Cold Spaghetti

Day One: Clear, calm water. Small fussy things in breakwater area.
Day Two: Clear, even more calm water. Many jellyfish stings reported by surrounding swimmers and one close call by Holly. Absolutely perfect clear, calm water: like a swimming pool.
Day Three: Clear water with very rough surf. Decent wave action. Knocked us around… Kate (who was running towards the water yesterday) would start to say “no no no no” when we’d bring her over to get washed off.
My Dad took this picture moments before the wave building behind us came to knock all four of us on our asses. Everyone of us was in the water (I still had Kate in my arms, but she did go under for a second) and kicking all shades off of our faces. Will lost his hat earlier when he and I were swimming — I looked around for several minutes before realizing that the wave had thrown the hat way up on shore… beyond the sand castle Will had built 20 minutes prior with my Dad!
Lots of great ball-play with Skip and Emily! (Note the shirt.)
Kate was very happy to have Daddy there, too. She’s trying to get him to open the cooler (again) in this picture.
Will LOVED the googles we got him… the ocean was so clear, we decided he could use them here as well as the pool. Only, the googles are big for his face and… well. Will: we promise, we would never let you go to grade school looking like this.

Drugs give great relief,
but stop some simple pleasures.
Many days no poo.

Love. The. Beach.
Love the gulf… clear and cool! (Spot those jellyfish!)
Love the company. Lots of hands to hold, eyes to watch, and ears to listen.
Love the sand. Endless possibilities.
And we’ll really love tomorrow if Daddy can join us for a least part of it!

The kids at the beach… playing in the sand and surf for the First Time! Granna and PapPap were on hand for the fun.
Will had a tough time understanding the whole “sand castle” deal. He was very interested in making mud pies, though.

Kate, characteristically, was interested in eating. All the time. The whole morning.
Except for a few moments where chasing her brother became more appealing.
Once sufficiently full (2 eggs, 2 bananas, Kix cereal, trail mix, half a ham sandwich, grapes, and a cup of Gatorade — all before 11am) Kate found that she loved the ocean water.
The breakwater area was filled with small brown furry-looking things (see them in the water?) I have no idea what they were… animal? plant?
The shoreline was a bit of a dip down from the sand edge and did not have the long, progressively deeper water (as we’re used to from years swimming in the Carolina Atlantic), but instead was more bumpy and quicker to gain depth. This made it a bit more intimidating (less space for kids to run from the water’s edge and play with the water) but Will overcame this quickly.
We can’t wait to go back tomorrow!

Our neighbor found this incredible website.

And this wonderful discussion that puts it all into perspective. Both awesome resources. Thank you!!!

I’m finally getting around to looking into this myself and am not pleased. Turns out that Tylenol 3 (coedine and Tylenol) is not recommended during nursing. (Note: this was the med I was given specifically to use while nursing… although it barely puts a dent in pain management at this point in my recovery.) I can suck it up if I know it’s safe, but now I’m not so sure. I can’t tell if it’s a class II or class III drug (there is conflicting information depending on the other active ingredients?… or maybe I’m too clouded to read the information clearly), but the drugs.com recommendations for Tylenol 3 and hydromorphone (Dilaudid) are the same… that the substance shows up in breastmilk and it’s not recommended. Withdrawal symptoms in nursing babies are generally frowned upon.

So.

Do I continue nursing Kate on Tylenol 3? Do I force wean her — which would entail my avoidance of her completely for a few weeks. My not holding her for 5 days didn’t do the trick, goodness knows how far we’ll have to go before she forgets about the whole nursing thing being connected to me. If I decide to not to wean her, do I continue to restrict use of the hydromorphone (the drug of choice) or do I go ahead and use it since the recommendation reads the same? (The doctors were pretty vague about this stuff. I could write a tome of frustration with this.)

Anyone else been in this position or have any insight?

Monday morning: Much, much worse. We decided that to go right to Oschner’s Emergency Department after dropping the kids off at school. I showered and tried to get dressed… only couldn’t do it. Spasms eventually put me, half-naked, on the floor: paralyzed. I arrived at Oschner via ambulance.

The bottom line: bones are fine, MRI showed some herniation between Lumbars 3 and 4, but was negative. This is a muscle injury. Serious pain meds (Dilaudid) took several doses to have any effect; pain caused extreme nausea/vomiting when I would stand to use the bathroom (the first few hours they used a catheter). Every bit of this was humiliating and simply awful.

Now: trying to stick to muscle-relaxers and coedine (and nausea meds) so that I can nurse Kate. I thought that she would wean this week, as she hadn’t nursed since Monday morning. Wrong! She crawled up on me and pulled at my shirt moments after seeing me when Paul arrived with the kids this afternoon. I had stopped taking the dilaudid yesterday just in case. The bummer is that without it, my movement is much more limited. I am still going with everyone to the beach, but won’t be doing any of the activities we’ve been dreaming of doing… sailing, swimming in the ocean, long walks for photography, etc. But at least I can be there! PA friend Scott (who works in Ortho at Tulane) has been a great resource. Bottom line is that it will be a 4-6 week healing time, but I won’t be like this forever.

Home from the hospital; in a lot of pain, but okay. A crash course in post-NOLA health care and hospital care. Kate has unfortunately been thrust into premature weaning… hoping to keep up some supply so that she has a choice to nurse over the weekend if I can stay off the narcotics. Paul is a champion.

The August issue of The Trumpet, a local publication by the NOLA Neighborhoods Partnership Network, features the story of Abeona House in it’s “New Orleans Success Stories” issue. The article describes the school, its philosophy, and integration into the Oak Street community. It was written by three Abeona parents (yours truly included in that triumvirate) with my photographs sprinkled throughout. These include the photo on the cover (seen at left), which I took of the kids peeking in to Oak Street Cafe to see Charlie Farmer at the piano.

I’m hurt. I have no idea what I did to cause the soreness and stiffness that found me Saturday morning; I assumed that the head cold I’ve been fighting off was the culprit. Not being a complainer, I moved a little slowly all morning but didn’t gripe or make it an issue. And then, on the way home from our diaper re-stocking trip at the Evil Empire, when I reached back to take the cardboard insert out of Will’s newly purchased Spiderman lunch box, it happened. It was so violent and sudden that I may have passed out for a moment. Paul quickly pulled the car in surprise asking if we needed to head to a hospital. It wasn’t that he hadn’t notice my limping around all morning — he confessed he assumed that an unpleasant bathroom episode that was in the works — but he was not expecting my lower back to suddenly burst into flame right in the bucket seat.

The spasm was the first of many. Collectively, they knocked me at least partially out of commission for the weekend. No bed rest… walking, stretching, lying with legs raised, heating pads… everything we can think of that is good for the lower back. Kids can’t take care of themselves, no matter how hurt Mommy gets. And I love Paul to much to dramatically insist on a weekend of rest and recovery.

A troublesome fact: this is not the first time this has occurred. The previous time (a few weeks ago) also coincided with a head cold…. so, can viruses trigger severe lower back pain? Can this thing come back to ruin yet another weekend?? (Satchmo Fest and White Linen night were both missed to much disappointment.)

Although walking with a tilt — hip to one side, shoulder to the other, not unlike the zombies in the ‘Thriller’ video — I am generally getting around. Saturday afternoon, I still managed to get down to Thumbelina to get a few things taken in before our trip next week. Whether or not this bold move was the cause I don’t know, but Sunday morning hurt worse. Getting around was almost impossible for most of the day. I didn’t attend a birthday party with the kids and spent most of the day on the living room floor trying to keep my back as straight as possible, testing how close I could come to various Iyengar yoga poses. I’m impressed I feel as well as I do tonight.

This morning, I swore I would find a doctor and been seen Right Away on Monday. The resolve is wearing off as my limp subsides. After all, is it really necessary to see a doctor for lower back pain? If I make more of a commitment to work my back more, then won’t it just go away and never bother me again? If it’s acute, I wouldn’t bother thinking about it, but could this be a repeat performance brought on by a similar virus… and therefore, something chronic? (Can back pain really be connected to a virus like this, though? Seriously?) Without doubt, my feelings are a wonderful example of my bad habit of NOT practicing what I preach regarding Health and Medicine. (Another in-the-moment example: my extreme overuse of OTC painkillers to get through the weekend.)

There is one lesson to be learned in all of this, though. The lesson is that my Mom deserves some serious props for being Very Right. Because sometimes, I am totally my Dad’s daughter.