8 Days a Week

So I thought it would be a good idea to take online courses in Educational Technology Integration so that I could get a certificate which could somehow lead to the job I'm trying to create for myself at some point in the near future. I've jumped into the world of online classes, Grad School a la Chat, with reading assignments up the gazork. I feel like I'm in a 24/7 conversation. It's a bit maddening, and quite different from my previous grad school experience.

But then again, my previous experience was a delicious, self-indulgent soak in poetry. The all night conversations included, at times, visiting artists, and shared bottles of wine. The connections made in that environment were bone deep, and have continued over these many years. The connections I'm making in my current class are through Skype, and can so easily disappear with the last click of the mouse on my final exam.

This class isn't a bad thing, but it feels like a necessary thing. Something to get through. It's difficult though, to do homework of my own, after sitting down to help my children with their homework. I'm ready to discuss "Tuck Everlasting," or write about the Cheyenne Indians, rather than a comparison of the educational value of Learning Today's Smart Tutor program to Math Missions Spectacle City Adventure.

So if I haven't responded to an email, or given you a call for a while, it's because I'm trying to make a deadline, and figure out how to write coherent sentences. I'll come up for air when this class is over, or when I'm out of chocolate, whichever comes first.

September evening

I love the hiking/biking trail that goes through our neighborhood. I like to walk in the early evening, when the heat loses its grip on the day, and the woods are alive with the chatters and chirps of many little creatures. Today on my walk there were joggers, bikes, scooters, people on the phone, groups of friends, and a man, iPod in ears, singing to himself in a language I did not understand. Bike wheels spoke, “thump thump thump” over the wooden footbridge, then, “hissssss” on the paved trail as I walked along.

I can tell that fall is approaching, even though the air is still hot and dry, and the trees are starting to crisp from lack of rain. The sunlight has changed – golden honey dripping through the branches, catching up loose leaves in its flow and scattering them on the ground. On the last part of my walk I saw a medium sized buck standing away from the path, in a patch of sunlight near a stand of oak trees. As I passed him he heard the whisper of grass under my feet, and he looked up, chewing. For that moment, there was no one else on the trail. The grasshoppers fiddled melodies, and somewhere a clock ticked closer to autumn. The oak trees understood, and released a fall of acorns. They rained down in the sunlight in front of the deer. A sprinkle. A nutstorm.

Then it passed, as storms do. The trail traffic resumed, the deer looked away, and I walked past, to the road that leads to my house.

Eat a lot of peaches!

We are lucky to have a little farm near our house, and they have THE BEST PEACHES. Every week a different variety is in season. We have to keep checking in so that we don't miss the ones we love. The white, low acid peaches -- Sugar May, White Ladies, Sugar Giants, Saturns -- those are our favorites. I also enjoy the yellow peaches, which are less sugary but more deeply peachy.

Just peachy.

Today I dropped the peaches, 3 at a time, into a small pot of boiling water. Boiled them for 1 minute, then took them out with a slotted spoon and put them in a bowl. Carried those gorgeous, glowing globes (snort) to the sink and slipped them from their skins (that's what the boiling does), sliced them up, and stirred in a drop of lemon juice to make sure they didn't brown. We had them after dinner with a choice of peach or vanilla ice cream.

Ahh, summer...

Shimmering in the heat

It's rather boring, isn't it, to speak of the weather, of the relentless heat, the grass going dormant and crisping as if the sun was trying to achieve that nutty, toasted grass flavor? Yes, but I can't help it. Can't change it, so I'm doomed to talk about the blasting, shimmering oven just outside my door. Even the pool is warm. Swimming laps is just slightly more refreshing than jogging. I drive around, and the car air conditioner competes with the ever-warming dashboard for control of the car's temperature.

The hot air washes the colors out of the grass, flowers, sky, and drifts, barely moving, in the steely light. No wind.

I was hoping for a thunderstorm tonight, a cicada-silencing, child-frightening, wild tumble of leaf rip and water sheet. But the trees are motionless. A sedentary cloud above. Dominic is watching "The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)" and the earth is still. Still hot.

Long time no type

Wow, I can't believe it has been almost two months since my last post. The end of the school year was so busy, and at the end of May Daniel had a 5 day stay in the hospital just to add to the fun. More on that later. A couple of days after school ended, we went on a trip to my in-law's house, and took in some college visits while we were up in New England. We came back home on Friday, and the hot and humid weather is in force. I am so thankful for air conditioning!

On May 24th I had just arrived at work, and I was setting up my computer in a quiet place away from my classroom so I could work on grades. The receptionist found me and said that my child's school nurse was on the phone for me. Doesn't that always send a shiver down your spine? I mean, with Daniel it could be anything from "we need more supplies" to "his blood sugar is way high/low, take him home!" The last time I got a call from a school nurse, it was for my younger son, Dominic, who got a goose egg on his forehead during recess and spent the rest of the day in her office with a headache. Ugh.

This time the nurse said that Daniel was having trouble breathing, that he complained of pain in his left shoulder, and that his left arm was numb. Yikes! I gathered all my stuff and drove across the county as fast as I could. I tried calling his pediatrician, but it was Monday morning and I got an automatic message saying that I was 5th in line, which is usually a 10-15 minute wait. I called the nurse back and asked if she thought, based on how he was feeling, whether I should try to get him into the pediatrician or take him to the ER. She said, "Oh, if you can get him into your pediatrician, that would be good." Then she told me to hold, and I could hear a discussion going on in the background. She came back on the line and told me, "okay, I think it would be good if you took him to the emergency room."

I freaked out and drove faster, wondering if Daniel was having a heart attack, and why the school nurse didn't put him in an ambulance. But at that point I was close to school, closer than an ambulance, so I picked him up and started heading for the nearest hospital. My brain was going, "closest hospital? or Children's hospital? Closest? Childrens?" Daniel said, "why are we going this way? This isn't towards home? Can't I just sleep this off?" Sheesh. "NO! We are going to the ER!" Daniel rolled his eyes. "I don't want to go to the emergency room!"

I didn't tell him that I was worried about his symptoms because I didn't want to freak him out. Luckily, the ER was pretty empty, and we were seen right away. The doctor listened to his heart, took his vitals, and said, "Well, we're going to do an x-ray. And we'll do an ekg just to totally rule anything else out, but his heart sounds fine."

That was a huge relief for me. They rolled in the ekg machine, and quickly ruled out a heart attack. The x-ray showed the real story -- that his lung had spontaneously collapsed. The doctor said that they would be sending Daniel in an ambulance to Children's hospital (Ugh! Should have gone there first!) where they would do a further examination. She said that many times these pneumothoraxes heal on their own. Sometimes you need a chest tube. But she thought he'd be fine.

So here's the deja vu part of the story -- 3 years before, in May 2007, Daniel was diagnosed with diabetes. We started at this same hospital, and then they sent us in an ambulance to Children's. At that time I was in such shock that my brain wasn't functioning enough to figure out who could take care of my other 2 kids. This time was different. My brain was making lists. First I ran upstairs to see my mom, who was in the hospital for another issue. Luckily she was better, and a day away from being released. I let her know what was going on. Then I got on the phone. I called friends to take care of my other two kids because the doctor told me we would be in the hospital at least over night. Then I called my husband's boss. My husband was out of town on a business trip, and I needed him back right away! His boss was great -- once she found out what was going on she started making travel arrangements for Matt before she even contacted him.

We got to Children's hospital, where they told us that Daniel needed a chest tube. They inserted it in the emergency room, while he was awake (high on morphine and numbed with something else), while I was holding his hand. When they cut him he said, "Ouch?"

"Oh, you felt that? Give him some more "something-caine."

Then a few minutes later, Daniel said, "You have your fingers on my rib right now, don't you?" Oh God. I held his hand, bent my head down, and decided quite firmly that I would NOT be a fainting parent." It was a tight squeeze between his ribs, but then the doc said, "You'll hear a pop!" and it went POP and the tube was in. We spent the next few days waiting for the lung to reinflate. It took 2 tries, but finally worked with no surgery.

My husband came home, my kids were cared for, and Daniel and I spend 5 sleepless nights with the wonderful staff of Children's. He's fine now, with a little scar on his chest as a reminder of that crazy week. There's a 30 percent chance of it happening again, in which case they would do surgery right away to make sure that the lung can't collapse again.

The pneumothorax had nothing to do with his diabetes. He fits the profile of tall, skinny, young male -- apparently it is quite common. Just like type 1 diabetes.

All's well that ends well. I'm thankful that we're all together now, and on our way to see the fireworks. Happy fourth of July!

Gluten Free Potstickers

I'm teaching a gluten free cooking class for a few weekends, and found out that the oven at the church where I'm teaching is just not very reliable. You have to turn it on an hour or two in advance of cooking, and then crank it all the way up to get it warm. The temperature gauge is not reliable, and when I taught a class on how to make gluten free flatbread, the bread came out al dente, which is not how it is supposed to be. So I was researching recipes that don't use an oven and came across Gluten Free Gobsmacked's (Kate Chan) recipe for potstickers. You can find it here.

I made a test batch tonight, and they were yummy! I made changes to her recipe, though, because of the ingredients I had on hand. For the dough I followed her recipe exactly, and it turned out great. She says she uses the same dough for egg rolls, and I think it would work very well for ravioli, too. It rolls out easily (between sheets of parchment paper or cut-open large ziploc bags) and handles well. A few of the potstickers cracked a little when I filled them, but they held together when they were boiled and nothing leaked out. They also held together when I crisped them in the pan, and the crunchy dough was delicious!!

Her filling recipe calls for chicken thighs, which I didn't have at home. I had a package of thin-cut pork loin chops, so I used that. I also had some baby bok choy that looked lovely and fresh at the store this week, so I used that instead of onion. I chopped it up and sauteed it very quickly, for about 2 minutes, over high heat in some olive oil before adding it to the recipe. Finally, instead of parsley I used cilantro. I am growing both in my garden this year, but had already cut some cilantro for another recipe and needed to use it up. I found it helped to mix the "meat paste" by hand to really incorporate all of the ingredients.

When all was done, the recipe made 24 potstickers. I think I could have gotten a few more out of the recipe if I had rolled the dough a little thinner than the 1/8 inch that the recipe calls for. I think it would have held together okay. Based on my calculations, each potsticker was about 12 carbs.

As I was making the potstickers, I thought how Daniel hasn't had them since he was diagnosed, about 3 years ago. Slowly, slowly we are finding ways to make all his favorite dishes. This was a labor intensive dish, though. I think that the next time I make these I will split up the work -- make the "meat paste" the day before and put it away, so that there is less cleaning up of the cuisinart between steps. I will also make a really huge batch and freeze them, the way I have done with ravioli, so I don't have to do it so often! I think it would also help to cook/clean with a partner on this one!

It was good work tonight, though. It took my mind off the things that worry me. My mom had to go to the hospital today. All good thoughts and prayers are appreciated. And in the meantime, I'm taking some butter out of the freezer to make more gluten free cookies. I can just keep on cooking until the phone rings...

Artificial Pancreas

I've read a couple of intriguing articles about a robotic/artificial pancreas, and it seems hopeful for the near future. There's a great article in Wired Magazine this month here, and and another article from the LA Times here about Boston researchers who are using a combination of insulin & glucagon in their trial pancreas. They seem to think that something can be on the market in as little as 7 years.

We have the technology. All the pieces just have to be put together. It's very exciting. I hope that when it all comes together, that health insurance companies will make such devices available and affordable.

Also, although the technology is wonderful, an artificial pancreas is still not a CURE! So let's keep working on that, eh?