She has a mild case of chicken pox. The health department was notified. Thanks to the vaccination, she should be spot free and able to return to school Tuesday or Wednesday.
We have faithfully checked for new polkadots at least twice a day since Thursday night. I began losing track of which ones were new and which were there the last time I looked. So I had a stroke of genius...
I marked each spot with a very small line with an ink pen.
Yeah, I'm one of those moms. The kind that is not ashamed to write on her own kid's ass.
I'm also the mom who received a fart right in the face tonight as I was checking said chicken pox lesions and ink pen marks.
I guess that makes us even.
Sissy took many self-portraits while at WDW. This is my favorite. It was taken outside Chefs de France.
This was taken at Chef Mickey's breakfast at the Contemporary Resort.
*****************
Yesterday, we took a nap. Everyone except Sissy, anyway. During my nap, I dreamed of a taco casserole.
The Auburn Brother Always is on his way home from the hospital. His pacemaker did its job last night and kept his heart a thump-thump-thumping along like it should.
He is very sore at the site of the pacemaker, but is doing well otherwise.
Thank you all, again, for your kind comments and prayers.
(For all you google search alert-ers: carotid artery dissection, veterbral artery dissection, stroke after chiropractic adjustment) ;)
Our trip to WDW was wonderful. Except for the sinus infection and dual ear infection and high fever and trip to the ER/Walk-in Clinic. I'll post pictures and details later. Today, I have 1,382, 073 loads of laundry to wash and dry and put away and a yard of wild onions to mow and a floor full of toys to put away and a filthy Pimped-Out Mamamobile to wash and daughter to get to softball practice and homework to supervise and dinner to cook and... holy crap, I'm already tired.
My brother is improving. Here's the low-down. The chiroquack did assassin ninja neck twist move on him, but that wasn't what hurt him. After the assassin ninja neck twist, he put R on his side on the "bouncy table" (R's words) with his heck supported by the "bouncy cushion." He showed him a strange fist and said, "I'm going to press on your neck and realign your vertebrae. You will feel a lot of very intense pressure and pain for a few moments, but it will pass quickly."
pop
crunch
And R said he began moaning and crying out in pain that was so intense that he couldn't stop the yelling and groaning. Chiroquack touched him and R pushed him away, it hurt him so badly. He was helped to a chair where he vomited for 5 minutes (no lunch or breakfast to vomit.) They asked him if he wanted them to call 911. He waited for his wife (S) to arrive - 20 minutes. Then called for an ambulance.
was it not obvious that he needed an ambulance immediately? is it normal for their patients to scream out in pain and violently vomit during their adjustments?
?!?!?!?!?
He suffered a mild stroke in his cerebellum. His carotid artery and vertebral arteries were dissected, but not completely. He was unable to speak or stand or control his arms or legs or see. Most of these issues had resolved themselves quickly, with the vision taking the longest time.
Since those first 2, critical days, he has experienced heart arythmias, particularly during the night. They tested him for sleep apnea, which was negative. His heart is stopping for as long as 8 seconds at a time. They tried medication to regulate this, and it was unsuccessful.
He is on strong anti-clotting medications. These meds caused serious dehydration after they removed his iv. He is now tied to a saline drip 24/7 again and drinking unbelievable amounts of water.
He received a pacemaker this morning and did well with that procedure.
He asked about a stroke assessment test. This gave the doctors the opportunity to explain that they never did one, as they never expected him to survive. The huge portion of patients with his injury do not live.
CTs show that the carotid and veterbral arteries have not healed on their own yet. They may require stents, but the anti-clotting meds will make this very high risk and only a last resort.
I saw him yesterday. I was very encouraged and excited to see him doing as well as he is. If you didn't know what had happened to him, you'd never guess it. The only remaining effects from the stroke (besides the cardiac issues and arterial dissections) are balance-related. He was stronger than I expected, but tires easily. He is being very cautious and communicating very well with the nursing staff about how he feels. They are taking very good care of him.
He is almost "out of the woods". He may be home from the hospital late this week. They are being very cautious with him, but they do expect him to survive now.
Thank you all for your prayers and kind comments.
We have breakfast at Akershus in Norway, in Epcot's World Showcase today. It is a princess themed meal.
Dinner is also in Epcot at Japan's Teppan Edo, a cook-in-front-of-you, throw-knives-in-the-air, make-flames-flash-up-from-the-griddle restaurant.
We will pack our bags tomorrow morning and load up the Pimped-out Mamamobile and take The Mighty Hunter to the airport for his next work assignment in God-Knows-Where, USA, and drive the 562 miles back to the Auburn Family Always Homestead.
I'm considering changing the name of my blog to WDW Gal Always. What do you think?
Prepare yourself for a slideshow of many obnoxious pictures.
Good grief, I dread the laundry I'll have to do tomorrow.
Wanna know a secret? I'm totally nuts. I wrote this post and all the other ones about our WDW week's plans at 1am Friday, knowing that I have to get myself out of bed and load up and wake the kids and leave town by 7am.
NUTS, I know.
I'm hungry too, but I'll ignore that and get to sleep. maybe
We have meal reservations today, but will wing it on which park we'll go to.
Breakfast is at 1900 Park Faire at the Grand Floridian hotel. Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland and Pooh are the regular characters here.
Dinner is at Jiko at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I'm excited about this one. It's a "Signature Restaurant," meaning it uses 2 meal credits and is schmancy. I've also wanted to look around this hotel, and this will be my chance!
Today we will eat a quick breakfast. This is the only day we do NOT have breakfast reservations.
I know. Just think of the pig's lives we'll be saving in just the bacon consumption alone!
We'll probably receive some award.
oohhh!!! Maybe a lifetime supply of bacon!
At 11:40am, we will eat lunch in Canada at La Cellier. We've had dinner here before and absolutely LOVED it.
Dinner is at 8pm at France's Chefs de France. We ate here once on Sissy's first trip and choked on the cost of the meal. The Deluxe Dining Plan allows to be able to justify it.
btw, the Dining Plans can save you a lot of money, if you choose your restaurants carefully. We got the Deluxe plan, which give us 3 meals at Counter Service (fast food) or Table Service restaurants plus 2 snack credits per person, per day. We are using most of our meal credits at character meals or very nice TS restaurants. Without the plan, we'd pay a crap-pot of money to eat at those places. With the plan, we pay a daily rate and eat the most expensive thing on the menu, plus an appetizer and dessert EACH!
So, while I expect to walk my Asics to death, I will probably not lose any weight due to the massive amount of calories I'll be stuffing down.
We're starting today a little later than our first few days with breakfast at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort.
I've planned the evening with the precision of, well, um, a WDW-obsessed planning nut.
The Spectromagic parade is at 8pm.
The fireworks are at 9pm.
Dinner at Cinderellas Royal Table (in the castle) at 9:40pm. (Yes, that seems late, but remember WDW is in the Eastern Time Zone, and I live in Central! Which means that 9:40 there is really 8:40 for me. So, it's not horribly late. And! AND!!! when you calculate stupid Daylight Stupid Time in, dinner is really at 7:40!)
Are you getting sick of this yet?
This morning we will have breakfast at O'hana at the Polynesian Resort.
We have dinner reservations at Tutto Italia in Italy, in Epcot's World Showcase. I love me some good pasta!
The rest of the day is open to whatever whim strikes us!
We're having breakfast at Disney's Hollywood Studios with the Little Einsteins and Jojo and Goliath the Lion.
We've never spent a whole day at this park. I'm looking forward to it.
We're having breakfast in Ddisney's Animal Kingdom and dinner at the Polynesian Resort's Spirit of Aloha show.
Randy is better.
The chiropractor adjusted his neck, at c1 and c2, with such force that Randy asked to leave the table and sit on a chair. He had to be helped to the chair, where he began vomiting and fainted.
911 was called.
His blood pressure was very high. He could not see or speak clearly or coherently. He could not walk.
The adjustment compromised his carotid artery and caused a 1/2" tear on the inside layer. The trauma and tear caused him to have a "mini-stroke" in the left side of his cerebellum.
Blood pressure is normal again. They're being all Edward Cullen and drawing blood every 2-3 hours, which is showing within normal ranges already.
He is able to move and feel in his extremities. He is able to sit upright, unassisted for a few minutes. But tires very quickly.
He is still experiencing double- and triple-vision, blurriness and extreme light-sensitivity.
He has a bad headache.
His neck still hurts.
When he was telling the ER staff what had occurred leading up to his ambulance ride, there was some rolling of the eyes and knowing sighs and nodding of heads.
He has already recovered from much of the damage. This is excellent news.
He will remain in the hospital for 2-3 days for monitoring. If he should have another stroke, then he would undergo surgery to place a stint in the carotid at the site of the dissection.
(How did you like how I threw in that medical term?)
He's gonna be fine. He has a long, tough recovery ahead of himself.
He will never again allow a chiropractor to examine or treat him.
Neither will I.
He has insisted that he is fine - fiiiiiiiiiinnnne!!! And we are going on with our trip to WDW.
Please continue to pray for him and his family. They're special to me.
or something like that.
Friday morning, I will load the Pimped Out Mamamobile with suitcases that are large enough to hold both Sissy and Lucky and weigh more than Sissy. I will retrieve Carl and Bev from their home. We will drive I-75 until we make a left turn and then follow the GPS to meet The Mighty Hunter.
Saturday morning we will begin our week at Walt Disney World.
That is if my brother is ok. Today, he went to the chiropractor for a sore and stiff neck. He had been a few times already with this complaint. Immediately after getting his neck "adjusted" he vomited and fainted and couldn't stand on his own.
The neck "adjustment" seems to have torn his carotid artery.
No shit. It caused him to have a stroke.
A stroke, people.
From the chiropractor's visit.
He's in the hospital tonight, waiting the results of the MRI to confirm all this. He will meet with a vascular surgeon and possibly have it repaired. He has already recovered from the "event" a great deal. His speech is not slurring anymore. His thinking is clear. He can feel and move his extremities (spell that for me, please!) He is still too dizzy to try to walk, but we're hoping that will recover soon also.
Please pray for Randy.
Truthfully, I'm not certain we'll go to WDW. I can still reschedule our trip. I really don't know what to do.
But, I do want to share with you a free pdf book that I will be printing to read while we drive to WDW or sit at the hospital. It's the link at the top of the right column. Click me.
I was reading the Pioneer Woman and hopped the links over to Wild Olive Tees.
I love these tshirt designs. They're totally something I would wear as part of uber-cool mom uniform. They might even distract your eye away from my ugly, dirty Asics (the only shoes I can wear now. Thankyoustressfracturedfoot.)
Go look around.
Spend some money.
Stimulate the economy!!!
Get your verse on!
Oooh! And save some money. Free shipping through March 31.
When I shower and shave my legs, I think about my childhood friends that shared ideas, techniques, helpful hints, warnings, etc. about how to best get a smoothly shaven leg. How best to avoid razor burn. Am I the only one who associates things like that?
And do you shave the back of your thigh? I tried when I was a kid and thought it was necessary. But considering I'm lucky to put blade to hide once a week now, the back of my thighs are ignored - other than soap, bath oil and lotion. Part of the hair on my body is still sandy-blonde and thus only gently reflects the sun's gentle kiss of light, so I am convinced that no one sees it.
How many pairs of panties do you own? I have several. Honestly, I've never counted. But I wear my favorite 4 pairs until I realize that I don't have time to dig in the clean clothes basket to find the freshly-washed ones and resort to the ones that are the exact same brand, style and size, but do not fit or feel as well.
How many bras do you own? When I was pregnant and nursing Lucky, I had 3 bras. They were identical to each other. I simply rotated them equally, as I didn't identify any single one as being superior to the other's for some mysterious and impossible-to-quantify reason. When I stopped nursing and my milk and bosoms dried up, I tried a few different styles from different manufacturers and stores. I liked one particular bra from Target, but their selection was always spotty. I found one at Wal-mart and liked it. I returned and bought 2 more. A few weeks ago, I realized that 3 bras might not be a sufficient supply for 7 days at Disney World, so I got 2 more. (I would have gladly made the trek to Target - not in my town - to buy more from them, but W-M beat them for simply having the inventory and selection - every single time.)
Do you wash your undies in the washing machine?
Do you dry them in the drier with your other clothes?
I wash mine in the same load as towels and socks and pajamas. But I fish out my bras and lay them atop my drier to dry. I've somehow convinced myself that this lengthens their life. Nevermind that I have the most abusive washing machine in the world. It can turn a pair of blue jeans INSIDE OUT. I've never figured out how. I just know that I've removed jeans from the washer that were right-side out when they went in, only to find them inside out when the cycle is complete. My bras are safer and in better shape because they never go in the drier.
When I sit on the toilet - not that I'm on the toilet now, nooooo. ahem. - I raise my feet up and only put my toes on the floor. It's a comfort thing. It's not a phobia thing. I'm not afraid to touch the floor with my whole foot. The good Lord knows I'm not skeered of the germs on my bathroom floors. I've laid on them many hours, begging the pukes to stop.
I have chronic dry lips. I used medicated chap-stick for years -which, interestingly enough, causes your lips to only dry out more - thinking I could fix what biting my lips was doing. I just need to stop biting my lips.
I bit my fingernails until I was in the 3rd grade. Then, one day, I decided that I would quit, and I did. Now, I only bite the nail on my left thumb. This drives The Mighty Hunter crazy. My left thumb was squished off when I was in the 4th grade and is misshapen with a very thick nail that I can barely trim with clippers. So, I bite it from time to time.
When I was in high school, I over-tweezed my eyebrows, until I looked like a freak. A friend told me her dad said that she was prettier than me because of my eyebrows. I let them grow back in. I was not going to allow over-plucked brows keep me the ugly friend. She still has bushy brows and crooked teeth and her head is as big as a horse's. She scared me the last time I saw her in W-M, with her big horse head.
Why do some people gain weight on their heads?
Did you know that some people are allergic to certain brands of toilet paper? (Hey, M!) And some of those people have wonderful friends who deliver a package of dye-free tp to them at their new job. And then those friends call the tp-allergic friends and quote Ray Steven's songs while the boss is standing in front of them.
I sang along with Beyonce's "Single Ladies" song today, with Sissy sitting next to me in the Pimped Out Mamamobile. Should I have done that? Is that a song that is appropriate for my 8 year-old to hear her 22 year-old mommy sing along with?
Shut up, I can say I'm 22 if I want to.
I'm through now.
You're very welcome.
Ben Stein on CBS Sunday Morning News yesterday...
And Michael Phelps ad in my Kohl's email from yesterday...
http://junecleaverafterasix-pack.blogspot.com/2009/03/just-to-give-you-idea.html?showComment=1236204000000#c1582313432783140104
It's sad that this type of thing that make me happy.
Very very sad.
Yesterday, I took a large black garbage bag, a backpack, a reusable shopping bag and a duffel bag. With these important items, Sissy and I cleaned out the Pimped-out Mamamobile.
We threw away receipts from the beginning of time. Stickers from every single stinkin' day of kindergarten, first and second grades. Candy wrappers. Snot rags. Shriveled-up french fry crumbs. Old, used flosser sticks. Straws. Napkins. Spoons. Forks.
We dug out jackets, loose change, toys, batteries, notepads, pencils, pens, clothes pins, socks, pacifiers, crayons (gasp!!!), empty dvd cases, dvds, and a million other things.
You can see the carpet in the van again.
You can see the carpet in the van desperately needs cleaning.
You can step walk from the side doors to the back seats without crushing something or breaking an ankle.
You can sit in the seats without wondering if you'll have crumbs on your butt.
You can ride without feeling the urge to wear a surgical mask or hang your head out the window.
The garbage bag wasn't full.
But the backpack, reusable shopping bag and duffel bag were full.
Now I've just got to find a place in the house to put those things that were stored in the van.
This completely ruins my organizational plan!!!
channelling my inner Scarlet O'hara: Whatever will I do???
I have a favorite sandwich that I like to have for lunch. It's nothing exotic. It's nothing interesting. It's nothing much, except yummy.
And because I'm a wonderful, loving person, I'm sharing my sandwich recipe with you, my bloggy friends.
Sun-dried tomato basil wrap
6-8 slices of brown sugar ham
Ranch dressing or Santa Fe Wrap mixture (I skip the olives when I make it.)
shredded cheddar cheese
fresh green onions (only the green part)
fresh basil (chopped fine)
Preheat a skillet to medium-high heat. Microwave the ham until it steams (approx. 15 seconds.) Spread a small amount of ranch or Santa Fe Wrap Mixture onto the center of the wrap. Plop the ham onto the center of the wrap.
You must "plop" it. If you don't "plop" it, it will instantly become rancid and your toenails will grow crooked summer.
Sprinkle cheese, onions and basil on top of the ham.
"Sprinkling" is also required.
Fold the wrap into a square. Gently place the wrap into the skillet, allowing it to turn golden brown. Turn our wrap over and heat the other side.
Do not burn your delicious sandwich. You will cry and wish you would just curl up and die.
If you have succeeded in making this work of edible art, eat it and come back here to let me know what you thought.
Did you add or skip any ingredients?
