Of Grandsons and Soccer Boys

My nephew Simon, Mom and me on Monday

I've got a mostly picture post for you here today (can't say "wordless" because when am I truly ever?) as we ramp up for Thanksgiving. No I'm not making a turkey, just some side dishes, but still, Jake has a mere half-day of school today, and we're in for yet another long weekend, so anything I need to get done for ME in the next four days has to be wrapped up today by noon.

So, the hot points of the week in image: Last weekend was the end of soccer, Ethan on Saturday and Jake on Sunday (And I am so grateful that we have wonderful Special Needs divisions of Soccer, Basketball and Baseball here in the city, so Jake can play whatever his brother does, too)...

Ethan played goalie for a quarter

Ethan, proud of his soccer trophy

Jake loves being a part of the game

Jake, proud of his soccer trophy

His favorite part? The spinning ball at the top.

And then, on Monday, my nephew Simon was in town with his girlfriend, Rachel. (Not to be confused with his sister Rachel. If this thing lasts - and I hope it does as she's smart and lovely - it's going to get complicated. Someone will need a nickname.) They live in LA and were doing the East Coast family tour for the holidays.

I drove them out to Long Island to see Mom (his grandmother). She was delighted to see Simon and meet Rachel. We sprung Mom from the home, took her out for lunch at a Japanese restaurant in town - something I like to do whenever I have a chance.

Afterwards, I drove her around town and we parked at the harbor dock so she could see the water and the boats. I love giving her new vistas, something my nature-loving mother gets so little of now that she is effectively immobilized.

Mom, tucking in to her bento box. She was always good with chopsticks.

Mom and her Grandson, Simon

Mom, happy to be with family

I was so happy to see Mom so happy. Can't wait 'til Friday when I bring her to her brother Walter's house for our day-late Thanksgiving Day celebration with all my cousins.

SOC Sunday: Missing a Giant

Yup, it's Sunday. Time to take a short tour of my brain. You're welcome.

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If you're in the United States of America and not in a coma, you probably realize today was Superbowl Sunday. I live in New York. Our team was in the damn thing (yeah, they won - whoot!) and yet most of the day I kept forgetting. Because this is New York City and full of artsy-fartsy people and folk who hail from distant lands and all sorts of others that couldn't care less about the whole football thing. (Also sports bars and Times Square full of rabid crazed fans. We co-exist.)

I spent much of the afternoon and evening with my dear Australian friend and her kids. Her son is quite enamored of the British sport that THEY call football & we call soccer. Ethan had wanted to watch the game, not because he cares all that much about the sport but because "all the kids are going to be talking about it at school tomorrow." 

But you know? In that case, he shouldn't have been so obnoxious today and especially not made fun of his brother and the way he cries. Because that? Got him banned from screens for the rest of the day by about noon. (By bedtime that loss-of-screens-privilege had been extended through Tuesday. Yeah, it was one of THOSE Sundays.)

But moments after I declared "That was really unacceptable behavior! You just lost screens for the rest of the day, sir" I wanted to kick myself. Because I had forgotten about the damn Superbowl. I wanted to watch. Not the whole thing, but bits here and there, and certainly the halftime show and the 4th quarter.

And of course I had to be a "good, consistent parent" so couldn't backpedal on the ban. Damn! 

My husband is so not into sports (despite his childhood love of baseball and all things Yankee) was happily off to a work-related dinner tonight. And i am certainly not a big sports fan either. But the Superbowl is special.

And I used to watch it all the time. 

With my Dad. 

Everything I know about sports is because of him. He was an artist and intellectual, but also a true sports fanatic, and of all the sports he loved, it was football he loved the most, and his New York teams: The Jets and The Giants.

He raised me to know the difference between a halfback and a fullback, to quickly eyeball the yards left to a first down at the end of a play, to hold my breath waiting to see if both feet landed inbounds, inside that all-important white line when a catch was made at the field's edge.

Like tonight. He would have loved to see that masterful catch.

I missed the game tonight. And then, hearing triumphant shouts and screams erupting from my neighbors' apartments all around, turning on the TV just as the confetti cannons were going off and everyone was streaming onto the field, I watched a bit of the postgame, saw the highlights replayed, the gatorade upended, the players stroking and kissing that football shaped trophy with all the reverence of my tribe during services, touching tallis fringe to the passing torah, and then to lips.

I heard the gracious, wooden speeches with one ear, but my heart was tuned in to another voice.

"Daddy" I said, quietly, to the empty room. 

"Daddy, we won." And the cat in my lap, oblivious, kept purring as the tears slid down my face. 

I miss him now in a not-every-day way, the commonness of his absence settled in, these nearly two years passed since his passing.  And that last winter, he had slipped so far from the earth by the time he finally departed, I couldn't even rouse him for a game, not even the Superbowl.

I remember so clearly the great Jets of my childhood, the name "Joe Namath" spoken by my Dad with reverence, watching that legendary game, the '69 Superbowl, with him on our old black and white TV.

I wish you had been here with me tonight, Dad. And not the frail, faded old man of your final years (though I love, loved him none the less), but the passionate-about-art, full-of-life middle aged Dad of my childhood. Or the feisty 80 year-old in Sarasota, who was playing tennis and swimming and photographing and dancing with friends and enjoying the hell out of his retirement.

We would have raised a glass of Shiraz together and toasted our Giants. And I probably would have let Ethan watch with us, ban be damned, because your joy at a game well played could not be missed. He should have seen that, shared that.

I wish Ethan and Jake could have known you then, Dad, the full you. At six foot, a giant for your generation. A giant of a man in my heart, always. 

Dad in Florida, 1999

Dad & Me, 1969

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OK, sorry this wasn't quite a "real" SOC post. It started as one, but when I saw where it was going, I had to turn off the clock, let it spin out to its conclusion. 

And also? Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! We WON! OK, I'll stop gloating now. Sorry Boston, Vermont, & New Hampshire friends.
 
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I've Got Stones

Gall Stones, that is.

What?  You thought I was talking about my Mom-balls again?

Yeah, I've got those, too.  Just try to take away a vital service from my autistic son, Jacob.  Mess with him and you will see my giant huevos come out, big time.

I mean, even though my *actual* eggs are kind of over-cooked at this point (see my last post), my metaphorical ones?  My "don't mess with my family" ones?

Outsize and ready for action.

But about that other thing?  Yeah, I'd really like to pretend this isn't happening.

But doubling over in slicing, cramped pain and then making a mad dash to the women's room to gag and dry heave for 10 minutes during my son's basketball practice on Saturday sorta makes that impossible.

I cannot say enough about how happy I am to have the good fortune to have actual medical professionals in my family, both natal and the machatunim.  (That's Yiddish for the whole {damned} family you marry into - you know, the in-laws.)

I had already self diagnosed via the friendly internet on Saturday night.  When I was finally able to stop moaning and sit upright, that is.

But you know?  The internet?  Scary place to do medical research.  Reminds me of that old Nicole Hollander cartoon, the one where Sylvia is reading a book called "Infectious Diseases."  As her daughter warns her to put the book down, she yells out "Oh my god, I've got anthrax!"

In spite of the chance to just completely terrify myself, I kept a mostly level head.

But the problem with hot-knife style searing pain of mind bending proportions in the area of one's major organs?  Hard to believe it's no biggie, not connected to a serious condition requiring immediate medical attention.

But a nice chat with my lovely ER doc cousin, Jessie, in Vermont reassured me that had I come into her ER, she would have been all "Crap! Why is this person in my ER?  It's just a gall bladder attack, nothing dangerous. I had to wake up from my nap for THIS?" (She often works the overnight shift.)

She told me to see my doctor on Monday, went over the warning signs that should send me rushing to the ER for real, and gave me advice for how to get myself comfortable in the meantime (antacid, Tylenol, rest, duh).

And the next day I felt mostly better, which was a mighty good thing, it being the Sunday of my husband's family's annual Big Chanukkah Party.  (I know, not technically Chanukkah anymore.  But?  Shhhhhhh.  It was so early this year.)

What?  You want to see pictures of that?  OK here's a few:

Lighting Grandma Blanche's menorah

Presents Galore!

Grandma Sylvia got a zhu zhu pet

And at this bash?  Yes, indeed, I sidled up to Danny's cousin who happens to be a G.I. with that "you are about to be cornered by a relative with a medical question" look on my face, and he did not back off and disappear, which I took to be the go-ahead sign.  (If you're confused here?  Folks, we're Jewish.  To us "G.I." is short for Gastro-Intestinal as in a doctor's specialist degree, NOT Government Issue as in "G.I. Joe".  Please!)

So I asked cousin David, "Do you do Gall Bladder?"  And he gestured for me to continue.

I described my symptoms, and when I got to the part about the pain finally localizing in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen and then radiating to my back under my shoulder blade, he nodded.  Then he poked at a spot and I yelped and he said to call his office at 8:30 the next morning and they'd get me in right away.

Oh yes, I married into the right family!

So all this is how, yesterday, I came to have my first complete and thorough physical exam in... maybe 10 years?

The problem with being essentially healthy and taking care of multiple elderly parents and young kids with all sorts of issues is that you can neglect your own health big time.  (I *might* have done that.)

Until there's a big wake-up call.  Like, oh, feeling like you're being sliced in half by a ninja out of the clear blue at 2:45 on a Saturday afternoon while your autistic son is attempting to play basketball.

What?  You want to know how the basketball is going?

Yes, I did share my excitement about it, and planned to report back right away.   But life got... busy, you know?

Briefly: it's going well-ish.  (A full post account is coming up soon, I sort-of promise.)  Here, look at some cute pictures (sorry about the odd color, there's weird yellow lights in that gym):

One excited boy

Playing basketball, sort of

So, back to my foray into all things medical yesterday... having been a basically healthy person for 50 years (and believe me, I know how blessedly lucky I am about this, am grateful & do not take it for granted) my experience with medical procedures has been mostly on the sidelines.

Let me tell you, there was a more than slightly surreal quality to be personally undergoing the same diagnostic procedures that I had sat through countless times as the support person for a parent or friend.

Like deja-vu with a side-step.  Like in those dreams when your point of view flashes back and forth between a first and third person perspective, leaving you wondering if you are watching or experiencing the events at hand.

To be the one in the ugly, ill-fitting gown on the table myself?  Very, very weird.

What?  You want pictures of that, too?  Well, here's me waiting for someone to come into the room and do something to me:  

Beige is so NOT my color

So I've now had my first echocardiogram, folks.  And you young people with healthy hearts who have never had to care for someone with cardiac troubles will not get what a big deal this is.  But if you're on my side of the fence, you will understand the thrill, and why I'm bragging:

My ejection fraction?  Was terrific.  (The "ejection fraction" is a measurement of the heart's efficiency at pumping blood, and is severely compromised in Aortic Stenosis, the condition that did my father in.)

I jumped with joy.  (Well, I would have if I weren't laying on a table covered in yucky ultrasound goop.) 

Considering that I am essentially allergic to exercise?   I have no right to have a heart as healthy as mine appears to be.  And I am NOT going to take this for granted.  I am going to thank my lucky stars and work from here on outward to not let this good start turn sour through inactivity and complacency.

I am a 50 year old with young children. I need to do all I can to ensure I am here to care for them through their formative years, to do all that is within my power to not abandon them too young.  (Please hold me to this.  Yell at me if I don't start to take better care of myself in the future.)

I am guessing I have my love of dancing to thank for the positive state of things.  Those years of my late teens through mid-twenties when I went out dancing with wild abandon two or three nights a week.

And the way I danced?  Way aerobic.  I would work up quite a sweat.  Hell, I would often sweat completely through and thoroughly soak my clothes.   Looking back it's a wonder anyone ever dared go home with me afterward, sweatball that I was.

Although it must have helped that, as an old boyfriend put it, I "danced like a girl who likes to fuck."  Ahem.  Guess I wasn't afraid to move my hips.

Sigh.  It's nice thinking about a time when my body was more about pleasure than pain.

But getting back to the icky medical stuff.  I ended my day at the imaging center I had taken my father to many a time before.  Once again, the odd disconnect of shifted perspective.

"You've been a patient here before?"  The receptionist asked the question as a not-question, rhetorical. Clearly I looked familiar.  She thought I was a returner, a repeat customer.

"No" I answer.  Then, because she has raised her eyebrow sceptically I start to question it myself.  "I don't think so..." I stammeringly add, "I've been here so many times, but I'm pretty sure that it was always to bring my father in."

"Well, let's check, then" she says, inputting my statistics into the computer, which spits back... nothing. First timer.  Fill out the thousand forms and bring back the clipboard.

The technician is friendly, chatty, and I don't mind.  Gowned and gelled yet again, I am lying on the table when she swings the monitor around to show me: a solid white almond shaped nugget in the black hole that is my ultrasound gall bladder.  "Stone" she says.

Well, at least I wasn't imagining things.

"Is it a big one?" I ask, watching this thing taking up a good quarter of my gall bladder float around like an jumbo olive in a small martini glass.

"Oh, yeah, I would say that. The good thing is, it's too big to pass through the duct."

"That's a good thing?"

"Yeah, better than the granules, they really hurt going through."

OK, I'm happy to just take her word on that.

So now we wait on the blood-work, schedule another test in a few days (they're going to make my blood a teensy bit radioactive), and then?   Review the findings and evaluate my options.

Apparently, wave a magic wand and make it all go away?  Not among them.  Damn!

I may have a date with a laproscopic surgeon in my near future.  We may wait and see.

And if I do end up having my Gall Bladder removed?  Here's to hoping the guy doing it looks just like Weird Al Yankovic in his classic "Like a Surgeon" video.

Because I want to go under the knife laughing.

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Score!

Friday morning, in spite of feeling like like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, I pulled my (wheezing, coughing, snot-nosed) self together and went to a meeting at a local public elementary school.

There was a talk being given there about after-school and weekend sports programs for special needs children. And specifically, on the flier that Jake's fairy godmother had obviously guided into my hands, there was mention of a basketball program.

BASKETBALL!!!!

Jake loves basketball, loves to watch the big kids play and loves to shoot baskets himself.  And also?  He's not half bad.

I had been searching for a local SN basketball connection for a long time now, but nothing ever came up on any search engine, nothing but head scratching from any mom I asked.

I was a bit late to the meeting (head cold induced ass dragging and all), missed the basketball guy's presentation, but managed to snag the LAST cup of coffee from the Dunkin Donuts box (score!) and there was even a little milk left for it.   So I caffeinated myself and sat and listened all about martial arts and SN kids and how balance is hard for many SN kids, but improving it is important for the brain.

All interesting stuff, but where was that basketball guy?  Thankfully, still there, sticking around to answer questions at the end.

And afterward a small group of moms swarmed the basketball coach, surrounding him, our eyes all anxious and hopeful.  And he was such a nice guy.  He stayed and stayed; talked to us for a long time, explaining the program in depth, answering specific questions, allaying fears.

Yes, they will take a non-verbal autistic kid: not a problem, they pair them with an older teenage volunteer "buddy" for a one-on-one connection.  One word came to my mind: support.

The coach told us something wonderful.  He said after lessons and practice and drills, they play a short game every Saturday, and somehow or other, for this youngest age group?  It's always a tie game.

He laughed and demonstrated how he stands in front of the scoreboard during the game and then quickly manipulates the numbers at the end to come out that way.  "Look 40 - 40... another tie!"

He said he does it because so many of these kids are sensitive and might fall apart at being on the losing team. And also there are some kids who only want to play when they win, and this keeps them coming back.  Maybe next week, they'll win...

I was contrasting this with a horrific story I had read at a diary of a mom this week about a child participating in a basketball program that the mom had supposedly carefully vetted beforehand.  A place the mom had THOUGHT was supportive of SN kids.  But they ended up engaging in a practice that boggled my mind.  I can't even describe it here, it will make my blood boil.

Go read that post here, then come back.  If you really don't want to, let's just say that meanness and humiliation were involved.  A complete lack of thoughtfulness and sensitivity on the part of the coach. A set-up for bad feelings, even if the boy had been typical.

I thought about the difference between this coach and that "coach" all day.  I was so damn happy I had stumbled upon this meeting, finally found this program, so right for my son.  I had to contain myself to stop from jumping up and down in glee as I walked out of the auditorium into the wan autumn sunshine.

Still, I broke out into a huge grin, and am sure I looked slightly deranged as I picked up some of my favorite Winesap apples at the weekly Friday farmer's market that sets up in front of the school.  The market workers were all swaying from foot to foot, blowing on the fingertips peeking out of their functional fingerless gloves.  The hot cider was selling at a brisk pace.

Late fall is most assuredly upon us. And finally, this year, that will mean basketball season for Jacob.

I dare not tell him about it yet, because he will want to go RIGHT NOW and play.  Waiting, patience, understanding what "in 2 weeks" means?  Not his strong suit.

But come December 4th we will be there in that gym.  I will have bells on and my son will be the happiest clam on the block.

Jacob will be learning to be part of a team, playing his beloved basketball.  For once, not the guy sitting on the sidelines, watching his twin brother Ethan participate as a member of the group.

The belonging will belong to Jake, for once.  And hopefully?   For all.