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thorwaldgustav.com
Old Page Honda VTR250 Genesis of a Serial Killer Writings All About Jeremy Anderson Computer Stuff Humor Photoalbum Email me Spammers suck PICTURES Thorwald Gustav Thorwald Gustav, July 11th, 2003 Thorwald, and miscellany, July 27, 2003 August and september baby General Photoalbum Aggie and the Pumpkin Misc: 10/15/2k2 Me Angela Renae FRIENDS Jose Dirk Roger Beth Brian |
Tuesday, December 14th, 2004, 2156ArghOkay, there's all sorts of things I haven't blogged about this year, and I can't believe I missed them. Like the fact that Aggie has gone to a new home, and that was nearly four months ago. She got very, very aggressive towards Thor, so we found her a nice farm down Zumbrota way. She's in heaven. She's lost weight, she's got her own man, she's got buildings to mouse, and a house to wander. I do miss her, and I hadn't thought I would. Friday, December 4th, 2004, 2219UpdatesThorwald is doing fabulously. We're on a break from surgeries right now, which is nice. He's taking the time to grow and learn a few new hobbies, like walking and talking and picking up some sign language. He's signing now for milk, and he can ask for crackers, and come about 2030 hours, he's hanging out by the door to his bedroom, wanting to call it a night. Hell of a kid. We'll pick up the surgeries again shortly, but Dr. Wood has done excellent work so far. That's a terrible understatement, by the way. As I am exposed to more and more medical professionals, I find them to be humans, as flawed as the rest of us. But Dr. Wood, and his Nurse Practicioner, Nurse Shell, are two of the kindest, most genuine, and highly skilled individuals I've ever met. Over the years, I've met some master craftsmen in various trades. I have found all of the great masters to be humble, somewhat self-deprecating and kind. Hubris and arrogance are almost always the mark of the poseur and the fraud. Nurse Shell and Doctor Wood are master craftsmen in every sense of the term. On other fronts, I've registered thorwaldgustav.com (thorwald.com was taken). I'm planning to shift over all the Thorwald related things to that site, and set it up so Angela can make updates to it. I'll, of course, do this in my copious free time. Anyway, yeah, I'm kind of busy these days, which is why the updates are so few and far between. I always update when something bad happens with the kid, so if you don't hear anything, you can know that Thorwald is doing well, running us ragged and eating like a horse. Did I mention that he's sleeping 12 hours a night now, and napping to boot. He makes up for it by charging about at Mach IV for the rest of the day. Wednesday, September 22, 2004, 0626Hehehe...I was browsing through the logs of visitors to the site, and my favorite two referral phrases are: "do a wheelie" and "ma deuce". I'm going to HAVE to add pages on those subjects shortly. What's a Ma Deuce? Browning M-2 .50 caliber machine gun. Each slug is a half-inch in diameter, about as heavy as a shotgun slug, and pretty high velocity. Deadly accurate to something like 2500 yards, and just plain deadly long past that. I saw a tee-shirt the other day that had a picture of one, with the logo: "Ma Deuce, turning cover into concealment since 1921." I need to get a shirt like that. Wednesday, September 22, 2004, 0552Paging Osmosis Jones, Paging Osmosis Jones...Thor's got an infection. The incision has begun to weep for about a 4cm chunk on his abdomen. Angela had him into the doctor on Tuesday, and they prescribed Keflex for it. This is good, because that means they're darn sure he isn't having more problems with MRSA. It's bad, though, because if it is MRSA, then the keflex will be useless, and the Staph will have more time to colonize the little guy's body. He's not sleeping well because of the infection. He woke up with wet PJs at about 0430, and Angela took care of him, and checked his blood glucose, which was at a dreamy 177. But he just couldn't get back to sleep. He'd drift off, then cry himself awake again. He was breaking my heart, so I got up a little before 0500, and held him and rocked for about 50 minutes. He finally drifted off in my arms, so I put him back in his crib. It breaks my heart when he's in pain. We're still on for our vacation to New Orleans Thurs-Sat, though. My parents will watch Thor until Saturday AM, then Angela's parents will take him. We fly out Thursday morning. I have really mixed feelings about leaving, but I know my mere presence won't help or hurt the infection. My mom was a nurse, my dad was an orderly/nurses aide (back in the day when those guys gave injections and started IVs), and Angela's mom still is an RN, so the kid is in good medical hands. And Angela & I need the break. I had lunch with John Wermager yesterday, which was nice--I think the last time we had lunch together was in college, though we've seen each other plenty since then. Always good conversation with Mr. Wermager. I think he's an excellent shrink. When I talk with him, he makes me both glad and sad I didn't continue with my Psych degree. Sad, because he's actively helping people, while I'm just transferring data between computers. Glad, because I would be absolutely destroyed by the patients I couldn't help. Angela & I have been married 9 years today. Woo woo! Sunday, September 19, 2004, 1722Thorwald is doing wellOn September the 13th, Thor had his expander out, and an abdominoplasty done. They basically stretched the skin down below his belly button, nearly two inches. So he is now the first member of my family to ever have had a tummy-tuck. He recovered from the anesthetic very quickly, (really just a few hours) and there have been no complications, despite the fact that he really has a full-circumference incision. Once again, Dr. Wood has done some absolutely magical work. We've had to stop putting infusion sets into his abdomen, due to the abdominoplasty, so we've been putting them into the backs of his upper arms, over the triceps. That's worked pretty well. By the middle of the coming week, we should be able to move the sets back to his abdoment. Angela and I are looking forward to our vacation this weekend. I desperately need it. I can honestly say I've never felt so stressed in my life. I should be thrilled that I have this new job, but it's a lot more responsibility than I'm used to, and I'm well out of my comfort zone. I frequently wish I were still teaching, because I know how to do that. But the state saw fit to lay me off, and even though I could probably have gotten my job back this fall, it wasn't an option. COBRA coverage through the state was $1000 a month. While I was making ends meet on a teacher's salary, there sure as hell wasn't 3 grand extra in the budget. I guess what really cheesed me was that for every other year I'd taught, my benefits continued over the summer. But when they axed me, they terminated benefits as soon as they could. I loved the teachers and the people I worked with, but on my angrier days, I think whoever came up with THAT particular policy decision should be fired summarily. Then they should have their benefits cut retroactively. I'm just generally pissed at the legislature and the governor. No new taxes? Well the correlary to that is: fewer municipal, county and state jobs! Just think, we save the 4 million residents of Minnesota each $100 a year, and that's a $400,000,000 budget cut. If 20% of that goes to employee wages, that's $80,000,000 in lost wages in our state. Assuming each employee costs $60k ($38k salary + benefits), that means something like 1333 new unemployed people. That's a lot of people who are now in risk of losing their homes. You can rest assured that damn few of them were sit-on-your-ass chair jockeys, too. Do Superintendants get cut when the budget goes to hell? Nah, they axe teachers, cops, firefighters and other actual "doers." Way to plan! I don't know if anyone has told the state or federal government this, but it needs to be said: Private Industry is NOT taking up the slack. The economy isn't exactly recovering, President Shrub. I'm a lot more fried than usual. I spent all my free time over the last week and a half rebuilding a PC I'd sold in May. There was a hardware failure, and I ended up redoing all the original custom data transfer which I'd foolishly thrown in up front. Doing it once more wasn't so bad, but after arriving on customer site, I found that the root cause of the problem was the SATA controller, which was happily fragging drives. So I got to do it AGAIN, this time on all new hardware. The upside of the deal is that I get a new Biostar SFF PC for myself, when the RMAs get processed. Ah, the joy of a warranty. Moral of the story? You can't make it manufacturing PCs unless you're doing a LOT of them. Dell, Compaq, General Nanosystems and DreadnoughtPC can all absorb the cost of failures better than I can. So I'm getting out of the hardware business. I'll rent my services, but I'm so tired from work that I'm not really interested in doing that anymore. Dammit, wake me up when Clinton is president again, and I'm not terrified of losing my job. Hell, I'd settle for a President who won't put roadblocks in the way of curing my boy's diabetes. I can't remember the comedian who said it, but I think the quote applies here: "If hooking a car battery to a monkey's brain gets us 15 seconds closer to a cure for cancer, I have one thing to say: Red is Positive, Black is negative." Wednesday, September 8th, 2004, 1821Thorwald (and a quick reminder for me!)Thor had another tissue expander put in over six weeks ago, and it's gone fabulously. It moved a little, but not so that it was expanding nevus. It's now the size of a 16oz coke bottle, so we'll see excellent results very shortly. I'm going to take a picture of him, probably tonight, and post it. He's a little trooper! No signs of infection, and no signs of discomfort, though he wasn't thrilled with our long drive to and from Sioux Falls, SD this last weekend. On other fronts, I continue to slog away at work. Daniel & Marni Disch visited this last weekend. Daniel is finishing up at seminary, so we got to see them both at the same time (a rare treat, which is why we monopolized them at Lani & Joel's wedding a few weeks ago). Great fun! And, I finally figured out how to trick IE (better known as Internet Explorer, or Internet Exploder) into displaying custom 403/404 pages. Just make them bigger than 512 bytes. How? Add lots of & n b s p ;'s to your custom page. Works like a charm. How did I learn this? Well, Scott Ferguson was kind enough to post the workaround to here: http://www.caucho.com/support/resin-interest/0005/0373.html Wednesday, July 28th, 2004, 1841Anyone else been busy?Oy, we've been busy. That's why there have been no updates. Here's the news so far:
Monday, July 5th, 2004, 2142Light at the end of the tunnel...I just hope it isn't a freight train. I have to admit, I feel like I've been hit by one--it's been a long, long, LONG weekend, with WAY too many social activities planned. Angela loves times like this, but I go into absolute overload. But that's neither here nor there. The big news is: I have a job! I think that's about all I can say. In Thorwald news, he meets with his endocrinologist this week, and his plastic surgeon again. He's healed nicely from his last surgery, and we'll begin a new course very shortly. As for the endocrinologist, we've been having absolute joy with the pump--it's fabulous when it works. But we've had issues with the infusion sets. He's an active little boy, and he's been kinking the canulas and whatnot. So his bloodsugars have been plenty high lately. We'll see if the pump will work out in the longrun or not. I feel bad for Angela--I've gone to every doctor's appointment with her so far, but that ends tomorrow. On the other hand, we'll have spending money again. It's all trade-offs, right? Friday, June 25th, 2004, 1414Insulin pump, infection, et alWell, we've started using the Medtronic Minimed Paradigm 512 pump. Very, very nice. It doesn't automatically measure blood sugar levels--if it did that, it would be called an artifical pancreas. But it does store a large amount of insulin, and it can disburse it very quickly, and without separate injections. Basically, we put a flexible plastic infusion set into his belly and the insulin is administered through that. We have to replace (and move) the infusion set every 2 days. Otherwise, the body can start interfering with the inflow of insulin. Unfortunately, for the first few days of the pump, we have to monitor his blood sugar REALLY closely--checking every 2 hours at least. So we're a bit sleep deprived right now. But we're coping. The cool thing is that we now have a remote for Thorwald, so that I can feed him, put him down to play, and administer his insulin from across the room. The remote looks just like one of those fancy car thingies that you can use to unlock doors remotely. Very simply to use, and the pump is a marvel of technology. Thor is doing pretty well, but the incision from surgery a few weeks ago (feels like a decade) has gotten infected. It's not MRSA, thankfully, so we can use regular keflex antibiotic, administered orally. The infection looks to be getting better, but it did engender a quick drive to Gillette yesterday, so Dr. Wood could look at it personally. That guy is one hell of a doctor. I can't recommend him highly enough. Tonight, Angela & I get to go to a movie! Wheeeeee! We're really looking forward to it, though I expect I'll fall asleep and miss part of it. Still, it's out of the house, and Thor will be well cared for by her parents. On other subjects, the job hunt continues, as do my home improvement projects. I should have pictures of the latest batch of improvements online shortly! Tuesday, June 15th, 2004, 1212All quiet on the western frontThings are generally well here. Thor is healthy and happy again, and I'm trying to get our education class scheduled for the insulin pump. Apparently its complex enough to require education. Hmph. We found out what the infection was, in thor's back: Methicillin-resistant stapholococcus. I'm sure that's spelled horrendously wrong. Anyway, this staph is resistant to almost all antibiotics. But, they're quite sure they got it all out during the surgery. Last night was fairly sleepless. For some reason, the poor kid's blood sugar skyrocketed to > 600, which is not good. He woke up sobbing at midnight, having over-saturated his diaper again. It took us a solid hour of soothing before he went back down. So, we're both a little wiped out today. Angela, as usual, handles sleep deprivation so much better than I do. I'm a wee bit crabby, methinks. On happier subjects, we started watching the Firefly boxed set, on loan from Dirk. What a fabulous show! Good writing, good acting. Excellent special effects. Too bad it didn't even last a full season. Wednesday, June 9th, 2004, 1337...where never is heard a discouraging word...Home and napping happily. Thor will get antibiotics for the next ten days, and a checkup on Friday and next Tuesday, to ensure that nothing is going south, but so far so good. Once again, the kid apparently feels no pain, which really helps. If he was just lying around moaning, like he did with the cochsakii (???) virus (a relative of hoof and mouth disease, apparently) that he picked up this last weekend. This kid doesn't get sick often, but when he does, it's a doozy. Nurse Shell suspects that the virus may have lead to the infection. Argh. Tuesday, June 8th, 2004, 2231Heading out of the woodsThor came through his surgery with flying colors. The expander is gone, so is part of his nevus, and the infection is apparently history. I swear, that kid is bucking to be a Marine: by six hours after his surgery, he was pulling himself up on the crib, babbling, and generally being in good spirits. Both of the nurses we had on our last Gillette stay stopped in to say hi, which was really sweet. Gillette Children's Hospital is...well, absolutely amazing in my book. He _did_ yank the IV out of his leg, so he's on oral antibiotics now, instead of IV. You'd never know he had a massive infection this morning. Angela is spending the night at the hospital, and I'm home to keep the dog company. Heavy thunder and lightning is convincing me that it's not a good time to walk the poor hound :( So now, we have a six week break or so, and then we do another pair of expanders. I certainly hope the next batch works out better than the last! Monday, June 7th, 2004, 2107A vote for George W. Bush is a vote against my sonWhen you're choosing your presidential candidate this fall, remember this: Only Kerry is in favor of allowing development of new stem cell lines. Stem cell research has the promise of curing a massive array of afflictions, including: my son's nevus, my son's diabetes, my father's macular degeneration, my sister's lupus, my wife's hypothyroid, my uncle's cataracts, my grandmother-in-law's alzheimers, my neighbor's rheumatoid arthritis, my other neighbor's lupus, et al. George W. banned development of new stem cell lines, because he feared that people would abort fetuses to develop those lines. In fact, stem cell lines could more economically be developed from umbilical cord blood--and that doesn't affect the baby in any way. Basically, after the baby is born, the cord blood is simply not discarded. Even Nancy Reagan is in favor of removing the ban on stem cell line development--she knows what it's like to watch someone you love suffer--all because some perfectly healthy person drew a line in the sand. Oh, and get this: stem cell research will allow us to permanently cure this stuff, instead of just giving us a bandaid. That means they can fix my son's diabetes, instead of him having to take insulin 5 times a day, every day for the rest of his life. Gee, you don't think that'll help drive medical costs down, do you? Monday, June 7th, 2004, 1419Impatient little buggerThorwald apparently didn't want to wait until 6/24 for the removal of his expander, since his primary incision has become infected, and is indeed weeping right now. We've moved the removal date up to 7 AM tomorrow morning (which means we don't have to be there until 6:15 AM, so we should get to sleep until 5 or so), and I'm off to Target to get antibiotics as soon as I get the word that they're ready. As if that little bit of panic wasn't enough, it turns out the HR woman from school didn't get my COBRA forms in fast enough. Thankfully, when I called DOER, a very nice woman named Ruth found the ones I mailed in last week (I wondered why DOER would send me duplicate forms if Jane was doing her job...), and got me processed. So, we do indeed have health insurance again. It's ironic, because I can't really afford the COBRA costs, but I certainly_ can't afford this surgery. I can't see where it will be under $15000, probably more like $20000-$25000. Our co-pay should only be $50, though. On the upside, the two expanders are already at capacity. The small expander is 140cc, the big one is 260cc, and they're both full. Now, that's not the limit of expansion, though--each will safely go to double capacity, and we had 6(!) more expansions schedule, each of which was usually putting 50cc of fluid in, which means we would have almost doubled the amount of good skin as compared to today. But, one takes what one can get. Monday, May 24th, 2004, 2253Ever wanted to see an expansion?We finally got pictures of Thorwald's expansion as it took place. click here to see them. Starting this week, we're moving to two expansions per week. With luck, he'll be done with the first expander come his first birthday. But I think the surgery will have been so close that he won't be able to swim at the Koenig's annual 4th of July party :( Sunday, May 23rd, 2004, 0943MS Windows information, on THIS site?I finally got off my tuckus and wrote the article on streamlining Windows 2000/Windows XP startup that I've been meaning to write for some time. Complete with screen shots! Enjoy. Wednesday, May 19th, 2004, 2201The MegaConglomerate that _cares_That sounds far more facetious than I had intended, but what's a guy to do? Medtronic was kind enough to send a cute little stuffed monkey in the mail (FedEx, actually). They put a nice card in, too. This was all courtesy of Ken, our neighbor who is in the upper levels of HR at Medtronic. Nice guy, too. On other fronts, I finally got the garage door opener rewired on my bike, so I have a nice backlit blue toggle switch, instead of the old microswitch hanging loose out of the side cowling. It looks _far_ more professional, primarily thanks to my dad's wiring skills. I feel like such a dunce, but I'm still getting this whole "Electricity" thing figured out. I'm also building a PC based around the Biostar IDEQ-200N small form factor PC. I'm totally sold. This is the slickest thing since sliced bread. It's fast, it's tiny, and it works. The only thing that's a pain is installing WinXP directly on a SATA (Serial ATA) hard drive. WinXP doesn't natively recognize the controller, so you have do download the Serial ATA drivers, slap them onto a floppy, and then hit the F6 key when you're first booting off the WinXP CD. Then you can load the drivers from the floppy. I tried to follow the directions that came with the IDEQ, but I couldn't get WinXP to recognize any of the drivers that came on the CD-ROM. Probably the coolest thing about this PC, though, is the fact that it comes with a bootable linux distro for playing DVDs and what not. It's insanely quite, and has tons of media ports all around. I note that Biostar has the IDEQ 200P for AMD64, but I haven't had need to build one of those yet. I wish they'd build in a card reader like Shuttle does. TV-out would sure be nice, too! But I know I'll be building my Freevo around an IDEQ, when I finally get to building one. If the consulting business picks up a little more, I'll probably replace the server in the basement with one of these, too. They're just tiny, they look cool as hell, and they're virtually silent. In my book, that's one good PC! Thursday, May 13th, 2004, 2111A truly outpatient procedureThorwald's outpatient surgery actually didn't require an overnight stay! Angela and Thor are comfortable at home, while I teach my final class. I had a very interesting conversation with a fellow teacher (one with whom I don't chat often), and really gathered that they envied me for returning to the private sector. I suspect that this individual's life hasn't been everything they wanted, and that they often took the safe course of action rather than a risk. I wouldn't exactly call myself a risk-taker, either. Truth be told, I'd probably have taught for decades upon decades, if I hadn't been laid off. Now that I've been laid off, though, I'm looking at the private sector in a new light. Higher wages, fewer nights working. Benefits that are damn near as good as what the state is currently offering. I'm still interested in the teaching job at Century College, mind you. It would simplify life for the next year, since benefits wouldn't change while we get Thor's medical issues sorted out. Of course, if I get a job making 50% or 75% more than I make now...well, I don't really have to worry about having a new set of co-pays or another out-of-pocket maximum. Some of my cow-orkers are out at a bar tonight. They wanted me to get someone to proxy my test, but there wasn't really anyone I could ask. I mean, Patrick (our lab assistant) would have done it until 8 PM, when he goes home, but this is a four credit (and four hour) class right here. Erin was kind enough to turn on her cell phone, so I can give her a call when class is wrapping up and see if anyone is left. I won't hang out for too long, though. I think it's Erin (the accounting teacher), Kathy (our union rep), Jessie (my boss), and Karen (one of the more senior computer careers instructors). I sit right next to Kathy and Erin, and they're always good for a spirited conversation. I'll really miss them. Wednesday, May 12th, 2004, 1014Does anyone remember sleep?We've received the insulin pump now, but we're missing some piece of it, so we won't be getting trained on its usage this week after all. Also, this is a good excuse for Angela & I to get some rest! Before the kid, I was always a solid 8-9 hours of sleep a night guy. But Thor is up at 7 AM sharp (except on days when he wants a bottle at 4 AM, like today), and I'm lucky to get home before 11 PM when I have a night class. That's the aspect of this job I'll miss the least--nights away from my family. The aspect I'll miss the most is my students. I was reading through my student evaluations last night, and I just wanted to cry. My Linux1 said really, really nice things about me--and I've only had them for one semester. I throw in the fact that I haven't been really happy with my teaching this semester, what with all the extra-curricular activities going on, and I'm really touched. Thanks guys! And on Monday night, my Unix3 class took me out! I will sincerely miss those people, and will actually endeavor to keep in touch with them. If you're one of my students, and reading this: please don't be a stranger. I love hearing from you, even when I'm too busy to reply. And I'm happy to answer Linux questions. For big stuff, I may offer to help you out on a consulting basis, but I won't just tell you to get lost. It's been the students that make the teaching worthwhile. I like my fellow teachers a great deal. But being able to teach someone something, to see the little lightbulb go off--now THAT's what has kept me coming back for more. But the economy is turning around, I'm tired of nights away from home, and I'd like to make a decent living again, so I think I'm done teaching. A rather bittersweet revelation, really. Monday, May 10th, 2004, 1644Life begins to return to normalAngela is finally feeling better, and actually got to enjoy a mother's day steak at her parent's place last night. Thor is back to his waking-up-like-an-air-raid-siren normal state. Today I got to learn just how evil the W32/Bagle.N virus is, since I spend better than 3 hours trying to first figure out what it was, and then how to kill it. I recommend McAfee's stinger tool--unlike everything else it can successfully remove it from a system. My mom is fighting the rotavirus now, and I seem to have escape it so far, thank Cthulhu. While Angela & Thor were napping this weekend, I managed to change the oil on the VFR, and get the chain lubed. The solo cowl got put away, so I can take Angela for a ride now. The only thing remaining to do is get the bodywork back on it. And I have to borrow the tire changing rig from Pat Hahn, so I can put the new tires on. Thor is back to Gillette's Children's Hospital this week, for an outpatient surgery. The expanders in his back have become free-floating, which is really interfering with expansion. So on Thursday, Dr. Wood will reopen the small incision through which they were inserted, and will stitch the ports into place, using absorbable stitches. Thursday, May 6th, 2004, 1553A woman's work is never doneYeah, that's a sexist phrase, but with Angie out of commission, I'm starting to realize how she feels all the time. I've almost finished the second load of laundry, I got the bills paid, I got papers graded, I vacuumed, and I made a whole bunch of phone calls. Yarg. Off to the bank to make a deposit, and then off to school, for my final lecture at HTC. Hard to believe that in less than a week, I'll probably never teach there again. Do I want to? Sure, but I know how the callback list works, and I'm so low on seniority that Old Nick will be in a snowball fight before they can call on me... Thursday, May 6th, 2004, 0828Plague HouseAngela has the rotavirus now. So far, I have escaped it. I hope my luck holds. Thor is doing okay so far, but is struggling with low blood sugar (down to 55 about 15 minutes ago). We're going to have to cut back on his Lantus dosage. It's dropping him too low over night. Plus, we're in the honeymoon period--when his pancreas temporarily catches up. Soon, it'll give up the ghost and then he'll be entirely dependent on injected insulin. Wednesday, May 5th, 2004, 1709...where the deer and the antelope play...We're finally home. Thor's diarrhea mostly cleared up around midnight last night. Things are improving readily! So they cleared us to leave today, and then we finally got our diluted insulin, though that was quite the problem leaving the hospital with it. No sooner did we get the insulin, than our nurse took it away to go "verify it", and was gone for fifteen minutes. In fact, she took it into a room that was infected with rotavirus! I was a little brisk with her about that, but she swore it was in her pocket the whole time. I don't really care, since the sign on that room's door said clearly: Do not take non-essential materials into this room. Was it infected, probably not. Was it an unnecessary risk? Definitely. But we're finally home. I actually got my lawn mowed, and the kid is keeping down food. We had an atomic blowout, but thankfully I didn't have to deal with that. The kid nuked his outfit and his high chair, and from there it was straight into the tub. Fact is, we were intending to give him a bath last Thursday, and before we did, we got scared and ran him into the doctor's office. The rest is history. So, basically, he was a little ripe already. The kid is doing great. He's playing with toys, and babbling a bit again, and incredibly interested in anything I have in my jacket pocket. My dad went home to the farm to pick up clothes and stuff, and my mom stayed here. They'll be with us until late Thursday morning. I have my third interview over at a local extermination company tomorrow morning. I've managed to favorably impress the IT person (interview 1), and the President's mom (Interview 2), and now I get to meet the woman in charge herself. Wish me luck! On the techno-nerd side, I got to set up TightVNC tunneled through OpenSSH running on Cygwin on Windows 2000. *phew*. It actually works, too! Now I just need to tune up the instructions so that people besides myself can make sense of it... Tuesday, May 4th, 2004, 2316Gotta love IVsThor is spending his fifth night in the Hospital. They disconnected him from the IV earlier today, and he started going down hill. He was just losing fluids in his stool faster than he could replenish him. I was long gone, off to teach class--my second to last lecture at HTC. My parents are back here, helping out. Angela has been actively running off nurses and doctors. They have this wonderful habit of waiting until he's been asleep for ten minutes, then wanting to wake him up to listen to his breathing. I suspect that Thor was contaminated by a nurse who inadvertantly carried the rotavirus in on her stethoscope or name badge or something. Yep, I said "her". I know there are male nurses, but I haven't seen one at St. Paul Childrens. I figure the source of the rotavirus is the poor kid down the hall from Thor's room. That kid was marked with a Biohazard tag on the door when we got there last Thursday, and they're _still_ having problems. I really feel for that kid. I hope they start feeling better soon! Thor is done with vomiting, it appears. He's keeping food down, but unfortunately, it's flowing right out again. The Saline in the IV is keeping him hydrated, but it's so hard to see him with an IV jammed into his scalp. That's better than the alternative, though. On the up side, I had a rockin' interview at Century College today, for a 1-year temporary fulltime teaching position. Basically, their Unix person is on a one-year sabbatical to learn about online teaching. I really like the whole team there, and I have Mike Gaffney to thank. He heard through the grapevine that HTC had axed me, he got a copy of my resume from me, and sure enough, he got the interview lined up for me. I think I owe him a few oil changes, or a case of beer or something. I guess while I was teaching class, Angela ran into the mythical Nurse-Who-Does-Things-Quickly-Or-At-Least-When-She-Said-She-Would. I never would have believed that such nurses exist. After all, pretty much every nurse we've had so far has run off to get Thor's insulin, and it takes them 25 minutes to return to the room. The WonderNurse, however, can apparently leap tall buildings in a single bound, run faster than a locomotive, and STILL go straight to the medicine locker and come back with no intervening stops. I am told she is an older nurse, so I suspect that her efficiency and time-management skills come from a lifetime of experience and practice. On another topic, I'm about ready to strangle the Nurse-Educators. Thorwald needs diluted insulin. Basically, he needs so little insulin that it is hard to measure out the proper amounts. As I said a few days ago, a "unit" of insulin is 1/100 of a milliliter. Well, Thor usually needs 0.5 units. Okay, so we're going to mix the insulin with a dilutant. So the final result will be a 10% mixture. That is, 10% insulin, 90% saline or something. Well, the most senior of the Nurse-Educators was by today, and after about five minutes of her, I had to leave. That woman was absolutely incapable of figuring out how a 10% solution works. I mean, she started saying that "100 units is 1 unit". Uh, lady, you left off some important parts of that sentence, thus rendering your statement into gibberish. A better way to say that would be "100 units of the mixture contains 1 unit of pure insulin." When I asked her if that was the case, she said "Oh, no, no, no, that's not right at all." Translation: She couldn't find her ass with both hands, a map and a flashlight. She has no clue how this diluted solution works. What if I wasn't a math guy? I'd be confused as hell. Tomorrow, if she pokes her head in again, I'm going to tell her to go away, right it all out, and I'll review it for clarity. On a frightening side note, the parents of another diabetic boy prevented a major incident a few days ago (they're safely at home, not infected rotavirus now). The nurse drew up 6 units of insulin for their 4 year old--even though he'd been getting 2-3 units at every previous time. The mother argued with the nurse that she had too much, and the nurse assured her that the boy really did need 6 units. The mother told the nurse that if she tried to put 6 units into the boy, there'd be a real problem, and that the nurse needed to verify the order with the doctor. This continued for several minutes before the mother ordered the nurse out of the room. Sure enough, the nurse checked with the doctor, and she was wrong. Apparently there's been some miscommunication, and the boy _was_ supposed to get 2 units only. *phew*. Hypoglycemic Seizure, anyone? StPCH does a good job overall, they really do. Some of the Nurse-Educators are idiots. The social worker they sent in to "help us with our feelings" did help us with our feelings: she generated a common wish among all of us: "Where the hell did this wingnut come from, and why won't she LEAVE?" That screwy woman hung out for more than an hour, preventing Angela and I from getting a meal. But that was on Friday or Saturday, so it's all water under the bridge. We have our own biohazard sign on the door now. The joy of rotavirus (the tests confirmed it early this morning). It spreads primarily by fecal-oral contact, so hold off licking any used diapers. With kids, it's nasty, because they don't wash their hands well enough, and they constantly contaminate themselves. So the nurse who brought the rotavirus in (Thor most likely did not get it from a nurse, but from a toy in the playroom) wouldn't have realized what she was doing--even if she washed her hands REALLY well, that wouldn't have prevented the infected child from touching the nurse's stethoscope. And where do you think Thor puts the nurses stethoscope? Straight in his mouth, of course! I'm off for some sleep. Thank you everyone for the kind emails! It's been really wonderful to hear from everyone, and email is so great because it requires so little personal energy. Phone calls are wonderful, and I don't want anyone to hold back from calling. But at half-past midnight, I'm too tired to talk to anyone. A nice email, on the other hand, I can read and feel...well, loved. Thanks everybody! Angela isn't checking her email too much, because she's not home that much, but she does check it. She'd love notes sent to angelar at angelar.com . She's been an absolute pillar of strength. My advice to pretty much anyone these days: Don't mess with mama! She'll rip your spine out and show it to you before you fall down, Bruce Lee-style. Monday, May 3rd, 2004, 2247Another Day, Another Emergency RoomThorwald apparently has the flu, since he spent his few hours at home vomiting. He actually woke up vomiting at 0230 this morning. This, of course engendered a rather hurried and worried visit to Southdale Peds. His fever peaked at 102.5 at about 1030 hours, but by noon he was down to 101.7. It took Dr. McEvoy an hour to respond to Dr. Lawler's page (she is such a sweetie--if we couldn't go to Dr. Tamte anymore, she'd be our first choice). Anyway, they agreed that we should go back to Saint Paul Children's Hospital, for IV fluids. Thor was down a pound from sunday's weight (which happened to be 20 pounds, ten ounces). We did manage to get most of a Pedialyte Freezer Pop into him, and that stayed down. The really good news is that his blood sugars have remainded stable and in the 120 to 210 range, which is great. Next time you're at StPCH getting an IV put into your infant, ask for Kathleen Quinn by name. She was fast, efficient, gentle and kind. She also drew enough blood for a couple of tests that hadn't yet been ordered--checks for aerobic & anaerobic organisms such as rotavirus. Now THAT'S planning ahead. Even though we'd gotten to Southdale Peds at 1030, it was 1415 before the IV got started. About the same time the IV got started, our planned afternoon at the er became one to two more days at stpch. Rotavirus, they said. According to the CDC only 1 in 40 children are hospitalized for it. Thorwald is definitely an exceptional kid. This led to a nice scramble to make up for another lost day. Mike Schwarz was kind enough to sub for my unix 3 class, and the school even coughed up sub money for him! So that took some stress off. Then it was a matter of Angela calling all her students and cancelling lessons. Ironic that when you most need the money, you have to cancel a revenue-generating activity. We had a different Resident this time, and they threw in a med student for no charge. Though the labs hadn't gotten back by the time I left, Everyone was pretty convinced that it actually was Rotavirus. Thankfully, Thor had taken a total of 18 ounces of Pedialyte by 2130 hours, and had kept it all down. He was sleeping soundly when I headed out, but I know they woke him right after 2200 hours for his Lantus. StPCH has a nice family resource center, where I was able to check out a nice IBM Stinkpad, for checking email from home. Unfortunately, the only access available (outside of the FRC itself) was dialup. I'd forgotten how slow it was. Thankfully, I could get to email through Squirrelmail, running on my mail server, and I could also install putty for ssh access, so I could get some stuff done. I'm wiped. Angela and I figure that we slept from 2300 Sunday night to about 0230 this morning, then again from 0400 to 0630. She'll sleep like a log at the Hospital tonight, and I'll sleep like the dead here. Lately, I haven't even been rolling over in my sleep. It's kinda creepy to see the imprint I make in the bed, and how the covers are completely undisturbed a couple of inches from me. The Hospital staff figures that Thor probably picked up the rotavirus in the playroom adjacent to our room--which is, ironically, the same room we were in before. There is no common staff, however. A familiar face would have been nice, but the only person who was on duty both this weekend and today was Dr. McEvoy himself, and he's a rather busy gent. Thor was feeling MUCH better by this evening already. We're still unclear as to whether or not he'll be spending Tuesday night at StPCH or not. Whatever. It'll be nice to be able to spend some time at home again, instead of just coming home to shower, shave and sleep. On the upside, I know the 7th Street/Walnut/Chestnut area in Saint Paul pretty well now. If Angela could keep from being run over by distracted Asian women in Beige Toyotas, it'd be a real nice place. (Angela is fine, by the way--the driver stopped the car after bumping Angela hard enough to shake her, but not hard enough to hurt her. Then the driver rabbited on out of there. Unfortunately, the cops didn't catch her. That was Saturday night, btw) Sunday, May 2nd, 2004, 1829Home, home on the rangeWe've finally made it home again. Thor's blood sugar has stabilized greatly, but until we can get either diluted insulin (which is apparently rarer than a left-handed monkeywrench), or a pump, he's going to be yo-yoing a bit. Right now, because he's so small, we're needing to give him truly miniscule amounts of insulin (humalog, for those who are curious)--doses like 0.5 units, where 30 units == .3 cc. So lets see, by my guess that means there are 100 units to a cubic centimeter, and we need to give him half of a unit, so that means he needs about 1/200 of a cc (or milliliter, same thing, really), or .0005 cc. That's a small amount to measure out. Thankfully, he's getting an even two units of lantis every night, and I can measure two units. It's the quarter and three-quarter amounts that are damn hard to measure. He's finally napping--when we got home, the dog went off like a bouncing betty and snapped the poor lad awake. So we played, and he giggled again--something he hasn't done in a week, and finally he had a bottle and crashed. So up he went. We're debating whether or not we'll wake him up for a bottle in a few hours. Angela's parents are bringing KFC over, so we'll get a meal shortly. My parents and her parents have been insanely helpful. Since they both babysit, they were kind enough to attend all three days of education at St. Paul Children's Hospital. My sister, bless her heart, drove up for as much as she could. So we're all briefed on how to figure insulin, how to give injections, how to measure blood sugar, and what to do if he goes hypoglycemic. I'm looking forward to the pump, though it's going to end up costing us about $1200 after insurance. Turns out my plan has a straight 80/20 rule for diabetics, but there is an out-of-pocket maximum, and I think we may hit that this year. That is, of course, if diabetic supplies are not excluded from the out-of-pocket max rule. Incidentally, Thorwald will be the youngest patient they've ever fitted with an insulin pump. We'll be getting a Medtronic Minimed Paradigm Model 514. The kid will have a wireless remote through which we can administer his insulin! I'll write more on that once we're using it. Saint Paul Children's Hospital is a wonderful place. I know some of our experience was because they actually _know_ something about Diabetes (not our prior experience with Thor's bathing trunk nevus). Everyone was very knowledgeable, and most had personal experience with Diabetes. We learned a hell of a lot, and went from feeling a wee bit overwhelmed to ready to deal with this. I'd rather that we hadn't had to talk to a social worker. I mean, when you've got BOTH sets of parents attending all the education, wouldn't you think that they'd get the clue that we _have_ a support network already? But I digress. I'm already looking at what I can do to actually be productive, and I think that Mike Schwarz and I (yes, we collaborated on Multitool Linux) are going to start cracking on some PalmOS app for diabetics to track bloodsugar. It may eventually grow into a Zaurus or laptop linux app as well. Basically, with a $30 cable from LifeScan, we can download Thor's bloodsugar data from his OneTouch Ultra. Very cool. Too bad all the software is for Windoze. Anyway, I want a PHP page with a MySQL backend, so that I can take a look at historical data from anywhere on Earth. Jim Walters, of Hennepintech fame, was kind enough to bail my rear out on a customized training conference this week. I was scheduled to do a talk on PalmOS, but I'm not leaving my kid this soon. It was hard enough not sleeping in the hospital (somebody needed to get stuff from home, and walk the dog, and Angela sure as heck wasn't leaving his side)--I'm not going to voluntarily run off to Craguns (sp?) for an overnight, less than a week after our dash to the Emergency Room. And, my job search continues. Anyone looking for a Linux guru should seriously drop me an email :) On the downside, it's now 2246, and he's barfed twice. The doctor says we shouldn't worry about it, but he never barfed before... Friday, April 30th, 2004, 2334Life is full of surprisesWell, they say when you quit learning, it means you're dead. We are most certainly not dead. We've learned how to spot that your little boy has diabetes: unquenchable thirst, copious urine production, vomiting, fussiness. Thor has pretty much stabilized now, and until 5/2, he'll be at Saint Paul Children's Hospital, which is the shiznit for pediatric diabetes. We've gotten the ketones flushed out of his system, and he's rehydrated, and his blood sugar levels are ranging from somewhat high (300s to 400s) to the ideal range for a diabetic baby (100-200). Yep, that's right, ideal blood sugar levels for a diabetic baby are 100 to 200, even though adults would aim for 80-120. That's basically because a hypoglycemic seizure (caused by blood sugar levels that are too low) can cause brain damage in children under 5. A blood sugar level of 100 to 200, on the other hand, doesn't really have negative effects for a child of that age. He's type 1 diabetic, which means he needs insulin. But it's not all that bad. Modern technology and current treatment regimens means he gets to have a normal life--the rigid "diabetic diet" of years ago has been abandoned. Now, we will simply measure his blood sugar levels before mealtimes, feed him normal food, then administer the proper amount of insulin after he eats. Basically, he'll be counting carbs from here on in. Oh, and things like low-carb power bars and most of the new low-carb foods are basically crap. They substitute alcohol sugars like sorbitol and polysorbitol for real sugar. The alcohol sugars differ from things like aspartame and sucralose in that they _are_ partially metabolized. Also, many low carb foods essentially lie on the labels. When something says "net carbs", that's a good sign that the company producing it is a bunch of lying rat bastards. Sooner or later, the FDA will put an end to this sort of false advertising. But I digress. He can still trick or treat, he can still have candy. He can still do everything any other kid can do. He just has to be a little more aware of things, and he'll be poking his fingers and toes to sample his blood sugar. If the whole flourescing glucose-detecting tattoo thing that the British are working on pans out, he won't need to prick his finger anymore. The gents at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are working on a flourescing blood glucose sensor which would be implanted under the skin, and would last for up to a year. Meanwhile, the folks over at Medtronic continue to tinker with stem cells for heart attack patients, and I suspect that a spin off of this technology may eventually be able to repair the damage to Thor's pancreas that his immune system has caused. Dr. McEvoy, the Directory of Pediatric Diabetes at St. Paul Children's Hospital, clued me into a few pieces of research which show that we're already successfully curing diabetes in mice, and humans probably won't be far behind. There's also work going on towards preventing diabetes before it happens. Hopefully, that'll be able to help our future children. Considering that diabetes has been treatable for only 81 years, we're making good progress. The black death ran rampant in Europe for a lot longer than that. I believe we'll see a cure inside the decade. Type 2 diabetes, by the way, is when you're body is producing some, but not quite enough insulin to keep up. That happens later in life, and is often brought on by obesity. Recent articles (no links, sorry) I've read in Science News seem to indicate that it's the inflammation associated with obesity that's really bad. Apparently, in some obese patients, macrophages go nuts, wiping out cells, causing inflammation and all sorts of bad juju. I'm rambling now, though. Everything's fine, Thor is in good shape. Even though his bloodsugar did drop pretty low today, he never had a seizure or anything else. I'll probably never make another joke about a diabetic coma again, though. And I did learn today that Aspartame (better known as nutrasweet) will aggravate the hell out of brain tumors caused by cell phone usage. And if you believe Aspartame is dangerous, and will kill you young, I have some coastal property in Iowa that I'll let you have at a real fair price. Tuesday, April 20th, 2004, 0938Not Quite Work SafeBut a great deal of fun. How far can you jump a motorcycle?. I managed to get almost 300 meters!. You'll need Flash installed, but it works fine under Linux. I grabbed the screenshots with this command: import -frame bigjump.jpg. Note that you'll need to have ImageMagick installed. ImageMagick rocks. Thursday, April 15th, 2004, 1858Get your free shell scripts!The tiny little utilities which took a bit of thought on my part, and which were written at the school, are now available online. You can view them in the computer section Thursday, April 15th, 2004, 1141Been a whileFirst post of the year! The axe fell yesterday, and I am officially no longer a teacher. I'd known the layoffs were coming for some time, so I'm okay with it. So if you know of anyone looking for a Linux Guru, or an AIX weenie, I'm your man. Drop me an email! I actually know quite a bit about MS Windows, too, though I don't have any certs. For the first time in my life, I'm now eligible for unemployment! As of 5/19, anyway :) |
