3-Day last August. Also during the December/January period was a brief visit with Laura who had come home from Alaska for a Christmas visit. Her dad had driven down from the Albany area to pick her up from La Guardia Airport, spent the day with her and another friend in NYC, and then stopped by me where the three of us had a snack and a warm mug of apple cider at a coffee shop in Pleasantville and caught up for awhile before heading back up to north of Albany. Aw, how much I miss her!

Now it's February, and I just came back from a visit to see Matt for Valentine's Day. This was most likely one of the last regular trips I'll be taking to Boston, except for the odd visit to see friends here and there, and it makes me really sad. Matt lost his job, so he's moving back home to the Finger Lakes region of NY State. Sigh. I like it up there, and I enjoy spending time with his family, but I thought that having to drive 3+ hours to see one another was bad. Now it's going to be about a 5 hour drive. I wonder when we'll ever live in the same city and cut it out with this long-distance crap. It's so frustrating!

Anyway, that's pretty much it. Surprisingly I condensed most of my life and I think I got pretty much all of the exciting stuff in. If I think of more, I'll do updates/edits. I also REALLY hope to continue writing here more regularly, so keep checking back... because noodles really *are* yummy. Enjoy, everyone!

It's Been Awhile

Holy crap, it surely has been awhile. As in months and months... I don't know if I've ever been this bad before, but man oh man!

Anyway, as always I have eight gazillion things going on all at once. Right now the biggest one is fundraising for the Breast Cancer 3-Day that I'll be doing in Boston this August. It's a 60 mile walk (yes, that's 60 miles!!) over the course of three days that benefits Susan G. Komen and the National Philanthropic Trust, which both help fund breast cancer research and treatment in a major way.

Please, if you haven't done so yet, visit my personal fundraising page and make a donation. I've got to raise at least $2,200.00 by July and I've actually set a personal goal of $3,000.00. So I need your help!! Cut and paste this website address or click on the link to assist me in reaching my huge-ass goal! http://www.the3day.org/goto/emilyharper2009 (note 2/19/09: this has been edited to include the link for my 2009 fundraising site)

Thanks, everybody. Your support really means a lot to me.

PS- If you're interested in walking with me and joining my team, let me know! I'd be happy to tell you more about it!

Happy 2008

So our upstate plans didn't fall through after all.

Matt and I left for Albany about 4:30pm on the 31st and (despite a long stop at Stewart's-- my favorite upstate store after Wegman's-- for eggnog and soda, and besides the fact that Laura gave us bum directions and had us driving all over downtown Albany-- three exits too early on the Thruway) we got to the Robertson house about 7:30pm.

Movies and board games, giant puzzles and a toast at midnight all led to a fabulous laid-back new year's celebration with my girl and my guy (and my girl's mom and grandma, too!).

I ended up falling asleep in the middle of Lord of the Rings, so we closed the evening about 2am, and the three of us slept in Laura's room. When we woke up in the morning it was already snowing, so I tried to hurry myself and Matt into leaving pretty quickly but the snow had already started to accumulate. Driving around in the Albany/Schenectady area was the worst-- the roads were terrible with snow and slush and the car we were using slid around a bit despite my slow driving. But when we hit 87 it wasn't as bad and we could pick up our speed a bit more safely.

Until the traffic hit that is. What should have been a two to three hour drive home ended up taking over six hours. I think there must have been a bunch of accidents (that we saw no evidence of) because there were just so many cars on the road all driving really slowly through some parts and then getting up to a good clip at other parts along the way and then slowing down to painful speeds all over again. And the road conditions were fine at that point, so I'm not sure what was going on. What I do know is that we spent so much time sitting around in the car driving 4 miles per hour that every time we hit a rest stop I had to pull off to pee. I hadn't even drank that much juice with breakfast, but we were spending so many hours pretty much idling along that my glomerular filtration caught up with our miles traveled per hour and led to stopping at every single rest stop along the highway from Laura's house all the way home. It was pretty impressive, actually.

Anyhow, we're all home now, but Matt has to go back to his parents' house tomorrow, and then I have to go back to work on Friday. Boo. This was a nice bunch of days off though, and I'm glad I had the chance to rest and visit with Matt and a whole other bunch of friends (Melissa and Brian along with Tara Osterhoudt last week, Laura and Elena this week) while celebrating the holidays and the new year.

Happy 2008 everyone!

No Business Like Snow Business

I think my new year's plans have been cancelled by default-- Matt and I were planning to visit with Laura who's back in Clifton Park from Alaska for a little while... but the news just said that Albany got a foot of snow yesterday and is expecting another 9 inches tomorrow.


Sigh.


If anyone has an alternate plan, tell me quickly!

Congratulations Are In Order

Hooray for Kate and Ryan! They're engaged...

and it's all because of me!! (Just kidding!)

(Sort of. Heh.)

I'm so excited for both of you! Yay!!

Happy Holidays

Time really does fly... even when you're not having fun. So the year is almost over, and as such, I've been doing a lot of reflecting back on all the stuff that happened and didn't happen. If anyone's interested, here's a brief list:

-spending time upstate with Matt, his family and friends in January, the highlight of which was a weekend at Ryan's apartment (the part where I introduced Ryan to Kate, not the part where I cried for a couple of hours because I was drunk and stupid)

-throwing a 56th birthday party for my mom and all of her friends at her favorite Chinese restaurant

-cutting a vacation with Susan short and rushing back to NY from Florida for my mom's kidney transplant

-freaking out again as my mom's health deteriorated to the point of loss of consciousness... from a urinary tract infection, and then feeling the amazing relief that came with her recovery

-helping to celebrate Mel and Brian's wedding as one of the bridesmaids

-summer vacation in the mountains with Matt, Ryan and Kate... ah, sweet relief

-passing the intermediate care class at work and enabling myself to care for patients who require cardiac monitoring

-going to Laura's sister's wedding in Albany as Laura's date and getting to stay in the honeymoon suite the night before (heh heh heh)

-going to Spain with Susan... awesome, as expected

-taking my very first romantic hot and sweaty 9-hour bus adventure with Matt from Syracuse to Boston (blech)

-learning about Kate and Ryan's engagement (that I set them up for!!)

-planning with my parents for my dad's cardiac catheterization and open heart surgery which'll be happening just after the new year

-working A LOT


And while the list of things I've done and accomplished isn't too long, there really were only a few things I didn't manage to get done:

-buy a property and move out/live by myself
-go on a road trip with any of my friends
-go on an international vacation with Matt
-visit Laura in Alaska
-start working on a Masters degree

All in all then, I guess it was a pretty successful year. I probably wouldn't trade too much of it... things flowed naturally and honestly helped to shape me a big into the person I am today (doesn't that sound like a high school graduation speech?). Life is pretty good, and I'm glad I'm a part of it. Though I do think that it might be a bit better if it were a bit more boring. But who's counting? :)

Fui En Espana

I came back on the 4th of November from my annual vacation with Susan-- and this year we went to Spain. It was another tour led by a fabulous tour director, and it started on October 26th, so it was a bit longer than last year's trip to Ireland. I'd like to post some photos but I can't do it just yet-- our old computer apparently exploded while I was gone, so we've got a new one, and between having to set up a lot of settings and save stuff back onto it from recovered discs, memory cards and emails, I'm not quite ready yet. Plus I don't have Susan's photos yet (we always share both of our cameras on our vacations).

So when things are a little bit more organized, I will begin to impress you with the beautiful sights I got to see while traveling around Spain. Be sure to check back soon!!

Does Anyone Even Still Read This?

Oh man, it's been a long couple of months. Not all bad stuff, though. After my mom was released from the hospital she sort of got better. Though three months and many different types of oral antibiotics and her urinary tract infection still hasn't cleared... I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will. But she's feeling OK for the most part so I'm not overwhelmingly concerned.

Life otherwise has been busy but fine. I'm in Boston right now, watching Matt sleep, and wondering when I should try to start driving home. Seems like I haven't been home much at all lately, which is honestly kind of the way I like it. August was busy because I was taking a class at work, so I was preoccupied with studying and homework, and then I had my orientation on different units in the hospital... and then September seemed to fly by. Now I'm back on my own unit, but I've been traveling a lot (to Albany at the end of September for Laura's sister's wedding, to Florida with Susan at the beginning of October, now to visit Matt, and in two weeks I'll be leaving again to go to Spain with Susan).

On other news I almost had a crisis and moved out of my parents' house. Not that moving out would have been a crisis (more like an "it's about time I stopped mooching" event). I don't know what exactly prompted it but it was probably something like I'd been arguing more and more with my mother and I just couldn't take it anymore. She and I have such a close relationship, but when I finished college and moved back in a couple years ago, our closeness compounded and the fact that we're both strong-willed and outspoken kind of took over the household and strained our relationship. I end up crying a lot more than I'd like to admit, and I know I make my mother cry also a lot more than I'd like to admit. So those two facts are a prime indication to me that it's time for me to leave. But I don't want to just leave... though I almost moved in with Adam, which would have been a blast. I really would like to buy a place though, and right now I can't afford it, so if I moved out and stopped being able to save money, I *really* wouldn't be able to afford to purchase something. Plus, there are other reasons I wasn't quite ready to leave at that moment... so it didn't happen.

Anyway, so that's pretty much it. Matt's awake and we're probably going to play a little catch or something before I get going. Hopefully it won't be another three months before I post my next blog entry. I wouldn't want to keep all you Noodle fans waiting.

It's A Nike Life

Mom is sick and in the hospital again. I was planning on posting about all kinds of things that have been happening in my life in the last few months-- going to Julie's baby shower, having five days with Matt and meeting all kinds of friends randomly in NYC, taking the intermediate care nursing class so that I can read strips and take patients on cardiac monitors, Melissa's upcoming wedding and my upcoming summer vacation, and lots of other stuff. But all of that seems stupid when family things come up. Like my mother, who had to go to the emergency department again yesterday morning.

My dad called up to me at 5:45am yesterday-- "Em? Are you awake yet? I'm taking mommy to the emergency room. She's been vomiting all night and she has a fever." I got ready for work and then stopped by the ED before reporting to my unit. Mom looked OK, just exhausted and dehydrated. She was getting some IV fluids and her temp hadn't gone above 100.8, but that was with Tylenol. I hung out for ten minutes and then left to get to the last of my ICRN classes.

At 12:30pm when the class was over, I went back to my unit to find that my mother had been admitted and was in a bed on the floor. Again, she seemed OK albeit a bit tired. So I left her and went to help the other nurses on the floor hang blood products, give meds, ambulate the patients, etc. My mother went downstairs for some diagnostic tests. Then all of a sudden the ultrasound department called and requested a nurse to come down-- mom wasn't feeling well, and she was shaking with fever and chills. They wanted to know if someone could come down with some Tylenol. I went downstairs armed with a thermometer to check her temp and some Tylenol in case the fever'd gone up totally unprepared for what I was about to see. When I got into the u/s room, there was my mom lieing on a stretcher shaking so badly she couldn't get any words out and screaming in pain from back spasms. I took her temperature-- 103.0 (!!), quickly gave her the pills, and assisted the u/s tech in bringing her back up to my unit. When we got her back to her room and back in bed I was beside myself-- she was delirious with fever, speaking nonsensically. I checked her temp again-- 104.4! Afraid she'd start having febrile seizures, I ran with another nurse to the pantry, prepared a shitload of ice packs as fast as we could, and packed them all over my mom. I started her back up on IV fluids and checked her temperature every ten minutes, ordering a cooling blanket to come up from the basement between tasks. Slowly, between the Tylenol, the ice packs and the cooling blanket, the fever began to come down-- 104.0, 103.9, 103.4, 102.7, 102.3 until she began sweating profusely and her temp was back in the 99's.

Holy shit-- I was so scared I'd been shaking. Fevers that high are horrible. I know babies get high temperatures like that and it's just awful, but I'd never known of an adult who wasn't intubated and on a ventilator in the ICU to have a temp above 104.

When she was a bit more stable, Elisha, my friend and the nurse assigned to my mother, administered some IV steroids and then some pretty hefty IV antibiotics. Apparently what had started out as a urinary tract infection had progressed to a much more complicated infection with systemic involvement. Phew. Nothing in my family is ever simple.

I'm a little bit calmer now knowing that the fever isn't critical, but she did spike again during the night into the 102's. She's also had some more diagnostic tests done-- renal scans, chest X-rays, blood and urine cultures, CT scans, arterial blood gases and has continued to get more IV antibiotics. And, just a little while ago, complaining of right-sided chest pains, they moved my mom to a cardiac monitored bed for observation.

Today is a day off for me. After the stress of yesterday afternoon (not just with my mother-- there was a narcotics discrepancy when I counted the narc box at the end of the shift and a livid health care proxy screaming at all the staff for allowing her completely with-it father to sign out of the hospital against medical advisement after he'd pulled out all of his tubes and refused any further treatments) and then sticking around to be with my mom until 9:30 at night I came home with a whopping headache. Actually, it was a migraine-- I'd taken meds for it while still in the hospital (which I NEVER do) so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. So after sleeping in a bit, I went downstairs, prepared food and packed a picnic for two for my dad to bring to my mom: whole wheat bread, oat bran and flax seed pitas, fresh egg salad, some leftover cold steak, lettuce, sliced tomatoes, grilled asparagus, and a blueberry and walnut muffin I'd baked a few days ago for dessert. The food, a couple bottles of water, some paper plates and napkins and real silverware all went into a big basket lined and covered with cloth towels and stuffed with ice packs. I've already made some stuff for dinner and plan on packing a similar basket this evening so that the three of us can have a picnic later on, too.

Hopefully the infection will begin to subside with all of the antibiotics she's getting, and hopefully she'll be able to come home again soon. Things like this seem to come up a lot in our family making me quite glad to be living very near a good hospital with a fantastic team of physicians on the transplant service. And we haven't said it in awhile (not since things with the boys were a bit more hectic), but this episode just goes to prove to me that it really is a Nike life for us.