Eric

Eric's room is closer to looking more like a hospital room than ever. Yesterday we got the new suction machine. It is not that I wanted a suction machine but in order to get nursing respite when Eric is really sick, I needed to have a suction machine in the house. I hope that Eric does not get sick any time soon, in his healthy state his needs are high enough. One a healthy day his care needs take 6 to 8 hours per day.

I know that I have a creative bent but I can not figure out how to decorate the suction machine with out destroying it or impeding its functionality. It is a rental so it has to go back when we are done with it. The same goes with the IV pole. I wish that manufactures would realize that these things go into homes to and we do not like institutional gray. Can't they come up with one covered in say Sesame Street friends? If you my dear readers have any ideas please let me know.

Today Eric is having a good day, so he is off to camp and I get to go to do errands and a Tucson Police Department training. This means that I talk about what it is like to be Eric's mom and what I would like the police to be aware of when they come into contact with Eric. I will also include my usual plea to ticket people who park in handicapped parking places without a permit. After all there are not many places I can deploy the ramp on my car.

I wish you a fantastic day and a short to-do list.

The Adventures of the Purple Skirt

Today is a typical Friday, except that I wore my purple skirt. I usually only wear this skirt on weekends. It is a very lovely skirt, with a big twirl and buttons down the front. I absolutely do not know why I wore today except it said wear me please. It was just so polite and leaped into my hands. So what could I do except to indulge the skirt.

Taking Eric to camp involves using a 4 point tie down system for his wheelchair, which involves crawling around the back of the van on hands and knees to make sure that everything is ratcheted down in place. Think of those straps that they use in moving van except on the floor of the car. Once we get to camp the process is reversed, crawling around to release the straps.

Today after I dropped Eric off at camp I was lucky enough to meet the Friday Fun Knitters at the Foothills Mall food court. It was drink refill time. As I was getting up to get my refill a friend noticed that there was a tear in my skirt, but it should be easy to fix because it was on a seam line.

After a lunch with Nancy and Natalie, it was time to get back to the reality of chores.

Unbeknown to me I picked the skirt eating cart at the supermarket. The wheels would leap out and grab my skirt, and being busy shopping without my list and trying to remember what we needed, I can honestly say that I did not notice till my skirt was being pulled off by the cart. I must of had to untangle my skirt from the cart at least a dozen times. I know that it was quite amusing to the other shoppers. You would think that they would have something on the wheels to prevent them from eating skirts. By the time I got home I could not face what new damage had been inflected on the purple skirt and promptly threw it in the laundry. My day of reckoning will come soon enough. This is the second skirt that has bit the dust do to be attacked by Eric's wheelchair this season.

So the moral of this story has to be that now, no matter how much a pretty skirt says wear me during the week instead of the weekend and you know you will be doing chores, you must be firm with the skirt and tell it no.

Yesterdays Adventure with Eric

We left for the out patient surgery appointment at 11:15 am for a 12 pm appointment. The doctors office told us to go to the northeast outpatient surgery entrance. So Teri and I went to the first door that had a sign that said NE Outpatient surgery entrance. When we found the registration desk Eric's name was not on the list and the receptionist told us that this was for unit 600 outpatient surgery. and that Eric's appointment was at the NE outpatient surgery entrance in the middle of the building. Our first thought was what the heck was unit 600 as if we were suppose to know. Our second thought was why would anyone give 2 different entrances the same name? I will ponder that at a latter time or maybe not.

Well there was the usual paper work and waiting. The as usual we were moved to another room for more paper work and waiting. They had to find another anaesthesiologist because the one that they had scheduled was stuck somewhere else. I have to say that I really like Mark the fill in, he had a great bedside manor and got the IV in in one shot on a kid with very small veins. Thank you very much Mark.

While I was with Eric getting the IV, I sent Teri and John to get lunch, they do an excellent job of getting meals, they can handle a hospital cafeteria with the best of them. We figured that Eric would be done soon after we were done eating a leisurely lunch, boy were we wrong. Mark finally came out and said that everything went well and that Eric was in recovery. Dr.LaCorte the dentist said that there were only a couple of fillings, Eric's teeth were clean and now had a nice shine and it looked like there was room for all the wisdom teeth to come in with no problems.

Eric seemed to be in recovery for a long time. I had not only had lunch but was ready to add another skein of yarn to the purple what ever it is going to be in progress. They finally said the we could come back at about 3 p.m. to see him. Eric was so mad at me, but he was recovering nicely. John got Eric dressed and we headed home about 3:30.

Eric was so mad at us that it cost us 2 country music Cd's and a brand new Elmo before he would talk with us. I would like to thank Kayla, Eric's afternoon aide for her help with Eric after a long day. John and Teri whom made a great dinner.

Eric had an uneventful night with no wild eyrps and woke up in a wonderful mood. Well it is time to start the laundry. Have a great day everyone.