Sorry I'm Late

My computer has been tied up all day burning a DVD for Pete. That's all I'm saying about that.

So, are you wondering how the sleepover went? It was a ton of fun!! And everyone slept! Eventually. We did a bunch of cool stuff: met The Grandpa for dinner, played in the play area at the mall (Husbandguy's idea) until some kid threw up and they had to shut it down, read Ginger's book that she brought and then read Pete's book that she picked out, had cinnamon rolls for breakfast (Ginger got to choose) (my 90 minute dinner rolls recipe makes pretty good cinnamon rolls in a pinch, btw), played outside... Lulu also had fun when the big girls let her play with them. At one point, Ginger said to me, "This play date is more fun than I thought it was going to be." I thought that was a nice thing to say, if a little backward. I feel kind of bad because I think Ginger was supposed to have a piano lesson while she was here, but I didn't know at first because there was some confusion earlier in the week about lessons and VW just dropped her off on Friday and I didn't get to talk to her, and then we ran out of time. I think everyone's priority was having fun and a piano lesson would have been a downer so I don't think it was missed. Still, though... Oh! And I was right. Kids are different when their parents aren't around. Or maybe it's my kid who's different when Ginger's parents aren't around... Well, no matter, the girls got along great. The only tense moments happened when they were hungry, which is totally understandable!

And Ginger's got a fantastic imagination and is a wonderful storyteller. While we were waiting for the rolls to be done, she told me about a "dream" she'd had that night. I think she might have been making it up on the spot because her description was very detailed, but it was a great story. I was impressed by the structure. Plus, Lulu turned into a little T-Rex in it, which made a cute picture in my head.

So we had fun. And, like I said, everyone slept. Which won't happen in a couple of years, I know.

Death-Ray Robots from Outer Space

Tonight Pete is having her first sleepover here. She's slept over at someone else's house and had a "sleepover" with her cousin at The Grandpa's house, but we've never had a friend stay here all night. Um...

This particular friend, Ginger, is someone Pete frequently clashes with. For some reason they are very competitive with each other. Pete has a tendency to be mean when she's annoyed, which obviously hurts Ginger's feelings. And Ginger is prone to tattling on Pete, which can also be hard to deal with. So we've talked to Pete about being nice to her friend, and if Ginger feels the need to tattle, we're going to be sure we have the whole story and help the girls deal with it themselves. And we're not going to play board games. That's a good game plan, right? Plus, kids are always different when their parents aren't around.

I do want Ginger to have a good time, for sure, and also I want to get some sleep...

Wish me luck!

Finally! Some Action!

Jeez! What's a girl got to do to get some steroids around here?!

I called on Friday morning and my doctor did have a prescription called in for the kind I know we've talked, more than once, about being difficult for me to take because of their size and horrible taste - one or the other I can handle, but both together are too much. But that apparently isn't in my chart. Why would it be? It can't be important. Right? But so okay. I decided I could handle it this one time and remember to mention it when I have to call next time. But then the pharmacy called to say they didn't have enough in stock to fill the whole prescription, but they would fill part of it and I could pick the rest up on Monday. Again, I've had trouble with this sort of thing in the past, but I reluctantly agreed to it because the frequent vertigo and cold prickly patches on my legs said to just go ahead. So everything was settled. Husbandguy agreed to stop on his way home from work and pick them up. Thank you, DH. Then the pharmacy called again and said that, since they don't make a generic for the prescription my doctor wrote at the dose he wrote, it was going to cost me almost $300 to pick it up. They make a generic, but the dose is 1/16th the dose that was written, which would have required me to take more than 200 pills every morning to reach the more than 900mg my prescription required. I wished then that I had just asked for the IV! So I called DH and told him to just come home instead of stopping at the pharmacy. Then I called my doctor's office and left my phone number on a pager because they close at noon on Friday and don't have an answering service or any way to leave a real message. Then I waited. I kind of put it to the back of my mind because VW and Ginger were here for Ginger's piano lesson, and I was busy. But I remembered when DH got home from work. Then I wished that I had just waited to make the first phone call to my doctor on Monday. It would have been less stressful for me to make the decision to put it off myself instead of having it forced on me. 'Cause it sucks not to be in control of something about this stupid disease. After a crappy weekend, which was easier once I decided to just give up and not let the whole fiasco upset me the whole time, I called again first thing on Monday. I didn't hear anything back on Monday at all, which really messed up my Monday evening because again: No Control Over the Situation. They finally straightened it on out Tuesday and called me like I hadn't been waiting and made comments about how I hadn't started the therapy over the weekend, you know, like I just chose not to. I suppose in a way I did. I chose not to pay $300 for something my doctor doesn't know.

Anyway, it's straightened out for now. And when I get back from dropping Pete off at her Nana's house, I'm going to look into switching doctors, try to find someone who specializes in my disease, not just the field of medicine into which my disease falls.

I've wondered this before: If MS is an autoimmune disease, why aren't immunologists involved in treating it? Isn't calling it a neurological disease really mostly just addressing the symptoms? The symptoms are caused by my immune system. What do neurologists know about the immune system?

The First Tomato

Pete and Moomie picked our first tomato yesterday. They decided that even though it needed to be picked, it wasn't quite ready to eat yet so Moomie didn't get to try it like Pete and I had planned. Which is too bad because I don't think I'm interested in eating any (seeing as I really don't like tomatoes), and it would be nice for Pete to be able to share it with someone. Maybe Husbandguy will try a piece. Maybe Lulu will discover that she really does like tomatoes after all. Maybe we'll have unexpected company who want tomatoes. Maybe VW and Ginger like tomatoes...

We've got two more on the plant that this one came from. Actually we've got three more, but one of them has been pea-sized for a month so I don't think we're getting a tomato out of that one. Our other two plants have a total of six beginning tomatoes. So we have potential of sharing with Moomie later this summer...

Super Nice (Busy) Week

When Pete was in school, you remember, her "daytime office," the house was cleaner and a lot quieter. And it was nice in a way, but I never did anything special, except when Lulu and I went to Pete's school for something or had errands to run or met Husbandguy for lunch (which we've done more since school let out, actually). Since Pete's here all the time now, and I don't want her to be bored (because she's mean when she's bored), we do a ton of stuff all the time. This week, we did so much stuff that by Tuesday evening, it already felt like Friday, but it wasn't. I know it wasn't because Wednesday happened next. And by the end of Wednesday it felt like Friday again. It was weird! It's felt like Friday all week, really. And I feel like we spent time with a bunch of different people even though, if you don't count the nurse practitioner at my neuro's office, we only saw one extra family more than we usually do. We see VW and Ginger every week for piano lessons and we saw them as usual, and then we saw Pete's friend from school and his mom and brother and sister twice so we've had at least one thing to do outside the house or with people every day this week (unless you don't count the grocery store and the library, which we did yesterday, but I count them) and two things most days. In the old days, I would have written that we had a week full of meetings, but I don't do that anymore. Instead, we just had a Super Nice and Busy Week.

And tomorrow Pete and I are going to see a show and get virgin Pina Coladas with our dinner afterward. Girls' Night! Woo hoo!! And Husbandguy and Lulu will have some quality alone time too (which reminds me: write out "instructions" to make Husbandguy's afternoon easier...).