Cold Spaghetti

This day of the trip was facilitated in part by me, only because I met Barbara by a fabulous stroke of luck when we lived in Lima in 2006 and subsequently introduced her to Valerie (the course instructor).  I arranged with Barbara to have the class spend the day in Pacha, the community where Barbara has worked and lived within for several years.  Barbara has medical training and has served as a Medical Mission Sister for longer than I have been alive: she is one of the most patient, compassionate, and genuine people I have ever met.  We were so lucky to spend the day with her, visiting several levels of health systems within the community (local posts, clinics, and a new hospital) and having lunch in a community kitchen.

More information about the community, our visit, and details about the day are given in the gallery.

For 20 days in May, Paul and I traveled through Peru with a graduate course on Health and Development from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.  I was hired as a teaching assistant for the course and also hired by the Dean’s Office of Communication to photograph it for Global Health Magazine.  Having a research faculty based in Peru is a tremendous strength for the Department and the School, so they wanted to have photographs to use in publications, specifically, the School’s Magazine.

Paul and I naively anticipated two weeks of working during the day and then enjoying long, causal evenings where we would go out to dinner, see movies, and read books.  It sounds silly in retrospect, but the fact is that I packed two novels to read during the trip.  Neither were opened.  In reality, the coordination of travel, daily scheduling snafus, and especially keeping up with the equipment and photography responsibilities were incredibly demanding.  Our days were long and often began well before sunrise in order to reach a destination or activity.  It was one of the most incredible experiences of our lives — from start to finish — and we feel blessed to have been afforded the opportunity.  I learned so much about photography: how to approach this sort of assignment, what to strive for, how to manage equipment and supplies, and how to negotiate the two jobs concurrently.  Unfortunately, I realized most of these lessons towards the end of the experience… I can only hope that I am lucky enough to secure a similar job in the future!

Paul and I fell in love with Peru more than ever; we cannot wait for the opportunity to return.

The Office of Communication seemed excited about the product I turned over… I am so excited about the upcoming article and hope that it draws great interest to Peru.  Until then, I am turning over photographs with detailed descriptions and captions for viewing.  I’ll post when each is open.  I will probably be adding to them over time, but to start will be my favorites.

Gray paint on Dr. Bob?  Tragedy.  The fact that Radkte still runs around town with a roller?*  Criminal.  (Photo by Liprap.)

*Even if he didn’t do this, the fact that he’s done enough attention-getting destruction to warrant a copycat is enough to throw the book at him, in my mind.  What a rat.

Hat tip to Liprap.

We got nailed with one of those book exchange things… sent to Will.  It’s a ‘send a book to kid number 1, write your kid in number 2, and send to a bunch of others’.  If you’re interested in participating, please make a comment or write me an email with your address.  Will is coordinating the delivery, but I don’t want to send to anyone unwitingly.

Today at school, Kate’s teacher brought in pictures of the paper and talked to her class of two year olds about what happens when bad stuff gets into our water.  This is why Kate told me tonight that she was “sad for the fishies.”

On the way to swim class, Will, who to the best of my knowledge had no clue about the several hundred thousand tons of oil dripping through our river just blocks away, asked why the air smelled “like gasoline.”

Why, indeed.

We thought it tasted like tough, dry chicken.  But we’re no great-shakes with meat identification, so really, don’t take it on our word.

Regardless of how they taste, they sure do look cute in dresses!

See the full slide-show of the Guinea Pig festival here.

They go all crazy when the video camera comes out.  Solution: use my digital voice recorder.  They have no idea it’s around.  As a result, I got some audio action of Will helping Kate get dressed.  (Click on the link below for the MP3.)

willdresseskate

During a weekend late in June, some friends hosted a pool party at a hidden neighborhood pool.  Among his friends, Will was by no means the only kid swimming around — but he was the only one doing so without any flotation aid and one of the only ones jumping fearlessly off the diving board.  People remarked on his comfort in the water and pressed us for the secrets of our little swimmer’s success… secrets which amounted to: “um…. I started dunking him in the water when he was a few months old?”

We’ve known for a long time that Will has some pretty amazing physical skills.  His balance, athleticism, and coordination have stood out to us and to others since before he could walk.  But what in the world were we to do about it?

The pool incident made me feel guilty about not more actively looking for ways for Will to hone these natural gifts.  So I quickly found open swimming classes at Elmwood Fitness Center.  Elmwood is a beautiful, state-of-the-art, fully equipped facility located in Harahan, which in the terms of someone living in Uptown New Orleans, means that one requires both speciality immunizations and a passport to get there.  For the past two weeks, Paul or I have been picking up Will at 3:30 and RUSHING him to the dark side of the moon FOUR times a week for 4:00 lessons.  Fighting traffic (traffic?  I live in the city because I hate traffic!) running in, changing in the locker room, rushing to the pool, waiting through a 40-minute lesson, changing again, rushing out, fighting traffic, picking up Kate at school, and then getting home to prepare dinner for kids to complain over.  IT SUCKED.  Thank goodness it all ended last Thursday.

Just so we could start it all again this week.

We did this because of Will’s very first lesson two weeks ago; when in the time it took me put him in the pool with his teacher, walk 50 feet to write a check for the class, and walk back, Will was swimming freestyle across the pool.  Eight classes later and Will was swimming freestyle, butterfly, and starting backstroke and breaststroke.  Now, I’m not saying he’s a master of any of the strokes, but he easily does them as well as any of the other kids in his swimming class… who are all age 7 and older and have had 2-3 years of swimming lessons.  In other words, the kids in his class have been swimming for as long or longer than Will has been walking.

Of course I am filled with pride to see my tiny guy — all 38.8 pounds of him — bouncing around boys twice his age and more than twice his size in the shallow water.  But I can’t help but feel a little freaked out.  I’m starting to see my life unfold as a chlorine-scented taxi driver who is pegged to leave the house at 4:30am five times a week for morning practices.  What the heck happened to my Billy Elliot??

The real bummer is that we were excited (and he was excited) about trying gymnastics and possibly a dance or music class in the fall.  Isn’t it too early to be sticking him in ONE thing?  And how can we possibly manage to balance everything??  Plus, there is Kate.  She’ll be starting down this road soon.  These are logistics well beyond the scope of what I considered before signing up for this parenting gig.

Part of it, too, is that I know the window of fostering Will’s creative sides is closing quickly.  Soon, everything in his life will be pulling him to sports and nothing else.  If I do anything as his Mother, I want to instill in him that he is smart, creative, expressive, musical, and artistic: and that there is nothing about being any of those things that make him less of a man or less of an athlete.  I worry that if I don’t lay that foundation firmly enough, it will get washed away by the wave of balls, bats, and cleats that are building on the horizon.

Perhaps because I feel all of these things, or perhaps because I just have needed something to do with the kids while Paul works all weekends and evenings, Will and I have been working some creative projects together.

Tonight, we drew some crayon pictures and made earrings.  Then Will asked if we could give some of his earrings away.  He dictated the letters, drew pictures, and packed away the goods in envelopes.  Everything was sealed before it occured to me to photograph them.  It touched me that my very sweet, sensitive, thoughtful and caring guy wanted to create something original and share it with others.

It was a reminder that although he may have an athleticism that makes him so different from me on the outside, in the inside, he is totally My Guy.

I knew they were tourists before we climbed inside.  Even with Will boldly clutching the $2.50 for the driver, I was still weighed down with a large tote bag, stroller, and Kate, all in my arms.  If they were from here, I wouldn’t have so much as put one foot onto the unfolded step before someone soundlessly took an object from me to help us on board.  It’s just the way things happen here.

Eventually the kids and I stumbled into the Streetcar and rambled down the isle to an open seat.  Two open seats, actually, as the kids took turns hopping between empty benches on each side of the isle, changing with each stop.  It is July in New Orleans and it is hot: both kids wanted the breeze from the open windows and to be out of the sun.  Their seat experimentation was just them working to find the coolest space available.

“This area doesn’t look like it got hurt by the storm,” the lady in front of me says.  “Oh, right,” her companion incorrectly chimes in, “but the Garden District got it real bad.”  Definitely tourists.  I am about to ask them where they are from, to chat them up and welcome them here, to be that friendly spot of hospitality one expects here for good reason.  But then the stroller I’ve laid beside our seat comes to smack me in the shin; the companion sitting in front of me is pushing it back, away from where one end has rolled into her personal space.  I decide to say nothing, listening instead to the women periodically comment on the “interesting” and “unusual” and occasionally “beautiful” architecture that unfolds before us as we roll along the tracks.

Finally, we turn the corner to Carrollton Avenue, where the Streetcar driver announces: “End of St. Charles, Carrollton Avenue, Camilla Grill!”  Everyone around us gets ready to depart.

One of the women asks, “Isn’t this it?  Camilla Grill?  Is this where we go?”  She is looking around as if her expectations weren’t quite being met.

“I’m not sure.  I guess so.  Everyone else is,” her friend answers.

Then Will, who has been silently looking out the window snaps to attention.  “Get a Cheeseburger.  They’re the best here.”  He says it right to the women, who take a moment to realize from where this sage advice has come.

“Really?” the first woman responds, “cheeseburgers?”

“And a chocolate milkshake,” Will remembers.

“Cheeseburger,” Kate adds.

For a split second I find myself wistfully wanting a third child, one who would pipe up and offer that last bit of important advice, “and get it dressed.”

When we arrived home from our Streetcar ride this afternoon, Will checked the mailbox and pulled out letters from Blue Cross and Blue Shield.  Seeing those letters was as exciting and nerve-wracking as waiting for a college acceptance letter, and the fact that there were TWO letters… one address to me and one addressed to Paul… made my stomach sink.  I tried to mentally prepare myself for bad news.

But surprise!  It wasn’t the bad news I was anticipating!

We haven’t been denied anything, yet.  We just have to track down 70 physicians, pull them away from their incredibly busy demands of trying to save to world, and get each of them to write down why they did a silly thing like write us a prescription.  The folks at BCBS found out that we had some scripts filled over the course of the last 30 years and want a separate form filled out for each script by the doctor who prescribed it.  The forms have the icy-official tone similar to those of warrants and audits, subtly letting you know that they have more information about you than you might have expected: “We understand that you have (fill in the blank) ACNE.  Please answer the following questions below about your (fill in the blank) ACNE.”   Others are specific to a prescribed drug.  “We understand the you have been prescribed the drug (fill in the blank) MEFLOQUINE.  Please answer the following questions about your (fill in the blank) MALARIA.”  What? When did Paul have malaria?  (Do they not know that the same drugs that treat some forms of malaria are also the same ones you take to prevent getting it?)

The good news is that they couldn’t find any medical reason to deny us flat out, so the new strategy is to bankrupt us out of being able to afford the policy by taking so much darn time to complete the process that we get fired from our jobs.  That, and with the timing of the letters, there is little chance of the policy being approved by the August 1st start-date we requested.  One more month of COBRA?  Ouch.

In the meantime, I continue to lose hair.

On a great suggestion, I called up a local acupuncturist who is also a Medical Doctor.  She listened to my symptoms and agreed it sounded a lot like an under-active thyroid, but will not touch me until I’ve had appropriate blood work.  Because she is only practicing Chinese medicine currently, she will not write any orders for tests — I have to find these elsewhere.  I called my primary care doctor, whom I went to last March because I thought I was bleeding myself anemic, to inquire about the possibility of going over my previous tests and getting orders for another.  The nurse explained that she is not allowed to discuss my record and that the doctor will not discuss any procedure, test, or exam (previous or otherwise) without an appointment.

A back-up plan came up out of the blue: offers from an out-of-state friend to FAX in a script for the blood work.  Unfortunately, the fax didn’t completely come through, so we’re working on getting this right.

Other ideas include: a certain doctor at the Tulane Student Health Center Downtown who has a reputation for “working” with students with insurance issues, and/or, going and standing in line at 6am for the Free Health Clinic.  This is the kind of service I’m more accustomed to working for or referring to — and now I may be a client?!  It makes me feel very guilty, as someone who can (and is trying to) pay for health care.

If our family, which is supported by a good income and run by competent, well-educated adults, with contacts in and around the health professions, cannot manage to secure a quality health care package… then how do others in more trying circumstances fair?