Sunday, January 22, 2012

Mid January

Hello and Happy New Year!  We made it through the busy holiday season, with all the performances and scheduling disruptions.  The big kids went off for time with their dad.  Q saw him at the airport, which he loved, as always.  He no longer suspects the kids aren't returning, though he'd not in favor of them leaving.  Progress!

Early in the month we visited a new physician.  This visit was to talk about the possibility of eye surgery being combined with the hip surgery.  The doc was lovely, and the decision for now is to fix his lateral eye muscles and see how well that sticks.  The concerns are related to the quality of the tissue and whether or not Q would smack the area with his hands (in splints), thereby undoing the dissolving sutures.  If the sutures are disrupted or his muscles don't hold the correction well, the boomerang effect pushes his eyes farther along the continuum, in the wrong direction.  The nice lady would base the decision to go ahead with the medial adjustments on whether or not the lateral procedure holds.  She says the first would be less painful, less intrusive, and works better as a bit of a test run.  I don't know.  I feel like I usually walk out of medical appointments with a pretty clear idea of how we're proceeding and why, and I don't know why we'd do this.  I mean, the hope is that his eyes are physically steadier and appear to track together better.  But...  It doesn't seem likely that he's having double vision, since binocular vision is really a case of eyes alternating very quickly between them, not actually concurrent use of both.

I would so love to have a knowledgeable pocket elf at these visits, to weigh in and tip the scales decisively.  In lieu of that, I'll read some more, I guess.

In other news, the big boy is finding his way in high school.  The girls continue with school and are just about to begin the second half of the school year.  Q attends a developmental kindergarten three half days per week.  It's pretty awesome to see how each of the kids' early efforts is unfolding as they build upon acquired skills and knowledge.

We've welcomed a wee little new cousin and attended a memorial service for her grandpa, a very good man who is greatly missed.

The house is benefiting from a rework of chores assignments, and we're glad to have power back after a recent wild combination of snow, ice, and wind storms.  It was great for the kids to have prepped for the occasion with bread baking, cooking, and laundry.  We only had seven loads to do to catch up completely from two days without power.

We're all set for the next round, and have a greater appreciation for both our gas water heater and the need for good emergency preparedness.  Prescriptions and supplies work a little differently here than in many households.  Q's nutritional needs being what they are, we've got shelf-stable back up for him, in addition to the usual stuff you'd have on hand for everyone else.  We've got a shelf full of water in the garage, too.  And I'm thinking it's time to run through the list again, while there's no pressing need.

The house is quiet and we've a busy day tomorrow, getting ready to tackle the upcoming week, so I'm off.  Godspeed.

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