LIFE: The Summer of My Discontent*

In football, there's a penalty for jumping onto someone when they're already tackled...it's called piling on. In sports, we hear about coaches running up the score when they are already crushing their opponents. You often hear the expression, "don't kick a man when he's down." Well, over the past few months I've been kicked, piled on, and crushed.

I've written previously about my kidney stones. That turned into five (yes, FIVE) surgical procedures and months of pain and discomfort. I won't even go into the story about the day I had to take the train into New York City for a job interview and was trying to ignore the constant pain and urge to urinate because I had two stents in my kidneys. I can't tell you how many times over these past few months that women (mostly nurses) said to me that they'd rather go through childbirth again than have a kidney stone. I think that was supposed to be comforting to me. :-)

I had my fifth (and final) surgery about a week or so ago and it looks like everything is finally taken care of with that. I'm feeling a hundred times better and re-energized. When you face a daily physical challenge it knocks you down and takes away a lot of your strength and motivation. I've gained so much respect for people who deal with chronic pain.

On top of all that fun was the fact that I had been laid off and my last day at work was at the end of July. Doing a job search is a daunting task as it is (especially in my field of work and in an economy like the current one) but when you are dealing with something as painful as kidney stones it makes interviewing a huge challenge.

I've had about five interviews so far (six, if you count a phone interview) and I've come away from all of them feeling as if they went very well and that I would probably get a job offer. So far I've had no offers and have had no explanation (and often no response or notification of there decision). Is it difficult for an employer to let you know that they went with someone else? I've emailed a few of the people I met with and asked them for constructive criticism or at least a reason why they went with someone else and I haven't received many responses (and when I have they were not very helpful).

If I had the time and money I'd think about changing my career path. But I love being in a creative field and editing and writing are all I've ever done. And, to toot my own horn, I'm good at it. So, for now, I continue my career search in publishing/Editorial and work on starting my own freelance web site (more on that some other time).

But, as if those weren't enough to deal with, the worst part of the summer was when my wife, Lynne, was in the hospital for a couple weeks. She was pretty sick and it's still a bit of a mystery as to what exactly happened but it started with a reaction to a new prescription medication. It's a scary thing to see something like that happen and it angers and saddens me to think that there are doctors who prescribe medicines without really knowing much about them and drug companies that push drugs on the public without really knowing all the side-effects.

While my wife was in the hospital I was still at work so I would get up in the morning and get Mikey ready for his in-home teachers, go to work, and then rush home to go to the hospital and stay as long as I could at night, then go home and put Mikey to bed each night. He was lucky enough to have his nana watching him when I wasn't around so I don't know how much he realized that mommy wasn't there every day. It was a tough experience on all of us and very, very scary.

Have I mentioned that it wasn't a fun summer? ;-)

But, the shining beacon in this summer of darkness has been Mikey. He's such an incredible boy! He has been making really good progress with his development and his teachers are so dedicated to helping him. He never fails to make us smile or amaze us with something new he's learned. He just started going to a school for developmental disabilities (more about that in the next post).

Through all of the challenges this summer I have been able to keep a positive attitude (I might have had a bad day here or there) and it definitely wasn't my favorite summer ever...but, heading into the fall and winter I'm feeling ready for anything and full of energy again.

Normally people think of these coming seasons as a time of death and dormancy but I'm looking at them as a rebirth and I'm ready for good things to start growing.

Hope you all had a good summer.

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* Borrowed, slightly, from:

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York"
--William Shakespeare, Richard III

LIFE/MIKEY: Laid Up and Layed Off

One of the wonderful things about Mikey, about children, is their ability to make you forget your troubles and to smile when all else is making you want to frown or cry.

I've been experiencing one of those times in life when everything seems aligned against me. Bad things coming all at once.

It started with finding out I had two kidney stones (one huge). I've now had two surgeries and I'm still not feeling great but I have a high pain tolerance so I get through each day the best I can. {Update: For those of you who don't live on the Eastern seaboard and didn't hear the screams coming from my bathroom...I passed a couple stones this weekend...OUCH!!!}

Then came my car problems. But, those can easily be explained. You see, I just made the last payment on my car. And, by law, it is required to begin breaking down and falling apart. I've spent almost $2,000 in the past couple months and keeping getting told that it is "fixed." Yeah, the only thing fixed is the mechanic's income from getting all my money!

And, the final blow {Update: I'll write another post soon about how this was not the final blow}, I was layed off two weeks ago from work. Of course, I was told that they'd like me to stay on until July (if I want to get my severance package). And that's all I can say about that at the moment. You see, speech is not always free and unlimited in this country.

So, with all that going on, life has not been full of blue skies, birds singing, and all that good stuff lately. But, Mikey is an inspiration. He inspires me to get past my pain. He inspires me to find a better job and to be able to use my skills and experience for even better things. I watch the way he is learning to communicate through the efforts of his wonderful teachers and I'm so amazed and impressed.

One of the things I want to teach him is that persistence pays off in life. Life can hammer at you at times and knock you down so low you don't think you'll ever get up. But with a strong will and positive attitude you can rise above any challenges and be happy and successful.

SPORTS: Take Me Out to the Ballgame...Zzzzzz

In honor of Father's Day I'll take this time to write about a recent experience that is one of my favorite moments as a father.

Hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet, and baseball. Baseball...is there anything more American, more father-son bonding, more memorable than this wonderful game of ours? That is, unless, you're a two-year-old who hasn't had his nap yet.

We recently attended the Long Island Ducks baseball game (it was part of an Autism Speaks fundraising). I'm a life-long baseball fan so going to a ballgame is second nature to me. But this game was the first I attended as a father and the first with my son. My own father never took me to a baseball game so I was happy that I was able to take Mikey to his first game at such a young age. His next game, if I can get his mommy to say okay, will be a New York Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. Go Yanks!

It was a beautiful day for a baseball game (but most days, in my opinion, are) and we had decent seats (Mikey wasn't required to have one so he took turns sitting on mommy and daddy's laps). We were concerned for a bit how Mikey would react to the noise and crowd and everything because autistic children can get overwhelmed by those things and Mikey had shown signs in other situations of being upset by loud noises (but, curiously enough, at an air show we went to he was loving it and totally not phased by the noise of jet planes screaming overhead). But Mikey made me proud and was fine with the whole environment. He was looking around the stadium as he sat on my lap and I couldn't help but wonder what was going through his head.

I was feeling so happy and proud that I was at a baseball game with my son. My son. That was incredible! I used to sit and watch other fathers at games with their sons and be secretly jealous. But, now, here I was with my little buddy Mikey sitting on my lap and there was no other place in the world I would rather have been at that time.

At one point I took Mikey for a walk around the stadium so he could see things from different angles and take in the whole experience. I know that when I go to a game I still love to see it from as many viewpoints as I can and just let the whole atmosphere engulf me. At age 40, when I walk into Yankee Stadium, I still get this rapid heartbeat and feeling of awe.

By the sixth inning Mikey was asleep on my shoulder. Now I know that some think baseball is sleep-inducing but I'm chalking Mikey's stadium snooze to him missing nap time. I hoped he was dreaming of baseball because, although I was awake, my dreams were flashing in front of me and coming true.

MIKEY: Gookies and Gilk

As most parents of a child know, a child’s language development and ability to communicate can be a frustrating experience but a wonderful one to witness. My wife and I still use words and phrases that my nieces used to use when they were toddlers trying to learn to communicate. In those cases it was cute and as they developed their skills we kind of almost missed them using those old words and phrases.

With autistic children, communicating is the hardest part. My son, Mikey, has been learning to use various ways of communication from his wonderful teachers. The first thing they taught him was how to point to indicate when he wanted something. When he first started doing this my wife and I were incredibly amazed and thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. It then got to the point where he pointed so well and so appropriately that we kind of took it for granted and sometimes forgot to acknowledge it.

Verbally, Mikey seems to go back and forth with his ability to use language. He sometimes can say a word perfectly, sometimes he can say most of a word (such as gookies and gilk for cookies and milk), and sometimes he can just say sounds. But he also loses the ability to say a word from time to time, which is saddening for us and frustrating for him.

There are so many useless things in this world that people get excited about. But, for me, every sound that comes out of my son’s mouth is priceless. My favorite song in the world now is Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star when Mikey fills in the words "star" and "are." So, for now, I’m totally happy to break out the gookies and raise a glass of gilk to Mikey.

HEALTH: A Rolling Kidney Stone Gathers No Moss

The Flintstones were big. The Rolling Stones were really big. My kidney stones are...HUGE!

For about two months now (which also explains my lack of blog posts) I’ve been dealing with a very large kidney stone. I actually have a stone in each kidney but the right side has been the real troublemaker.

I had a surgical procedure (a lithotripsy) a couple weeks ago and it didn’t work. I have to have a second procedure next week. If that doesn’t work...I don’t even want to think about the next procedure, which is more invasive and has a longer recovery time.

I’ve been blessed (or cursed) with a very high pain tolerance. That has made it easier for me to get through these weeks of battling with the kidney stones. I’ve reached my patience level though. I’m ready to be done with this and be able to move on and feel good.

I think the two worst parts about dealing with the stone were not being able to play with my son, Mikey, as much and, yep I know it’s silly, having to drink this nasty liquid before my surgery. I was told the liquid came in two flavors (cherry and lemon) and that they both tasted like crap. They weren’t lying!!!

My stone is stuck in my kidney. I’m feeling stuck, too.