February 2014 – Page 7 – Sam's Online Journal

February 3, 2014

Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 2

…and then the treatments began.

The night I brought my wife and daughter home from the hospital we were still in flux. Yes, the surgery was done, but in order to let them go home the treatments had to already be set up, the equipment had to be scheduled to arrive at our home, and both my wife and I would have to be trained on it. It was such a small window, but we dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s and were able to go home.

Alexa couldn’t go back to school for an entire week, though, so there was also a reshuffling of schedules to accomplish that. During this whole time, too, Madeline knew things were different, and she was incredibly needy. It was very tough for us dealing with Alexa and the new therapies, dealing with Madeline and her new clingy-ness, and trying to wrap our brains around what the future might hold for us as a family.

When the therapist showed up with the “vest,” there was a lot to learn: from plugging it in correctly, to connecting the tubes properly, to running the machine through its programs, to even breaking it down in order to put it back in the case. The program took 22 minutes to cycle through with each treatment, and Alexa kept saying that it bothered her by making her itch with its vibrations. But we knew it was necessary to try and get her lung healthy again. Continue reading “Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 2”

February 3, 2014February 3, 2014

Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 1

I am constantly astounded by the resiliency of children, the way they can adjust to just about anything, no matter how odd it is or how much it differs from their previous pattern, even my children. Now, if you know my children at all you’ll realize that they are pretty rigid in the things they do and like. For example, my 5-year old, Madeline, likes to play CandyLand, followed by Chutes & Ladders, and it has to be in that order. She also likes to try and cheat at both, but we’re working on keeping her honest. My 7-year old, Alexa, refuses to eat homemade macaroni & cheese (unless bribed with the promise of some sort of desert at the end of the mac and cheese rainbow), but she absolutely adores boxed mac & cheese with the fake orange “cheese.”

They are both also relatively stubborn when it comes to activities to do. Alexa likes to be in charge, but Madeline is not your classic follower. If there’s something she doesn’t want to do, she just won’t do it, even if they’re in the middle of it already. So, when Alexa came home from the hospital after her bronchoscopy in November, it was interesting to note how quickly both of them adjusted to the new way of life around here. I’ll explain…

Alexa had to have two “vest” administrations per day, one in the morning and one at night. The “vest” is an actual vest that inflates using two tubes attached to a powerful little machine that pushes air into the vest. It operates on escalating levels of what equates to vigorous shaking of her body in order to break up whatever mucous remained in her left lung.
Alexa also needed to have various inhalants as treatments, all of which were designed to open up her airways so that when the mucous was broken up by the vigorous shaking it would come out of the lung altogether and she would aspirate it. These treatments were also twice a day, and generally took place at the same time as the vest treatments.
During all of these treatments Alexa was far and away our focal point, which was a massive change from how things had been to that point. Because Madeline has Down syndrome it had become routine to focus on her health more so than the health of Alexa, and the issues that sent Alexa to the emergency room and then to surgery woke us up to that.

While Alexa was in the hospital, my wife Heidi stayed with her for the entire five tumultuous days, and I was back and forth from the hospital, to home, to work, and back to the hospital. It was ironically reminiscent of when Alexa was born. We weren’t sure of the time of her operation, or even what we were really dealing with for a while, and during the whole back and forth Madeline was with me, and then with her grandmother, and then back with me. Continue reading “Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 1”

February 2, 2014February 2, 2014

Skinny Girls Can’t Win

“I like ’em round and big, and when I’m throwing a gig I just can’t help myself. I’m actin’ like an animal, now here’s my scandal.” -Sir Mix-A-Lot

Fashion magazines show the “ideal” female as ridiculously skinny, and hordes of young girls growing up buy into this vision of what they need to look like. Look at the runway models and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Kate Moss was the epitome of this type of “beauty” in the ’90s, with her severe looks and her angular body. And don’t get me wrong, some women are born like that, concave instead of convex. There’s nothing wrong with looking that way when it’s natural, when you’re not starving yourself to make that a reality, robbing your body of much needed nutrients in order to look like that “ideal.” Let’s look deeper into why that image exists in the first place.

In the middle ages there was what I refer to as the Botticelli ideal, where images of women showed them to be voluptuous goddesses with curves to spare, and they looked natural, beautiful, content in themselves. That’s because while men may not have valued women for their brains in that time period, they did value a warm, full body to come to bed to every night. It was cold back then, and so many of the people lived without proper heat, so a full-sized woman helped out a lot. Seriously, though, both men and women realized then the ludicrous nature of the “starving woman.” If you were starving then you were probably homeless and didn’t have access to good food, and that wasn’t seen as desirable at all. So what changed?

Here’s why skinny girls can’t win in our society:

They never think they’re skinny enough
Most aren’t born with the body type so they do what it takes to get there
Those who are born with the body type are judged for it
People tear down others instead of lifting them up
While this “ideal” is still espoused by many women, more and more men want that Botticelli ideal Continue reading “Skinny Girls Can’t Win”

February 1, 2014

Separate

The process of trying to blend Of crushing individuality For a chance at acceptance The art of transition Idealistic at best Split into pieces Drifting farther apart In this sea of chaos But I remain invisible Their collateral damage Fading into the background Of a world I tried to embrace In the autumn of discontent … Continue reading Separate

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