The Big Night

Adam is a big basketball fan. He plays as much as he can with the kids in the neighborhood and watches whatever he can find on television.

Basketball tickets are really expensive but I wanted him to have the opportunity to see a pro game live so at the beginning of the season I told him to look at the Clippers schedule and pick one game he'd really like to go to. He is such a great kid and would never ask.

He's not a fan of either of the local teams, the Clippers or the Lakers but the Clippers tickets are less expensive. Adam's favorite teams are the Spurs and the Nuggets so he asked to go see the Spurs vs. Clippers and several months ago I ordered the tickets.

Last night was the big night. He's been so excited about this and I had planned to take the boys out for a nice meal before we drove into downtown Los Angeles, thinking we'd arrive with plenty of time to see the players warm-up and the tip off.

So naturally we had a hell of a storm yesterday. Knowing what a nightmare the drive was going to be we decided to forgo getting dinner and just head for the arena and grab a hot dog or something when we got there. What would have normally been an hour and a half drive at that time of day turned into a three hour nightmare. The only thing that kept me from turning around and heading back home was that I couldn't bear to disappoint Adam. (Okay the fact that the tickets were $95 did play a bit of a factor too)

We got there about half way through the first quarter and his face as we took our seats made the white knuckle drive worth every torturous moment and we had a really great time.

Baseball is in the Air

Andrew's team, the Braves, played the Orioles twice this week. They split the games--the Orioles bet them Tuesday afternoon and the Braves won yesterday. Andrew had a couple of key defensive plays when the Orioles were rallying to come back that shut them down. Above is a picture of Andrew at the plate at yesterday's game.

Week in Review

It's been a week of ups and downs. Sam's had a rough week and we had to make two quick trips to the hospital. He's okay, just some of the side effects attempting to get out of hand but it's under control again for now. His blood suger is the main worry at the moment, he's developing diabetes. Just what we don't need, another complication in an already way to long list of complications.

On a happier note though it's been nice to have Stephanie around and she's enjoying her break. Monday she drove up to Berkley to visit some of her friends. She crashed in Jordon's dorm room and drove back Wednesday evening. Yesterday she and I went out to lunch then we picked up some things she needed to take back to school with her.

Andrew's enjoying his job in the snack shack at the baseball fields. We've had so much rain lately quite a few games have had to be rescheduled. Last Saturday they got through the first inning before the rain started but the sky is pretty black outside and the forecast is for rain later today through tomorrow so I have a feeling they won't get to play tomorrow either.

Of the six games they were to have played so far this season they've only gotten four in and his team is 3 and 1. Andrew's currently batting .424 with 6 RBI's, 2 doubles, 1 triple and 8 stolen bases.

Tomorrow evening the Angeles is having the usual St. Patrick's Day party, I hoping to make it over to Janice's for that for while.

U.S.S. Angeles

The boys and I are members of a local SciFi club called the U.S.S. Angeles. The Angeles is the Southern California chapter of Starfleet International, the world wide Star Trek fan association.

Over the years we've had a lot of fun with the Angeles crew and the members have become cherished friends. When people learn that I belong to a Star Trek fan group they either back away or ask about the group and they are often amazed at the wide range of activities the group particpates in that have nothing whatsoever to do with Star Trek or science fiction. Hey, what can I say, we just enjoy each others company.

Two of our members have put a lot of effort into updating the look of our groups web site and with the exception of a couple of the links pages it's up and running and I think it looks fantastic. Kudo's to our web master Jonathan Foertsch and also to Jon Lane for his work on the graphics and photo galleries.

Check out the site at http://www.ussangeles.org/

The Genesis Protocol

If you're looking for a good book I highly recommend The Genesis Protocol by Dayton Ward. I'm about a third of the way into the book now and really enjoying it.

The cover may have you thinking the story is a rip off of Jurassic Park and though there are similarities it's an entirely different story and in some respects a better story. The characters are compelling and real and there's plenty of action. I find myself thinking that this story would make a pretty good movie.

Marley & Me

The past few days I've been reading a wonderful book called "Marley & Me, life and love with the world's worst dog" by John Grogan.

If you've ever owned a dog, heck even if you haven't, you're bound to enjoy Marley & Me. It's a sweet memoir that will have you laughing one moment and then crying the next. As the owner of a slightly neurotic dog myself I could definately identify with Marley's family. Also Marley was a yellow lab and Dax is a yellow lab mix. Our vet's best guess is that she's a lab/pointer cross.

Actually I like to think that Dax isn't really neurotic, she just has a few issues. Considering the rough start she had it's a wonder she is so sweet and loyal. Dax was a resue dog and still less than a year old when we adopted her but she'd spent her life up to that point locked up and abused. When she was found she'd been without food and water for over a week and physically she was a real mess. She was a tiny little bag of bones that had no fur, just lots of oozing open wounds all over her body.

One look into her big brown eyes though and I was a goner. I just knew that somewhere in there was a beautiful, sweet dog, but she was terrified. Returning Dax to good physical condition was the easy part, helping her learn to trust again took a while but ultimately I think we were as successful as we could be.

Six years later Dax is still terrified of strange men, certain sounds and new situations but she is also a sweet and loyal companion who utterly adores her family and the feeling is definately mutual.

New Routine

We've settled into a regular routine now for changing Sam's IV's and things. The radiologist implanted a new central line in Sam's left arm that has two shunts, one for each bag of fluids. There are two, the TPN (total patient nutrition) which only needs to run 12 hours a day and then the antibiotic IV has to run continuously 24 hours a day.

About 6:30am we disconnect the TPN flow and do the first blood sugar test of the day. Once that's done you change out the IV bag, then about 8am it's time for morning medications; prednisoine (steroid), puerinithol (immune suppressent) and antacids that help keep Sam's stomach from eating itself away.

The nurse comes sometime between 10am and noon for his check, taking his blood pressure, checking the IV pumps etc. When Jane leaves she drops the blood samples off at the lab and within the hour the doctor has the results and if there's anything that needs adjusting we get a call. Not getting a call in the afternoon is a good thing and so far we've only had one call, this past Monday.

Afternoons are pretty quiet until the boys get home from school about 3:15pm. Between homework, baseball and karate we're usually busy for a while most weekdays.

Then around 6:30pm it's time to check blood sugar again before hooking up the TPN. There are a number of things that have to be added to the TPN bag but you draw all of those into the syringes and then inject everything into the bag before connecting to the pump. Once that's running smoothly we change the IV and an hour later check the blood sugar number for the last time.

Once you get the hang of it it really isn't difficult, you just take it step by step.

Sam's Home

Sam has improved so much that he has been released to the care of the home health service. He will need the antibiotic IV's running continuously for at least two more weeks but they provided all the equipment and the IV's and medications will be delivered to the house. I've been as trained as I can be I think, at least I'm no longer stabbing myself with the syringe when I try to draw the medications for which my left thumb is very grateful.

A nurse will come to do the daily blood drawing and check up on him and we've been set up to do his follow-up stuff with a pulmonary specialist at UCLA. Our own doctors think they've connected the dots at last between the various conditions but want to get UCLA to confirm everything and consult on a course of treatment.

Now the hard part is keeping him to the doctors schedule. He of course wants to return to work asap. They of course said NO WAY. Perhaps he can start light work in a couple of weeks but in the meantime I'm going to disable his car and his boss has told him if he even thinks about coming by security has been instructed not to let him in.