Cite Your Source

My kids learned at an early age that they couldn't convince me of anything just by saying it.

"Cite your source," I'd say.

One time, when Aidan was about ten or eleven, he told me I should stop buying gas at certain gas stations because the company owners hated America. At the time, he attended a tiny conservative Christian school where the popular consensus was that Obama was a socialist fascist dictator, born in Kenya and bent upon destroying the American Way of Life. Some folks were quick to jump on any McCarthy-esque rumor that popped up on the internet.

The inherent socio-political contradictions of that assertion aside, I wanted to teach my kids to respect other people's views, but also to think for themselves by looking at them with a critical eye. 

"Don't believe it just because someone says it's true," I would say.

So, when he told me about the gas station, I asked him to cite his source.

"Ringo's mom," he said confidently.

"She's a secondary source," I said, and then I explained to him the difference between primary and secondary sources. This explanation involved me defending myself against the charge that I thought Ringo's mom was a liar. 

Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt in
Mad about You; photo from TV.msn.com

"What source was Ringo's mom citing?"

"She read an article," he said.

Ah-hah. The definitive, indestructible "she read an article" defense.

(Mr. Peevie and I watched a show in the 90s called Mad About You with Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser. We still quote one of those episodes, in which Helen Hunt's character Jamie argues with her husband Paul, and he asks her how she knows what she's claiming. "I read an article!" she says--and it becomes a recurring theme. I squandered an hour watching Mad About You clips to try to find this scene, to no avail. This is how seriously I take my Green Room duty. You're welcome.)

As it turns out, the politics of gasoline are far more complicated than a simplistic anti-America rumor would have it. Snopes breaks it down. Notice the list of sources at the bottom of the article.

Sometimes, even sources that appear on the surface to be legitimate lack scientific rigor and should be source-checked.. See, for example, this article on the dangers of vaccinations from a secondary source called The Free Thinker (which looks like the Libertarian version of Huffington Post),written by a dude named Dave Mihalovic.

It all comes down to science and math: does the article cite (and more importantly, link to) legitimate scientific sources? The vaccine article referenced above makes many claims, none of which are sourced. The author cites "secret" CDC documents--but doesn't link to them or provide screen shots. There's no way for a thinking person to double check his claims--we're just supposed to believe him.

Um, no.

The first link in the article is to an article in another secondary source with equally shady credentials--not to an FDA document or a CDC memo or a news story, but to another article by the same guy. "Here," Dave Mihalovic is essentially saying, "you can trust me, because I said it again over here in this other article." Please.

In the third paragraph, the article quotes Brian Hooker, "a PhD scientist" about a CDC cover-up of the alleged risks of vaccinations. Who is Brian Hooker? What are his credentials in medicine, and medical research? What replicated studies has he conducted, and with what legitimate scientific controls?

The answers are, in order: He is a biochemical engineer who works as a consultant in the biotech industry.  He has no medical credentials, and has done no studies, that I can find. He's just a guy who is motivated, sadly, by the alleged vaccine-caused autism of his own child.

Regarding the claims in this article that the CDC has covered up data from their own Vaccine Safety Datalink database showing a "very high link between Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism rates in children": Show me the proof, dude.

The article claims that there are "a number" of public records that back up this claim--but only links to a 20-page Congressional Record from ten years ago. This document actually contradicts the authors claims: "...exposure to less than the minimal risk level is believed to be safe" and "the minimal risk level would need to be multiplied by ten to reach a level at which harm would be expected through exposure." You can find this out for yourself by clicking the link, and then control-F searching for the word "risk" and looking at the 18th occurrence of the word. See? I have done all the work for you.

You're welcome.

Whatever. This is just one example of millions, and just one topic of dozens that we encounter every day in the news, on Facebook, or in casual conversation, which requests our uncritical acceptance of a questionable assertion. 

Don't do it. Be a critical, questioning listener--not just about gas stations and vaccinations, but about everything--things that cause cancer, things that prevent heart attacks, things that pastors say, things that politicians say--and not just the ones you disagree with. You get the picture.

Or, alternately, you could just trust the opinions here at The Green Room, and I promise, we will always provide primary sources.

Aidan Lives: An Open Letter to His Tissue Recipient

Dear Colleen,

We received your kind note thanking us for the tissue donation you received from our beautiful boy, Aidan. We cried when we read it, because we are consumed with missing our boy; but at the same time we were glad that a part of him lives on. We're glad that he was able to help you regain a strong, healthy knee.

I imagine you being able to do normal, everyday things now that you haven't been able to do for a long time: walking on a trail, lifting your child or grandchild, taking the steps instead of the elevator. It's hard for me to believe that a literal piece of Aidan has made this possible.

In your note you said that you didn't have enough of your own tissue available for an autograft reconstruction of your ACL. This is why you needed an allograft, a donation of tissue from a deceased donor. I did some research after receiving your note, to help me to understand better how this process of tissue donation works. I learned that the field is not without controversy, and that there are some serious concerns about the business of tissue and organ harvesting--such as limited regulation and tracking; but I also read the stories of others like you, who received gifts of life and health and hope.

Less than a month after Aidan died we received a letter from Gift of Hope telling us that a man from Chicago and a man from Skokie each received a second chance for sight because of Aidan's "final act of charity." I am hopeful that problems with the business of organ and tissue donation, especially those related to profiteering, will be resolved so that there are no longer impediments or ethical concerns regarding the decision to donate these gifts of incalculable value.

Mr. Peevie and I have both followed Aidan's lead and signed on to be organ and tissue donors--in part because we were so touched by your note. I hope many of the billions of loyal Green Room readers will join us.

Love,

E. Peevie

Aidan and Mr. Peevie. South Haven. Summer 2012.

Me and the Department of Public Health

I just got off the phone with the Department of Public Health. The conversation went like this:

Woman with a Heavy Asian Accent: Hi, this is mumble mumble from mumble mumble. I need to ask you some questions about C. Peevie. He was seen in the ER recently and was diagnosed with varicella?

Me: Yes, he had chicken pox. Wait a minute, who is this?

WHAA: This is mumble mumble from the Department of Public Health. We have to make a report when we get notified that someone has had chicken pox. Can I ask you some questions?

Me: Um, OK.

WHAA: Mumble mumble varicella mumble mumble General Hospital mumble.

Me: Yes, that's correct. He was seen in the ER at Lutheran General Hospital.

WHAA: Does he still have fever? Does he still have spots? Did he go back to school?

Me: No, he hasn't had any fever for about a week. Yes, he has spots, but they are scabbed over. And yes, he went back to school yesterday.

WHAA: Does anyone else at the school have chicken pox?

Me: How would I know?

WHAA: What school does he go to?

Me: Jones.

WHAA: Do you have the phone number?

Me: No, but I'm sure you could look it up.

WHAA: So you don't know if anyone else at the school has chicken pox?

Me: No.

WHAA: Do you know where he was exposed to chicken pox? Do any of his friends have it?

Me: No, I don't know where he got it from, and as far as I know, his friends do not have it.

WHAA: Did your son hang out with his friends after he got chicken pox? Where did he go? What did he do?

Me: Yes, we took him to several restaurants and had him cough on the salad bar; and then we went to a day care center and had him hug all the children and rub his arms all over the stuffed animals.

WHAA: What?

Me: No, he did not go out after he was diagnosed. But the day before he was diagnosed, he went to church.

WHAA: Does anyone at church show symptoms?

Me: I don't know.

The WHAA asked me a bunch more questions about our household and vaccination status, and then said

WHAA: OK, thank you. We'll call you back if we have more questions for our report.

Me: OK! Because clearly, this conversation will go a long way to stopping the spread of disease and keeping the Public safe and healthy.

Here's what the Department of Public Health should have asked:

When did he start showing symptoms?
When did he get diagnosed?
Where did he go and who did he have contact with in the three days prior to showing symptoms and before getting diagnosed? And then she should have tried to obtain contact information for those people and places.

That would give them information that they could actually use to protect public health.

But, hey, what do I know?

More Mercola B.S.

I hate to be a One-Note Whatever, but my friend Stroke posted another Mercola article, this time about cosmetics, milk and beef, on FB, and it was so filled with questionable shit (and I say that with the utmost civility) that I decided it deserves its very own blog post.

I think it's likely that there is some, possibly even a lot, of truth in some of Dr. Mercola's claims. However, I think the truth gets obfuscated by misdirection, exaggeration, and deception, and that really bothers me.

Probably I should just let this go, but I just can't. It bugs me that you can't really tell who or what Mercola is quoting, or what the original source is. It looks like he's quoting a NY Times editorial, but he's not. I checked. It looks like he's quoting Dr. Epstein, but he does not cite the source of the quote. Did he interview Dr. Epstein personally, or did he just borrow quotes from Epstein's Huffington Post piece dated April 13? Because much of Dr. Mercola's material appears to be lifted virtually verbatim from the Huffington piece.

Mercola's article also makes it look like he's quoting Epstein's book, published in 2006, but the part he quotes makes reference to the NY Times editorial published in 2010. Draw your own conclusions.

Epstein himself is a questionable source. In his Huffington Post article, he uses himself (as the Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition) as his own source for his claims rather than citing independent sources and studies. He claims that

Increased levels of IGF-1 have been shown to increase risks of breast cancer in 19 scientific publications, risks of colon cancer in 10 publications, and prostate cancer in seven publications.

but he does not cite even one specific source, nor does he indicate whether the studies have been replicated. He does not give the reader any way to check his data; we're supposed to trust him. I looked on his website to see if he names the sources there, but I could not find them listed. Epstein did link to two scientific articles, both of them written by himself on the topic of growth hormones in milk, published in The International Journal of Health Services in 1990 and 1996.

Additionally, Epstein wrote that "the Cancer Prevention Coalition, endorsed by five leading national experts, petitioned the FDA in May 2007 to label rBGH milk with an explicit cancer warnings." I checked the Cancer Prevention Coalition website again to find out who those five leading experts are, but all I found was this press release which listed three organizations with a vested interest in the outcome.

The sad thing is, I think it's entirely possible that there is validity in at least some of Dr. Mercola's and Dr. Epstein's claims, and that the general public could benefit from knowing and understanding the truth about the effects of hormones and other food additives on our health. I also am not a huge fan of multi-national corporations because I don't want the profit motive to influence public health policy, which it likely does.

But this kind of self-interested, hyperbolic, misleading, and un-sourced reporting does not help or protect consumers, it does not get policies changed, and it does not lend credibility to the cause of consumer protection. In fact, because it it so blatantly self-promoting and profit-driven, those who take this path are just smaller and more ironic and hypocritical versions of Monsanto.

I also wonder about this: from the comments I discern that many who are attracted to Mercola's brand of maverick medicine are conspiracy theorists who don't trust traditional medicine, big corporations and the government. But what makes them trust Mercola? Do they think he's just a simple country doctor who's not making a mint from his website, products, books and articles? Why don't they apply the same skepticism to Mercola and Epstein that they do to the CDC?

OK, I'm done with the E. Peevie, investigative reporter bit. Thank you for letting me have my little rant. I'm going back to my schtick as a slightly nutty but devoted mother and teller of stories about poop, broken bones, soup, and other vicissitudes of Life in the Peevie Homestead.

Busting Dr. Mercola

Dr. Joseph Mercola runs the most popular natural medicine website on the Internet. Millions of people rely on him for medical advice and guidance for healthy living. He's known for being a medical maverick, often disagreeing with the conclusions of established medical practice and traditionally trusted sources.

Take flu shots, for example. The Centers for Disease Control recommends that almost everyone should get vaccinated as the best way of avoiding the flu -- but especially children and young adults age 6 to 24; pregnant women; health care workers; and adults at higher risk of complications because of existing health conditions. The Mayo Clinic agrees, as does the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association.

But Dr. Mercola disagrees. In this article about the flu shot causing death and mysterious illness, Dr. Mercola actually quotes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to back up his claim that "flu vaccines have a dismal success rate," but does not provide a link to the entire fact sheet (called Flu Vaccine Effectiveness: Questions and Answers for Health Professionals) so that his readers can get the whole story.

He's right: the CDC does admit that in some years, some studies do not demonstrate vaccine effectiveness. However, the article also reports that, among nursing home residents, for example, the vaccine provides "substantial protection against more severe outcomes, such as influenza-related hospitalization and deaths." Among adults age 65 or older, "the vaccine has been reported to be 50%-60% effective in preventing influenza-related hospitalization or pneumonia, and 80% effective in preventing influenza-related death."

The same CDC report cites three studies that "suggest substantial benefit from influenza vaccination of children," and yet Dr. Mercola claims that "the flu vaccine is no more effective for children than a placebo, according to a large-scale, systematic review of 51 studies." This claim is just not true. Here's what the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews DOES say (italics mine):

From RCTs, live vaccines showed an efficacy* of 79% and an effectiveness* of 33% in children older than two years compared with placebo or no intervention. Inactivated vaccines had a lower efficacy of 59% than live vaccines but similar effectiveness: 36%. In children under two, the efficacy of inactivated vaccine was similar to placebo. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Influenza vaccines are efficacious in children older than two years but little evidence is available for children under two.

[Read this article for a discussion of the difference between efficacy and effectiveness. Basically, efficacy studies control for other factors in determing whether a treatment works, but effectiveness studies do not, implying that effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a treatment might have more to do with other factors than with the treatment itself.]

Why would Dr. Mercola misrepresent the conclusions of the authors, who clearly stated that vaccines are 33-36% more effective than placebo, with significantly higher efficacy rates?

On November 10, 2009 Mercola posted an article asking "Why is Canada Changing Its Flu Vaccine Policy?" One section alleges that "Many conventional physicians have doubts about H1N1 vaccines," and it cites an article by Nancy Terry alleging that "other physicians are adamant about not getting the H1N1 vaccine." Not one of the "many conventional physicians" quoted is named. (And by the way, who is Nancy Terry? She is a "medical writer and editor" from Jackson Heights, New York. I searched, but I can't find any evidence that she has any kind of medical degree or scientific training.)

Another off-the-beaten-track health and wellness tip: Dr. Mercola recommends that smokers NOT stop smoking until they've solved their diet and sleep problems first. "Sugar is worse for you than smoking," he claims, and "One french fry is worse than one cigarette." He does not cite any sources, and I was not able to find any reliable primary source who agrees with him.

I'm not the only one with concerns about Dr. Mercola and his Shop of Superstitious Medicine. He's been warned by the FDA twice (in 2005 and 2006) to stop making illegal, unapproved claims about products he sells on his web site. And speaking of selling products: I might not admire Dr. M's medical creds, but man -- that guy is one highly qualified master of marketing. He uses his website to sell supplements, and he pulls in customers by making shocking, counter-intuitive, anti-medical-establishment claims.

The blog Science-Based Medicine offers an interesting piece on Mercola and his anti-flu-vaccine screeds. I liked this bit in particular:

[The article] reveals his exceptionally poor grasp of the immune system, asserts that influenza is not worth preventing (36,000 deaths, 200,000 hospitalizations from seasonal flu, I suppose one could see his point), and perpetuates the thoroughly refuted toxin gambit. Nevertheless, at the time of this writing, his article has misinformed nearly 250,000 readers.

I think it is odd that of the 75 comments on the H1N1 article linked to above, NOT ONE expresses disagreement with Dr. Mercola's opinions. Apparently, he does not tolerate dissent. Here's an interesting and articulate dissenting response to a Mercola article on Vitamin D which was blocked from his website and subsequently posted elsewhere.

If you're still a believer, at least check Mercola's sources, and see if any other legitimate source agrees with him, or backs up his opinions. Investigate whether he's endorsing or selling any products that are connected to his conclusions.

And here's a thought: You trust your own doctor, right? (If not, why is she your doctor?) Ask her if you should follow Mercola's advice. Let me know what she says.

Three is Apparently NOT a Charm

Because our life isn't complicated enough; because I covet a friendly visit from the local child protection agency; because bad luck apparently does NOT come in threes--because of all of this, C. Peevie decided to break his arm on Friday night.

I am not even kidding.

This is the fourth broken bone among the Peevies in eight months. After nearly 13 years of parenting with zero visits to the orthopedic surgeon, we now have Dr. Todd Simmons on speed dial. We see him so often that he recently friended me on FB and we decided to start a book club together. Our first title is The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold.

OK, none of that is true. Except the broken bone part. THAT part is true. C. Peevie was ice skating with his buddies Harmonica and G-Man, plus HarDad. They started playing hockey with a couple of younger girls who, C. Peevie said, totally schooled them. (I love the idea of little girls who are really good at ice hockey.)

Anyway, C. Peevie fell on the ice, stopping his fall with his hands. He came home favoring his left arm, and we wrapped and iced it, hoping for the best. The next morning it was still tender and sore, so we headed over to the pediatrician, and then to the hospital for an x-ray. No surprise: the x-ray showed a hairline fracture just above the wrist. We've been keeping it wrapped, and C. Peevie is attempting to make the most of it.

"Mom!" he hollered from another room. "Can you bring me the laptop?"

I walked into the living room and confronted him. "Honey, your leg is not broken," I said. "Get up and get it yourself."

"But my arm. Is broken," he said piteously. "I can't carry it."

"You have another arm," I said unsympathetically. And just to be clear: By this time, his pain was well under control.

"But Mom!" he said, "I can't carry the laptop AND the cord AND the charger! Please!"

"Seriously, C. Peevie," I said, unmoved. "The last thing I need is you acting all helpless. If you want the laptop, you can get up and get it yourself."

"Humph," he grumbled, and then he stomped off up the stairs, picked up the laptop, and brought it down to his apartment, I mean, to his usual divot on the couch.

I can dish out the empathy and concern when pain is involved. But when the meds have kicked in, I have a zero tolerance policy for helplessness. I HATE helplessness. It makes me INSANE.

Fortunately, C. Peevie already had an appointment scheduled for follow-up on his healing tibial fracture for today. Nurse Gail said, no problem, we'll piggy-back the arm and the leg on the same appointment. By day's end we'll be a two-cast family.

I figure, things could be worse. Way worse. Like, if we had no health insurance. Or if C. Peevie had cracked his head open instead of hurting his arm.

I'm thinking I should either invest in a truck full of bubble wrap, or I should buy stock in cast supplies.

UPDATE: It's not broken. Doc says hospital radiologist hedged his bets by calling it a "possible" hairline fracture;" but in reality? Not so much. So C. Peevie is officially off the orthopedic hook.

Yeah!

Toothless

My tooth fell out when I was chomping a piece of Red Vines licorice. I was all, chomp chomp, and then something hard was rolling around in my mouth, and then I was like, hey! what's this? and then I tongued it away from the masticated Red Vines and pulled it out, and it was a tooth! Weird. I felt like an Appalachian.

So I called my dentist, Dr. Frank (the one I love because she is very understanding about my complete lack of tolerance for even minor discomfort) and left a message.

"Should I put it under my pillow?" I asked her. "Maybe the tooth fairy will bring me the thousand bucks it's probably going to cost to fix it!"

"Where is it?" she asked, when she called me back.

"Well, that's kind of a weird question," I thought to myself, but out loud I answered, "Upstairs on my dresser."

"No," she said patiently, "where in your mouth did the tooth come from?"

Aha. That made a lot more sense. From my description she was medium confident that the tooth was actually an old crown which could be re-cemented without too much trouble.

"Put the tooth in a zip-lock bag and bring it in," she instructed. "We'll take care of it." I made an appointment for the next day, and obediently put my tooth in my purse.

The next day I got ready to head out, checked my purse one last time to make sure the crown was in there--and suddenly, I couldn't find the damn thing. Gone! My tooth was gone! I checked every pocket of my shiny green purse. Then I checked every pocket one more time. Then I turned the shiny green purse upside down and dumped everything out.

Still no tooth.

OK, ok, ok. Calm down. Think. I put in in my purse, right? I know I did. I checked the lost purse again, but it was still empty.

Aha! I know! When my tooth fell out, M. Peevie asked me, "Mom, can I put your tooth under my pillow tonight, and see if the Tooth Fairy gives me money for it?" I'll bet that little stinker took it out of my purse and put it under her pillow! I raced upstairs and checked her bed. Nothing. I checked under A. Peevie's pillow for good measure. Nothing.

Think. Think. Aha! I remember! I took it out and showed it to C. Peevie when I was in the kitchen! I ran downstairs and rifled through the three-foot pile of crap on the kitchen counter. Nothing! I checked in the office: Nothing. The bathroom: Nothing.

I called the dentist and cancelled my appointment, and then I started looking again. I called Mr. Peevie, who said he saw the zip-lock bag on the bed the night before--so I ran upstairs and started tearing apart the bed. Nothing. Under the bed? Nothing. (Well, nothing, if by "nothing" you mean two-and-a-half pairs of shoes, three socks, lots of used dryer sheets, and a coffee-table-size book of Bruegel prints and commentary in German, published in 1932. But no tooth.)

Frustrated to point of Resorting to Colorful Language, I jammed my hands into my pockets. Lo and behold--there was my tooth! Right in the zip-lock baggie and stuffed down into the linty bottom of my pocket where I had put it THAT VERY MORNING.

I'm an idiot.

So then I called the dentist back, and she still had time to re-attach my crown.

"At least you didn't swallow it," she said.

"What then?" I asked, joking, "I'd have to wait until I pooped it out?"

"Yes," she said--and she WAS NOT JOKING. Apparently this is a not-uncommon occurrence in the disgusting world of dentistry.

But now my tooth is back where she belongs, and all is well again with the world.

You Have Got to be Kidding Me

Last Friday, C. Peevie removed his Velcro boot cast and put on two shoes for the first time since he spiral-fractured his tibia on September 2. Three days later, M. Peevie slipped on the stairs, smashed her foot into the wall, and fractured her tibia.

That's our story and I'm sticking to it.

I expect a visit from DCFS at any minute.

Apparently, this is the year of broken bones in the Peevie household. This is fracture number three. I had specifically forbidden any further bone breakage, but my disobedient daughter totally disregarded the prohibition. And not only that--she did it 12 hours before we were scheduled to depart for our Christmas Aught Nine: Philadelphia Edition road trip.

C. Peevie and I went running when we heard "Thump! Thump! Thump! Ow!" as M. Peevie catapulted down the stairs, crashed into the wall, and cried out.

"It hurts!" she cried. "My ankle! I felt the bone move up! Wah! Wah! Waaahhh!"

We carried her to the couch, elevated her leg, and gently laid a bag of frozen corn (nature's ice-pack) across the already-swelling and tender-to-the-touch area. M. Peevie continued to weep, and I called the pediatrician, who recommended that we take her for an x-ray since she was unwilling to even attempt to put weight on her leg. I dosed her with Children's Tylenol (t), splinted her leg with a St. Andrew's phone directory and an ace bandage, and headed off to the hospital.

I thought the splint was a nice touch. I sort of felt like an army medic applying a field dressing during combat--only without the field and the combat. I was hoping somebody at the hospital would notice and comment on my heads-up treatment protocol--but no.

We arrived at the ER about 40 minutes after the accident. M. Peevie sat patiently in her wheelchair in the uncrowded waiting room, her face bearing the strain of pain and fatigue.

"I'm going to have to unwrap your leg," Nurse Jane said kindly when we finally reached triage about a half hour later. Not one word about how great the make-shift splint was.

"OK," M. Peevie said in a small voice, with a tiny hiccup.

"What's your pain level, honey?" Nurse Jane asked, showing M. the sad face/happy face pain chart.

"Seven-and-a-half," M. Peevie said. "Maybe eight."

"Well, you're being very brave," Nurse Jane said, unwrapping the ace bandage. When she got the splint unwrapped, she held out the school directory. "I hope this isn't homework," she said, amused. "How did you hurt yourself?"

I liked how Nurse Jane talked to M. Peevie. She spoke calmly and directly to M., and gave her the opportunity to speak for herself like a big girl. It did cross my mind, however, that hospital personnel are trained to watch for signs of abuse when children come into the ER with injuries; and I arranged my face into a concerned and guilt-free expression.

"No," M. Peevie said. "It's my school directory. I fell on the stairs," she continued. "I slipped and went all the way down and crashed into the wall with my foot. I felt the bone move up." She was very believable.

The nurse looked at me meaningfully, and we both noticed that the swelling on M. Peevie's leg had an uneven indentation in it. I knew we were in for a long night, and even though I reassured M. Peevie that it might just be a sprain, I was confident that we were dealing with a fracture.

Three hours, an x-ray, and four or five re-tellings of the Fall Down the Stairs later, including two tellings to each of two maintenance personnel who stopped by the room, we headed home with a little girl in a temporary cast, discharge instructions, and a prescription for Tylenol plus codeine. Yay. Hope she has some left over.

Meanwhile, Mr. Peevie finished packing, wrapping presents, and organizing us for our trip to PA. He is the true hero of the story. Our original plan was to get out the door by 6 a.m., but we allowed ourselves a little more sleep in the morning, and delayed our departure by six hours.

Brave broken-tibia girl barely cried after the initial trauma. We managed her pain primarily with ibuprofen and occasional doses of T3.

After this auspicious beginning, Christmas Aught-Nine: Philadelphia Edition was a piece of cake, even with the crazy relatives and the too-close quarters for too much time.

Conversations About Health Care

Jacob Weisberg recently compared the Republican response to the current pending bill to the 2003 Medicare Part D bill in Slate magazine. It's very illuminating, and here's the most telling line:

"Medicare recipients are much more likely to vote Republican than the uninsured who would benefit most from the Democratic bills," which is why the Republicans overwhelmingly passed Medicare Part D at an estimated 10-year cost as high as $1.2 trillion, but won't support the current bill.

"That figure," Weisberg continued,

—just for prescription-drug coverage that people over 65 still have to pay a lot of money for—dwarfs the $848 billion cost of the Senate bill. The Medicare D price tag continues to escalate because the bill explicitly bars the government from using its market power to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers or establishing a formulary with approved medications.

I had a conversation recently with a guy who opposes the health care reform bill because, he said, it would cause his health insurance premiums to increase by $700 per year. First of all, I doubt that he--or anyone--knows enough about the impact of the bill to be able to calculate a specific individual cost.

But aren't there more important considerations at stake here than the anecdotal alleged impact on one wealthy family? Such as health care bankruptcy for tens of thousands of Americans? Such as millions involuntarily uninsured or under-insured?

He would say no. He would say, "That's socialism. That's redistribution of wealth, and I'm against it." But as we have pointed out before,this is not socialism, it's progressive taxation. It's what we do here in this country to help take care of people who are poor, of children, of families who are struggling to keep a 10-year-old car running, not driving late model Beemers; who sometimes have to choose between buying medicine and buying food; who get non-emergency health care at the emergency room because they can't afford the cost of an office visit.

Health care reform is imperative because health care in this country works great for some, but there are too many left out in the cold. Health care reform is an issue of social justice.

What Will He Remember?

One more week before (fingers crossed) the big cast comes off and is replaced with the walking cast. Now that the pain is gone, C. Peevie's biggest broken-leg-related problem is the under-the-cast itching, which we treat with Benadryl and a fly swatter.

Oh, it's not clear how a fly swatter can cure itching? It turns out that a fly swatter is the perfect common household implement for scratching an itchy leg under a thigh-high cast. He tried other re-purposed scratchers--a ruler, an unbent hanger, a pen--but they were either too short, too inflexible, or too thick to fit between his leg and the cast.

Now that he's nearing the end of his short-term disability, I'm wondering what he will remember about this episode 30 years from now?

Will he remember WillDad and HarDad splinting his leg so well that the ER staff at Door County Memorial Hospital thought he had been field-dressed by a physician?

Will he remember his pain during the first three days that made him aaaalmost cry, and definitely made his mother cry? Will he remember fidgeting and moaning and shifting and adjusting his pillows at night, trying to find a comfortable position, until his breathing grew even and finally, he slept?

Will he remember falling in the bathroom, shaking and whimpering from fear and pain for about 45 minutes after we got him safely back on the couch?

Will he remember the Buckeyes chocolate candies and the Costco-size box of individual bags of M&M trail mix that my peeps brought him?

Will he remember that he missed his first two weeks of high school? Will he remember navigating the halls in a wheelchair, and refusing to eat lunch in the cafeteria because he didn't want to ask for help?

Will he remember the kindness and support of his teachers and counselors, who helped him navigate the physical and emotional challenges of the first messed-up weeks of school?

Will he remember getting progressively better on his crutches until stairs barely slowed him down? Will he remember doing wheelies in his chair, and me yelling at him to knock it off before he broke his skull?

Will he remember the stories people told him about their own broken bones and assorted traumas?

What will he remember?

In Which I Save A. Peevie's Life. Sort Of.

I saved A. Peevie's life tonight. Kind of.

It was nothing, really.

I went to Walgreen's to pick up one of his prescriptions, and before I left the store, I checked the 'scrip as I almost always do, to make sure I was getting the drug that I needed--Verapamil--and not one of his many other prescriptions. You remember Verapamil, right? The one that he accidentally overdosed himself on a few months back? Yes, that one.

The label on the pill bottle said "Verapamil," and that was good enough for me. Apparently, I should have looked a little closer, because when I got home and started to give A. Peevie his medicinal cocktail, I realized that they had given me 120 mg tablets instead of 120 mg time release capsules.

I briefly considered giving him the tablet, and then I realized that with the tablet, he'd be getting his 24-hour dose all at once. "Hmmm," I thought. "That might actually stop his heart. Bad idea."

As I climbed back into the Minivan of Salvation and drove back to Walgreens to make the exchange, I worked on my Indignant and Horrified Expression and my Speech of Potential Death Averted, No Thanks To You, Walgreens. What if I had been just tired and distracted enough to not think twice about giving him that pill? What if I hadn't been home, and Mr. Peevie was in charge of meds, and he didn't know the difference? Or if a babysitter had been in charge, and wouldn't know by looking at the pills that they were wrong?

At the pharmacy counter, I mentioned the itty-bitty problem of the Right Medicine, Wrong Dose/Delivery to the concerned but powerless pharm-tech.

"This dose might have killed him," I said gently but firmly. "The pharmacist needs to know that someone made a serious mistake."

"Oh, did the doctor write it wrong?" she said innocently.

"Um, no," I said. "This was a refill of a long-standing prescription that my son has been taking for years. Someone here made a mistake."

"I'm very sorry," she said sincerely, "I'll speak to the pharmacist about it." A few minutes later she reassured me that they were getting right on it, and would have the correct pills ready quickly.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. Customers came and went. I played Sudoku and finished solving a medium-difficulty game. Finally, after 15 minutes had gone by with nary a word, I stood at the counter again.

"Can I help you?" asked a boy pharm-tech (BPT) with a bored expression on his face.

"Yes," I said firmly and with a skosh less gentleness than the last time. "I'm waiting for a replacement on a prescription that was filled incorrectly the first time. The tech told me it would be ready in a few minutes. It's been 15." There was talking, scurrying, and PA announcing for an "exchange in pharmacy." Finally, BPT handed the new bag of pills over to a store manager, who began punching buttons on his register.

"That will be $4.78," he said.

"Noooo," I said, "I already paid for the prescription once. I don't believe I owe any additional money."

"Ah," he said, and punched a bunch more buttons on his register. The whole Accidental Death Averted Situation seemed to be a non-starter, and I was nonplussed. I prayed a quick prayer asking for wisdom, and then I started kicking ass. Nicely.

"I don't want to be difficult, here," I said, "but this was a pretty serious mistake that was made, and everyone seems to be pretty casual about it. This dose could potentially have killed my son."

Well, didn't that get his attention! Store Manager stopped punching buttons and looked back and forth at the two prescription bags in his hands. I waited.

"They're both the same medication," he said, confused.

"Yes," I said, "But one is time-release capsules, and the other is a full 120 mg dose tablet." He looked back and forth at the labels again. "He would be getting the full dose all at once," I explained. "My son weighs 75 pounds. It would be a serious overdose."

One beat. Another beat. Then: "Ahhh. Time-release capsules," he said.

"As I said, I'm not trying to be difficult, here," I reiterated. "I just want to make sure that everyone understands the potential seriousness of the mistake so that it doesn't happen again."

"I will definitely talk to the pharmacist," Store Manager said. "And I'm very, VERY sorry for the mistake and for your trouble. Very, VERY sorry."

That was more like it--and that's all I wanted, really--someone in charge, someone with actual responsibility to acknowledge that a very big and potentially very dangerous mistake had been made. Store Manager started punching more buttons on his register; he popped open his drawer and took out some money.

"I don't think I get any money back," I said stupidly--why am I turning down cash? "I didn't pay too much for the prescription."

"No," said Store Manager, handing me $5 and change, "It's because of our mistake and your trouble. We're covering the cost of the prescription."

Oh. Well, then. I accept.

But I'm still going to call the cardiologist tomorrow and find out what would have been the expected outcome if we had accidentally given A. Peevie the tablet instead of the prescribed capsule.

And then I might be writing a letter to Mr. Walgreen himself.

I Feel Safe Here

Last week, as we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital where A. Peevie sees many of his "-ologists," I was surprised to hear him say fondly, "I like this place."

"Really, A.?" I asked. "That's great. How come?"

"Because all the people here are really nice," he said. Well, that's an advertisement waiting to happen for Lutheran General Children's Hospital.

"Also," he continued, "I feel safe here."

OK, first of all, how great is it that this child understands his own feelings and articulates them so...well, so articulately?

And secondly, isn't the irony almost too much? That he feels safe at the hospital?

This is a boy who thinks about health and safety concerns more than the average 11-year-old. He went through a phase a few years ago when he talked about death and dying constantly. "Will you still think about me when I'm dead?" he'd ask. Or I'd put him back to bed for the eleventy-seventh time, and tell him to go to sleep, and he'd say, "I don't want to go to sleep, Mom. I'm afraid I won't wake up in the morning."

Like that didn't break my achy heart.

He made me a mother's day card this year that referenced health issues 6 times in 19 sentences. He said things like

"You love me...you get me food. You give me medicine and make sure I take my meds...When I am sick you get me Motrin or Tylenol. When my forehead is warm you take my temperature. When I have trouble breathing you take me to the hospital...When C. Peevie or M. Peevie are being mean, you yell at them and help me get away from them. (Yaaay!!!)"

Maybe when you've been through what he's been through, you pay more attention to feelings of safety, and you don't take it for granted that someone will take your temperature when your forehead is warm. His medical chart is about 19 inches thick with the details of two open-heart surgeries, one closed-heart surgery, two cardiac ablation procedures, half a dozen additional cardiac catheterizations, and multiple hospitalizations for pneumonia, RSV, influenza A, and once for an infected gland.

(I posted the story of A. Peevie's rough start here, in case you missed it the first time around.)

Anyway, we saw Dr. O, an electro-physiologist who specifically handles the rhythm issues of A. Peevie's heart. We got a good report, and A. Peevie had a fun tickle-fest with the playful million-dollar specialist. I was glad to walk away with no changes other than an additional prescription.

I want this boy to feel safe all the time. I think a child should feel safe, and one of the most important jobs of a parent is to help her child be and feel safe. I'm happy that he feels safe at the hospital; but I'm sad that he's had the kind of life experience that has put him in a place where the hospital is the place where he feels safe enough to actually notice and comment on feeling safe.

The boy also makes me think hard about health care in the United States. Without changes in our system, he will be out of luck when it comes to health care. He has so many pre-existing conditions, long-term medications, and high-risk medical concerns that the only way he'll get health care coverage is if he marries a cardiologist or ends up working for a large company that's required to provide health insurance to all of its employees.

It's not right that someone like him, through no fault of his own, will be at high risk for bankruptcy-by-healthcare-bills if somebody doesn't do something.

I saw a bumper sticker today on a big, gas-sucking SUV that read, "Defeat ObamaCare." What I want to know is, what do they have to say to A. Peevie about his healthcare options once he is no longer a dependent of Mr. Peevie and his excellent healthcare benefits?

Health Care Hyperbole

This article in Slate (hat tip to Mr. Peevie) has more than just a super catchy title.

It starts with an eye-raising quote from Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky): "Nothing makes me more angry than the suggestion that America does not already have the finest health care in the world." Really, Senator McConnell? Nothing makes you more angry? Not pedophilia? Not war crimes? Not the completely unmerited cancellation of Firefly?

When the first word out of your mouth is extreme hyperbole, it makes the rest of your sentence even more suspect. What independent source agrees with you that American has "the finest health care in the world"?

Certainly not the World Health Organization (WHO), which in its 2000 World Health Report ranked the U.S. 37th, far below France, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Japan; just below Costa Rica; and just above Slovenia and Cuba. (You can find the full text of the report here.)

Also, the Commonwealth Fund reported that without reform, insurance premium increases will price middle-income families out of insurance altogether.

The question, as Charlie Rose put it, is "whether or not there needs to be a public option; whether there needs to be government-run insurance as one of the options to get more people insured."

The answer that President Obama gave was that "there is a range of options that will be available; private insurers will participate." You will be able to compare the plans, and "as one option among multiple options should be a public option where we set up an insurer that isn't profit-driven, that can keep administrative costs low, and that can serve as competition to the private insurers."

On the one hand, people fear the public option plan because they anticipate rationed care and too much government intervention and bureaucracy. On the other hand, the private insurers are predicting that they will lose customers who will willingly choose the public option over their existing private plan because it will be less expensive.

How can both of these complaints be true?

Not the Call You Want to Get

I just got a call from my friend Mrs. D'Onofrio in Door County. It was not the call you want to receive when you have sent your kid off with a sleeping bag and a pat on the back and your last words to him were, "Please come back all in one piece!"

"We're taking C. Peevie to the ER," Mrs. D'Onofrio said. "He hurt his leg, and we're taking him for an X-ray just to be safe." There was lots of commotion and talking in the background.

"Really? Do you really think he needs to go to the ER?" I asked, thinking someone was possibly over-reacting.

Mrs. D turned away from the phone and asked someone in the background, "Does he really need to go to the ER?" I heard the answer, and then Mrs. D repeated it for me: "Yes. We need to get an X-ray." Keep me posted, I told her.

Next, I heard from the nurses in the ER at Door County Memorial Hospital, calling to confirm my permission to treat C. Peevie, and to make sure he wasn't allergic to whatever it is that gives hospitals their hospitally smell. Is he in a lot of pain?" I asked. He was deep breathing to control his pain, they said, and they'd give him some good meds soon. I did some deep breathing of my own.

Next I heard from the Nurse on the Case. "What medicines is he taking, Mrs. Peevie?" Nurse On the Case asked.

"None," I replied.

"C. Peevie said he takes allergy meds," Nurse OC said.

"Well, he's delirious," I said. "I have a prescription for him, but I haven't even filled it yet." We went back and forth a couple of times, and finally she understood that I was not withholding critical medical information.

Then I got a call from C. Peevie himself. "Mom," he said with barely any air behind his scratchy, deepening, adolescent voice, "Mom, I'm sorry."

I practically burst into tears. "Honey, what are you sorry for? You don't need to be sorry!"

"I'm...sorry," he said again, "I'm...just...sorry."

"C. Peevie, are you in a lot of pain?" I asked.

"No, mom," he barely croaked out--he, who never speaks at a volume below medium shout. "It doesn't hurt that much." I could tell he wanted it to be true.

At one point I got a call from the moms back at the shack, waiting for news. They filled me in on how the accident happened: the kids were using homemade ramps to play Tony Hawk and Trick Cycle Dudes. C. Peevie went up, came down, landed wrong, and didn't get up.

"It's not that he landed hard," Will'sMom said, "It's that he landed wrong. And then he didn't get up."

Finally, I got a call from the Doctor on the Case. "Well, it's a fracture," she said. His tibia was broken and the two pieces of bone were mis-aligned. They would need to line up the bone and put on a temporary cast.

"We'll give him some demerol before we do it," she said. Ah, demerol. Demerol would totally be the gorilla on my back if I were a medical professional with access to the good shit. I had some once, long ago, during a medical emergency, and to this day it is one of my fondest memories.

He'd need to see an orthopedic surgeon and have a permanent cast put on, the doc said. "What about school?" I asked. "It starts on Tuesday."

"No school until he sees the ortho and gets his cast," she said. I wonder how likely it is that we'll be able to get that done on a holiday weekend? I'm guessing, not so much likely--and this is before ObamaCare ruins health care for everyone. (You know I'm being sardonic, right?)

I kept wanting to cry all evening. I'm not really a worrier--I knew he was being well cared for, and that the moms and dads at Mrs. D'Onofrio's farm would ensure that he got everything he needed. But I wanted to be with him. I wanted to hold his hand when they straightened his leg. I wanted to push his hair off his face and kiss his cheek. I wanted to watch him experience his first narcotic high.

Finally, I got another call from Mrs. D'Onofrio. "It's a good thing it wasn't my son who broke his leg," she said, "because I would have killed him." Well, she can talk all blustery and stuff, but I know she's suffering because she feels responsible that C. Peevie got injured on her watch.

"Mrs. D.," I reassured her, "It was an accident. Accidents happen. He'll be fine."

"No," she said, "An accident is when you trip over a bump in the rug. This was not an accident, this was a broken leg waiting to happen because these kids insist on doing daredevil stunts like Evel Knievel." Problem is, we all knew they were doing it, and we didn't tell them to stop. It's what kids do!

It's what I did when I was a kid; and sometimes, someone gets hurt. If we forbade every activity that might involve someone getting hurt, we'd have to have our kids sitting naked on the floor in the middle of an empty room, instead of playing and exploring and riding and, occasionally, Evel Knieveling.

That's what I think, anyway. Of course you may not want to listen to me. I've had two kids with broken bones so far this year--although I'm just now realizing that I never blogged about M. Peevie's broken arm back in, what was it, May?

Bad mommy-blogger! Bad mommy-blogger!

But I digress. C. Peevie will be getting a ride home tomorrow, cutting his last pre-high school fling short by two days. I guess he'll be sleeping on the couch for the next six weeks, since I can't imagine him being able to climb up into his bunk bed with a broken leg.

And how the heck will he get to school with a heavy backpack and crutches, on the bus and the train and the walk across the Loop?

Is it too late for him to transfer?

Did He Really Say That? Um, Not Exactly.

Speaking about health care reform, did Mike Huckabee really say that under proposed health care legislation, Senator Kennedy would have been told to "go home to take pain pills and die" as blogger after blogger after blogger and even Salon reported? Seriously?

Actually, that's not what he said. You can listen to his commentary here (click on the Thursday, August 27, morning commentary link). What he said was this:

[I]t was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don't have as long to live might want to consider just taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them," said Huckabee. "Yet when Sen. Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 77, did he give up on life and go home to take pain pills and die? Of course not. He freely did what most of us would do. He chose an expensive operation and painful follow-up treatments. He saw his work as vitally important and so he fought for every minute he could stay on this earth doing it. He would be a very fortunate man if his heroic last few months were what future generations remember him most for."

For liberals to take the words "go home to take pain pills and die" out of context and mis-characterize them is just as bad as what Huckabee did in that clip, which is to take President Obama's words, distort them a little, and mis-characterize them as quasi-euthanasia. In both cases, what's missing is integrity.

The President did not suggest that seniors "might want to just consider taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them," as Huckabee said. What he did say was this:

I don’t want bureaucracies making those decisions. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made by private insurers. …

[W]hat we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that’s not making anybody’s mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know, and your mom know, that you know what, maybe this isn’t going to help, maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller. …

The point is we want to use science, we want doctors and medical experts to be making decisions that all too often right now are driven by skewed policies, by outdated means of reimbursement, or by insurance companies.

Is it ironic, or merely hypocritical, that in the same radio segment Mr. Huckabee criticized Dems for using Kennedy's death as a springboard for promoting health care legislation, saying, "Senator Ted Kennedy's death had barely hit the news before we started hearing calls that Congress must hurry and pass the health care reform bill and do it in his memory"? This kind of talk "defies good taste," he said, but then he went on to use Kennedy as an object lesson in support of his own health care arguments.

Now that's talking out of both sides of his mouth.

It really doesn't help in the long run if Dems trash Republicans and Republicans trash Dems and everyone proves that they are not really listening to and understanding the other side.

Don't you think we'd do a better job solving the healthcare problems if we actually spoke to one another with respect, and demonstrated a teeny bit of willingness to compromise?

Health Care Reform and You

Let's have a conversation about health care, specifically, about the health care system in the U.S.

This article in the Washington Post debunks five myths about health care in other countries:

1. "It's all socialized medicine out there." It's not. "Many wealthy countries," said T.R. Reid, "provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals, and private insurance plans."

2. "Care is rationed through limited choices or long lines." Some countries are plagued by long waits for non-emergency care, but "many nations outperform the United States" in terms of wait times.

3. "Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies." In fact, T.R. pointed out, "U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world."

4. "Cost controls stifle innovation." Many drugs and procedures originated in countries with strict health care cost controls.

5. "Health insurance has to be cruel." That might be true in this country, where health insurance companies exist to make a profit; but foreign companies must accept all applicants, and can't cancel anyone who pays his premiums.

On the other hand, this article from CNNMoney.com describes five freedoms you'd lose under Obamacare.

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan.
2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs.
3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage.
4. Freedom to keep your existing plan.
5. Freedom to choose your doctors.

Really, CNNMoney? Don't these "freedoms" only apply to a tiny group of people? I don't know anyone who has a health care plan that allows them to choose what it covers. People who have insurance through their employer (59% of workers in 2007) don't get to choose what's in their plan; their employer does.

High-deductible coverage is only valuable to the very healthy and the moderately wealthy. Some of us have children or spouses with special health needs, and many of us cannot afford to pay a large deductible when something goes wrong. It would wipe us out in a month.

Freedom to keep your existing plan is not a freedom to the 46 MILLION Americans who don't have any health care coverage at all. Plus, as CBS News reported, "the bill does not force private insurance out of business or force people onto the public plan."

This article reports that "family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance increased 119 percent between 1999 and 2008." I don't know about you, but the Peevie family income did not increase by 119 percent in that time-frame. The cost increases are unsustainable, and that's one of the problems that needs to be addressed.

There is a lot of fear-mongering going on about health care reform. This article highlights a pensioner who is very happy with his own health care, and wants to hang on to it despite the dire warnings about unsustainable cost increases and the millions without health care coverage. "We have the best health care in the world," he said, "If there is anything I need, I get it."

My family has great health care coverage, too, but that doesn't mean I can't see that our health care system is in trouble, and needs reform. "Health care is not a right," my brother told me once; and that's obviously true in this country. But that doesn't mean that it's not the right thing to do, to provide health care and health care coverage for everyone.

Is it right that 62 percent of people who filed bankruptcy in 2007 did so because of medical bills? Article after article tell stories of middle-class, insured people being driven into bankruptcy because of exorbitant medical costs and coverage gaps.

I'm no expert on health care, and I haven't read the 1,018-page health care bill yet, but I plan to read it and to read commentary from all sides. In the meantime, I'm not buying into the myths about euthanasia and draconian health care rationing. I don't know if I'm totally on board with the proposed bill; but I know I'm on board with reform.

If you have insight or links to share, post a comment. I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Father's Day Scare

A little friend of ours watched her daddy have a seizure right in front of her tonight. It was one of the most frightening things I've ever been close to, and except for calling 911 and trying fecklessly to bring him out of it by talking to him (obviously, I'm medically clueless), I was scared and helpless.

Mr. Peevie and I had taken our kids plus a couple of extras to the park to play baseball. We were taking turns pitching and batting, and generally having a good time. Little Un-named Friend (LUF)'s mom dropped off LUF and her daddy to play with us, and they were sitting on the bench along the sidelines.

Suddenly LUF-daddy started yelling and convulsing, his arms straight out in front of him. For the first 10 seconds or so, Mr. Peevie and I thought he was kidding around, but then 9-year-old LUF started screaming, and we knew something was wrong. I ran over, to do what, I have no idea; and I called to Mr. Peevie to grab my phone from the backpack and call 911. I started talking to LUF-Daddy, but of course, he could not hear me; he stopped yelling, but his arms were still extended stiffly in front of him, his eyes were rolling back and showing red around the edges, and bits of foam whitened the corners of his mouth. LUF kept screaming, and I just kept watching him helplessly, knowing only to watch to make sure he wasn't choking on vomit.

Mr. Peevie couldn't figure out how to dial 911 on my phone, so he handed it to me and went to put his arms around poor, terrified, screaming LUF. It took me three tries before I could get my fingers to hit the right keys, but finally, I got through.

"A man is having a seizure," I yelled into the phone. "We're at Hitch school; we need help." They asked for the address, which I gave them with Mr. Peevie's level-headed help; I couldn't remember the names of the streets with LUF-Daddy foaming and seizing next to me on the bench and his horrified daughter screaming 10 feet away. Meanwhile, the other kids were watching from where they stood on the field; except M. Peevie had moved to a safer distance and stood with her fingers in her ears and a scared look on her face.

After about a minute, LUF-Daddy slumped back against the cast-iron bench and his head lolled to the side. His eyes were open, but not rolling back; he was only semi-conscious. I was still talking to the 911 operator, who was asking me for symptoms and telling me to lay him on his side.

"I can't really lay him on his side," I said nervously. "He's sitting up on a bench, kind of leaning over on his side already. He's a big guy." She asked me to try to make sure he didn't choke on anything, and to flag down the ambulance, which was on the way.

Mr. Peevie still held tight to LUF, who was crying and screaming, "Daddy! Daddy! He doesn't know me! Daddy!"

I got back on the phone and called LUF's mom to tell her what was going on. "I'll be right there," she said grimly, and she hung up quickly.

As LUF-Daddy started gradually regaining consciousness (if that's the right word for it), he started looking around with a dazed and confused expression on his face. I was sitting next to him on the bench with my hand on his arm. When his gaze focused on me, his eyes widened in fear and confusion, and he started backward, like he was afraid of me. He clearly had no idea who I was or what was going on. I got up and moved away from him, partly out of fear for my own safety, and partly to help him feel safer.

LUF was still crying and screaming, and LUF-Daddy looked over at her uncomprehendingly. Then he looked back at me, and startled again. I took another step away, but kept talking to him in what I hoped was a reassuring voice.

"You had a seizure, LUF-Daddy," I told him. "It's going to be OK. The ambulance is on the way." I kept repeating this mantra, because it was all I could do; but he was still clearly disoriented, and my words probably sounded like what a pet hears when its owner talks to it in human language.

It felt like a year passed, with the screaming and crying, the talking gently but warily watching, the waiting, the holding. Every time LUF-Daddy looked toward me, he jumped in his seat, like he was afraid I was going to hurt him; and every time, I moved further away because I felt it was entirely possible that he could lash out in fear. A man came from across the street, hearing the commotion. He wanted to be helpful, and tried to talk gently to LUF-Daddy, but with the same lack of success that I had had.

"I wouldn't go too near him," I warned him. "He's disoriented and scared. He's still coming out of it."

Finally we heard the sirens, and the fire truck and ambulance arrived (it was probably less than five minutes), and LUF-Mommy pulled up at the same time. She leapt out of her car and ran over to him, ignoring my warning that he was confused and maybe she should move slowly; but thankfully, he seemed to recognize her. She talked to him gently, but he still didn't talk or move from the bench.

The EMTs moved more slowly and carefully, assessing the situation like professionals before walking slowly over to LUF-Daddy. One paramedic asked me for the details of what had happened, and I told her while they helped him up and loaded him onto the stretcher. LUF was still sobbing loudly with Mr. Peevie's arms wrapped around her.

As they pushed him toward the ambulance, LUF-Mommy's face crumpled, and I put my arms around her. LUF came running over to us, and jumped up into her mom's arms, wrapping her legs around her waist and sobbing even louder. We huddled together, with LUF's mom saying reassuring things to comfort her.

"His arms stuck straight out!" she wailed, "And his eyes were red, and there were bubbles on his mouth! He didn't know who I was!"

"I know, baby, I know," her mom said, holding her tight and crying. "It's gonna be OK now. The doctors are going to help daddy."

Two or three times before they left, the paramedics asked about LUF, making sure that one of the adults was taking responsibility for her. Later, when I was processing the whole event, I thought to myself how alert that was, for them to not only take care of their patient, but also to be aware of the needs of a distraught little girl.

After LUF-Daddy had been taken to the ambulance, M. Peevie came over and put her arms around her little friend and held her tight. LUF-Mommy and I sat down on the bench to give her a chance to talk and cry a bit. C. Peevie helpfully grabbed A. Peevie and his little friend and walked them home, while M. Peevie sensitively suggested to LUF that they walk a little ways away from us so that they did not have to hear what we were saying. When she felt ready, LUF-Mommy drove her car home, and Mr. Peevie and I walked home with the two little girls.

All of us spent time tonight processing that scary event. M. Peevie's process included extra cuddling at bedtime, plus a reading of Psalm 23. The rest of us just talked through what we saw and how we felt; and one of us blogged about it.

I'm sure poor LUF will be processing this for years. How does a child recover from seeing such a frightening thing happen to her own daddy right in front of her eyes?

I did some research on grand mal seizures, which is my diagnosis of LUF-Daddy's situation, and I learned that we did a few things right by mainly leaving him alone. Don't hold him down, don't put anything in his mouth, turn him on his side (which we didn't have to do for him because he essentially did it for himself), and note the symptoms and length of the seizure.

I learned that it is technically not necessary to call 911 for a person having a seizure unless there is no medical ID indicating that the person has a seizure disorder. In this case, we called instinctively, and only learned later that he had never seized before, which is a positive indicator for medical attention.

Next time, I'll look for a medical ID bracelet--although how you do that when a big guy is flailing and foaming at the mouth, I really don't know.

Next time, maybe I'll just plan to be somewhere else.

King of Music

At the end of American Idol tonight, tiny little Seacrest was announcing the special guests that will appear tomorrow night.

"We'll have the World Famous Slash!" he said, and Mr. Peevie and I just looked at each other, all, huh? Slash? But my little Music Man A. Peevie is way hipper than either of us, and apparently way more on top of the contemporary music scene.

"Slash!" he said joyfully, "He's the lead singer for Guns and Roses!" He then went on to name three or four of his favorite Guns and Roses songs, which, wha? When did this pop culture knowledge flood his brain, and from whence? I'm certainly not a contemporary music maven. Until last week I though Pink was just a color.

We were watching another show a couple of weeks ago, and a tune started playing. After literally five or six notes, A. Peevie says, "Hey, it's The Immigrant Song!" Mr. Peevie cocked his head, listened for a moment, and agreed.

Again, I was a musical outsider, and I cogently inquired, "Huh?"

"Led Zeppelin!" A. Peevie and Mr. Peevie said in unison, and Mr. P reminded me, "It was even in School of Rock" which we watched last week for family movie night. Apparently The Immigrant Song has quite the backstory, and even got a shout-out in Shrek the Third.

That kid never ceases to amaze me--and he was so cheerful when Mr. P and I were amazed at his musical knowledge that I thought his cheeks were going to pop right off his face.

"You are the King of Music!" I told him, and then M. Peevie, not wanting to be left out of the royalty-making, announced, "And I'm the Queen!" Princess, maybe; but since she just fractured her wrist on Sunday, and didn't get it x-rayed and diagnosed until two days later, and has been such a non-complainer about it, I'll promote her to queen.

Like how I stuck that little anecdote of continuing family drama into a completely unrelated blog post? It's called segue, and the really great writers know how to make it so smooth you barely even realized it happened. Then there's writers like me who point it out and analyze it in the next paragraph, making the whole thing completely irritating and clunky.

I'll stop now.

Good News, Bad News

Good news! I'm working on five different projects this week.

Well, actually, two of them are somewhat inactive, but technically still in progress. The other three are all on tight deadlines.

I am so very grateful to be working. Me--the Player! Grateful to be working. Must be a sign of the apocalypse.

Bad news! I had this tender red lump on my neck which I thought was probably a baby alien, a la Sigourney Weaver. The surgeon took one look at it and disagreed with my diagnosis (so ridiculously arrogant, these surgeons).

"It's an infected cebaceous cyst," he said confidently. "It needs to come out now."

[I want you to know that on purpose I did not make the words "infected cebaceous cyst" a hot link because the pictures are kind of gross. I'm not a little proud of myself for having that kind of self-control and respect for my readers TMI boundaries. Feel free to look it up on your own if you want...Bucky.]

Um, now? I have my busiest work week in eight months, and you're telling me I must have surgery?

"Yes, now," he reiterated. "I'll squeeze you into my schedule tomorrow, first thing in the morning. You don't want to mess around with that thing."

"That thing"? Here I was fondly thinking up names for it, and imagining it's four tiny arms and six tiny eyes--and he rudely calls it a "thing." Surgeons--they're so artless and businesslike.

Good news! I had the surgery yesterday (well, it's late, so technically it was the day before yesterday) and was back in the Green Room saddle by 10:30 a.m. The surgery took 15 minutes, I was told--all I remember is the anesthesiologist, Dr. Mayer, telling me he'd be giving me something to help me relax, and then I felt all happy, and I said, "Aaahhhh, I like that." Next thing I know, I'm waking up in the recovery room, wanting to propose to Dr. Mayer.

I did end up crashing for a three-hour nap shortly thereafter because the general anesthesia and the extremely short night of sleep the night before wiped every last ounce of energy and alertness right out of me--but now I'm back to my perky and cheerful self.

Wait. Perky and cheerful? They must have performed a personality transplant while they were at it.

OK, this is meandering and completely unprofessional, as blog posts go. Chalk it up to the pain meds. Lovely, lovely pain meds.

I'll be back tomorrow to talk about National Poetry Month. You can get prepared by pulling a copy of The Collected Works of Emily Dickinson off your bookshelf and reading a couple of poems to yourself. Out loud, of course.