Curious Cohen goes on a hunger strike

It was a big day at the George house as Cohen’s GI test was this morning.  First and foremost this involved starving him.  They wanted us to do it for four hours but we chose the 2 hour option, and then fretted over the fact that he may not be hungry enough.  He had to be hungry so he would consume a mixture or 10% milk/80% barium ick so they could watch his digestive system.

Here’s how the test goes.  They undress your child and lay him on an x-ray table.  One of the parents can stay in the room (me since I have already reached my radiation frequent flyer club card) with two technicians.  The first technician, whom we will call Mrs. Old Lady is responsible for feeding the baby barium, and contorting him into different positions.  The other technician moves this live-action x-ray device around while barking out orders like “roll him on his right side,” “roll him on his back,”, “left side”, “shake it all around.”  Since I didn’t have much to do except look freaked out, I got to watch the live feed of the stuff going through his system.  The whole thing took about 10 minutes and Cohen did great – he ate the awful tasting goop well enough for them to get a good idea of what was going on.  And he was extremely happy to see his mom and get back to his regularly scheduled eating from his regularly scheduled source.

No drama today, the test came back negative. His chest x-ray came back negative from yesterday. We don’t know what the mucus study showed but hopefully that means negative.   All in all it was a good day, although in some ways you now wonder if you’re going to be tracking another ghost.  They will let him ride out the week and see how his vomiting is.  His breathing and antibiotic treatments will end in a day or two as well.   If his stomach issues persist, then we start to treat it as “reflux.”  We’re hoping that treatment for that will involve Zantac and modifications in positioning only. 

We had a ton of offers for place to stay, and help with Garrison, if we had needed to go to the surgical route.  Thanks to all of you.  I hope to return the blog to its rightful status of unfunny, sarcastic commentary very soon.  I hope that we are done getting surprises like this.  We love you all.  Except for the Irish. 

Cohen Update

Here’s the latest on CoCo.

Around new years, Cohen started to have some issues spitting up. It started slowly but the more we fed him the more he spit up. We were concerned, and at his second checkup the doctor referred to it as “throwing up” and ordered a special X-ray to see if he had reflux or if he had a problem with his GI system. This is called Pyloric stenosis and is kind of rare, but it does fit a lot of his symptoms.

In the interim though, Cohen got sick. An ear infection, and a respiratory infection. For the past week he has had to take antibiotics 2x a day and do a Nebulizer treatment 3x a day. This is no big deal of course, except he is 7 weeks old. This also meant a delay of the Upper GI test. His breathing got to the point a few days ago where he shared in the great George tradition of Emergency Room visits. Needless to say, I was quite proud. But here’s the thing- while our pediatrician is local, we have had such bad experiences with Pocono Medical Center that Beth took him all the way to St. Luke's. Which meant no one got much sleep.  They checked out his breathing, and all was OK ~ a viral infection and a frog in his throat, and they sent him home and we stopped using the wood stove. Side note- want to help us pay our electric bill????

So a few days passed and the “spitting up” now has turned into full on projectile vomiting. He eats, like he is famished, then vomits a lot of it up. He is still gaining weight (can you believe he is 11 pounds, 2 ounces already?) but still…this is not a good thing.

When we returned to the Doctor today we felt that he “looked sick” – and the doctor felt that we not only needed to quickly schedule his GI test but to get a chest X-ray to check for phenomena, and have a sample of his mucus examined.

Fun fact: Beth and I have full on flu bugs right now, Cohen is obviously up a lot, and Garrison has decided he will only sleep a few hours in his room alone before he needs someone with him. Sorry if we sound bitchy when we answer the phone or email.

So what now? Well we are continuing the breathing treatments and antibiotics. We had the chest x-ray and mucus sample taken today. Assuming that comes back OK, we will have the GI test tomorrow morning (shout out to Kristy for hanging with Gar so we can both go!)., and they will have him swallow some barium and then do some photos. If it isn’t Pyloric stenosis then it’s most likely reflux, just coupled with a lot of other issues. If the diagnosis is positive, that’s when things get trickier. That situation will require him to have surgery, a Laparoscopic procedure that would permanently repair the troubled part in the stomach. It doesn’t seem to be a very dangerous procedure, but would require a few day stay away from home.  And by away from home, we mean at least an hour away for a place that would perform the surgery.

scar-borough fair

*spoiler alert* The further down you read, the closer you come to seeing my scar. To some people it’s no big deal. To others, it’s like they were forced to sit through back to back screenings of Yogi Bear.


Remember that story I told you all about having my leg cut open? Well here’s something funny about it- even though a plastic surgeon closed my wound with a skin graft, I still am going to have a huge scar on my leg. Which begs the question- what would my scar have looked like if I HADN’T had a plastic surgeon? Well probably like this. Anyway, given that my insurance does not want to pay for the surgery I have already had with this fine man, I find it hard to believe they would cover a more cosmetic procedure. Or as he puts it, “I can do some work there and make it look like a simple line.” Sadly, unlike any self respecting plastic surgeon, he did not offer to increase the wound in size or firmness.

Although the tattoo idea had rattled around my head for a while now, it wasn’t until the visiting nurse was here yesterday that it really picked up speed. She is a wound care specialist and said that a lot of her clients have gone this route. She told me that in some ways it’s much less painful than other inking I may have had done because it’s basically being performed on hardened scar tissue.

I’m not sold yet. But I could be. My wife came up with the idea of a mouth (which will make sense once you see it) but I am not sure how I can get something cool and something that won’t freak out my kids…but also not be some sort of cartoon. As my friend Jodi noted, I’m looking for ‘family friendly badass.’

Of course you may have other suggestions. My friend Garnet suggested "Gampa Strohman"~ and if any of you get that, then you probably will understand why I discarded that suggestion. Garrison suggested a Dalek. Then a Cyberman. Then Willow (our cat) before returning to Cybermen. Sorry Garrison, but I don’t think those would look good on my leg.

Me? I of course think I should honor my tribal heritage and native American background. Except that I don’t have either. Any way- enough empty banter!

Now, as they say on every home improvement, dieting, cooking, cake making, car designing, modeling, and rodeo talent contest show: The big reveal.

Have at it people! And don’t be afraid to get creative. After all, it’s only my body, and it’s only a part that will be seen 8 months out of the year, and it’s only forever.

The wound is concave in nature- the darker spots are scab that will eventually fall away. You can look at the "clean" skin and get a good idea of what the canvas is. The scar is 7 1/4 inches long, and most of that is a 2 inch width.

I have hi-res ones if you'd like. Just msg. me your email. About 3mb in size.

I review "Yogi Bear"

*spoiler alert* this review contains pretty much the entire plot of the movie. So if you’re going to see it, then stop reading. Oh and you are also “fools of the highest magnitude.”

The first thing you should know about Yogi Bear is that this isn’t a film about a talking bear (well two actually) who steal pick-a-nic baskets. Yogi Bear is, at its heart, a love story, an epic tale of corporatism and government corruption as well as a stinging social commentary on the personality of those who crave leadership at any expense. It’s also about a talking bear (two actually) who like to steal pic-a-nic baskets.

When the film opens we are treated to a road runner short cartoon. In the short, the coyote pursues the road runner on a….wait for it….Segway! Somehow though the Segway malfunctions and becomes self aware. And then a whole truck load of them crash and they all suddenly have the red moving light from Knight Rider. Then the credits roll. It's like they ran out of money and just ended the story when the budget ran out.

Yogi Bear, the reason all 17 of us filled the theater, begins with sweeping film of glorious park lands and forest. We are soon introduced to the talking bear(s) who are of course eagerly at work trying to heist some food to take back to their surprisingly well stocked cave. A note about the cave: Imagine the bat cave, then imagine a cave that instead of all the cool gadgets, devices, and outfits, instead has pies and marmalade and a weird turtle.
But now is where the story really begins as we meet the altruistic ranger and his trusty assistant. And we meet his love interest who arrives at the park to film a documentary about- wait for it – the talking bear(s). We also learn that she is socially inept, mainly from her desire to live with apes, lions, and other wild animals. Oddly enough her poor social skills seem to spark a flame in the ranger- a flame that will not soon be extinguished. At the same time we meet the assistant ranger, who is toiling his life away stacking maps, and making up nifty slogans for the park – all the while biding his time to move up to the coveted ‘head ranger’ position that he knows he deserves. It’s no coincidence that we also meet “the mayor” at this point. The mayor has a problem. His town is broke and he needs to find cash quick! This point is highlighted by the fact that he purchases a suit for thousands of dollars while his aid tells him of the towns’ financial plight. Oh yeah, and guess what? This mayor also is running for Governor!! The pawns have been placed upon the board and soon the filmmakers reveal how all their stories will become interwoven over the next, excruciatingly long, 70 minutes.

So here’s what happens. The female romantic lead (who was most likely cast for this part because if you look really fast you think she is Drew Barrymore) decides to make an edgy documentary on the wildlife by putting a camera in Boo-Boo’s bow tie. The mayor decides to sell the park to logging industry to make up not only the city budget shortfall, but also put money in the taxpayers pocket to drive them to the polls to vote for him. There are a lot of standoff moments between the ranger (who you will recognize as “that guy!”) and the mayor (also recognizable as “that guy!). The mayor moves to close the park, but the ranger and the sultry movie producer devise a plan to make the money needed by having a 100 year anniversary event. Question: Would you have a fireworks display at large, wooded area? Does it seem safe? Wouldn’t it be better to raise money by charging people, I don’t know, to see your talking bears?

I digress, the festival is of course sabotaged as the Jr., ranger (who looks like he’s related to Jason Lee somehow) is coerced by the mayor, with promises of power, to enable Yogi to somehow make a mess of the day. Yogi does this by water skiing. Again, I cannot stress that if I were somehow managing this park, I would be making a huge amount of money by featuring the talking, and now water skiing, bear.

With the event in shambles, the head ranger is assigned to a new job at a “park” downtown, and feeling hopeless, leaves the movie producer, heartbroken, at the new Jelly stone Logging Consortium. Note: there is a running gag in this movie where the mayor cannot work his electric window properly. I’m not sure what this is a metaphor of. My guess is it has to do with his ‘prowess’ with the ladies.

Of course the movie has a happy ending courtesy of Boo-Boo’s bow tie camera. First it uncovers that the weird turtle is an endangered species that cannot be removed from the park, and then it indicts the mayor by – get this- using his own words against him while he gives a speech announcing his candidacy for the governor. The movie producer (surprise! NOT Drew Barrymore after all) uses her charm to convince the Ranger to ‘save the park’ – thus redeeming himself as the savior of the day. The whole episode is highlighted by a lengthy chase scene wherein the talking bears use a bicycle driven flying machine to rescue the turtle from the Jr. Ranger (who is now contrite) and the mayor’s henchmen. There is also some white water rafting. As if to rub salt in the wound, the endangered turtle, whom the mayor was willing to sacrifice, sticks his tongue to the mayors’ face as his political career crumbles.
All is good as the turtle (as opposed to the talking bears) brings in tons of new tourists, who, of course, are subject to pic-a-nic basket thievery. Of course the ranger and his love interest are finally joined in a nice, family friendly, embrace. Remember this is a love story- not a story about talking bears.

A note to parents: you may be tempted to go to see this movie with your little one, expecting it to be bad in the sense of the “Buddies” movies, where it’s painful for you but your wee one enjoys it. Garrison did not enjoy this movie. He didn’t even laugh unless I said “wasn’t that funny” or “can you believe he can’t work that electric window?”
Save your money and wait for this gem to hit screens in a few weeks.

Don't call it a comeback

It was a month ago today that my sister-in-law took me to a very mediocre hospital emergency room, with a foot that didn't work and was hanging like a dead tree branch from my ankle. She had come to see her new nephew who had arrived four weeks early, but on this morning, with a newly stitched up mom, a one week old, and moody toddler, she was drafted into service.

And I'm not sure what would have happened if she hadn't been with me.

If you have ever been to Pocono Medical Centers' emergency room then you know that the level of crazy in the waiting room makes is the stuff A&E programs are based on. On the drive to the hospital, I tried my best not to make a big deal out of the fact that my brain was no longer in control of all my body parts. When we arrived at the ER, Heather calmly assessed the situation and somehow found the right person to get us the express pass we needed to the back room. I still have no idea how she pulled it off because that waiting room was packed.
The clock was ticking, my foot still didn't work, and my anxiety was rising. First we got 'clueless' nurse, who, although knowing nothing about my condition, assured us that whatever was wrong I just needed 'to let the doctors do their job and take their time.' Then a doctor came in, and after a quick examination told us that it could, indeed, be Compartment Syndrome. And then he told us I may have to have surgery. And then he told us he may have to cut off my foot.
I have diabetes so this was a nightmare come to life. I went to Meltdown stage 3. I told Heather I needed her to make decisions for me, and although we never got those legal papers, she told me in no uncertain terms that she has not going to allow anyone to remove any part of me. She convinced me of this. She was so calm in the midst of madness...Within minutes she had a trauma surgeon in the room, and a new nurse who was somewhat knowledgeable. She had pain medicine running to me in larger doses. We had the test done right away. Within 15 minutes he had confirmed that I had compartment syndrome and it was up in the air if my foot would work again. He also told us that we had to go to surgery NOW if I wanted to have any chance of recovery and stopping the damage. It's the kind of situation that you never imagine is going to play out in real life, and honestly if Heather hadn't been so assuring, I may have asked to wait, scared to lose a foot, and who knows where we would be now.

But she was there, and she helped me make the decision that most likely saved my foot- and at the very least my ability to walk.

From then on it seemed everyone I knew came to Beth and I's rescue. My dad came and stayed with Beth and the new baby at our house, doing shopping, fire making, and of course staying with Garrison at night. My sister came twice-once by plane-to give Beth time to come see me in the hospital and make sure dad had company when he returned to his home. Cristin came from with her to make those rides less lonely. Mike took a vacation day and spent it with me in the hospital while I was doped up on morphine and most likely confessed to things I've never done. Jill brought me actual coffee everyday, along with a smile and sometimes an unruly toddler to punish the awful nurses. Rob collected wood and made fires at my house when no one else could do it, and made the drop in every now and then to make me laugh. His wife kept tabs on me electronically and delivered pre-made, delicious dinners. Mere drove up twice, the second time to stay with Beth during my final surgery, a very lengthy one, and to help her with Cohen-still not two weeks old. I had a whole host of online friends who would suffer with me through rambling facebook chats that I wouldn't remember, and a cool skull topped cane even showed up at our house- thrilling Garrison. I had friends with horrible health problems, much worse than mine, make time to find me online and check how I was doing. I had offers of CD's, Netflix suggestions, and many- many jokes.
My wife- I have no idea how she kept it together with the new baby, the inept hospital staff, and HER surgery pains. But she did- and every night she made sure I got to see my family on Skype - every evening I got to say I love you and good night to my boys and my love.
Heather and Donna batted clean up when I came home, helping me have a Christmas with my family, and enjoying my pain filled time at home. Colin and Matt came and assembled a crib for me, moved wood, and took me shopping. Rob and Joe acted as my personal drivers to see the plastic surgeon. Jill took me grocery shopping and to the dentist.

Today,. as I was walking around with the snow blower. Well, I was walking, so probably you get the picture.

I'm not a very Jesus'y person, in fact I tend to avoid those kind of explanations. I do believe that for some odd reason I am surrounded by wonderful people, the kind of people that in all honesty, I probably don't deserve. And in the coming weeks you will meet all of them. Because I'm going to talk about them right here.

Stay tuned and of course, walk on.