Middle Name: Erik
Birth month: December
Hometown: Miami, FL
School attended as a child: Windermere Elementary
Sports played as a high schooler: Copious amounts of soccer
College: University of South Florida and Rollins College
How I met my wife: Ropes course team building exercise on my first day as a counselor on the same staff
First Kiss: ? Whitervall--some girl when I was in 3rd grade wanted to "practice" while playing hide and go seek...whenever my sister was "it" the other girl and I would hide and kiss until my sister found us.
Knew I was in love: when my wife made me feel like 4 years old again
Engaged: Valentine's Day, 2005 at Leu Gardens. I proposed on both knees in front of the lake. I said yes and then we walked around and listened to bad jazz...technically this was my second proposal as the first came on the same day (five minutes after) we found out Jack was on his way...I was scared out of my mind but already knew without a doubt Susie was The One!
Wedding Date: March 26, 2005, in Miami at Ant Krazee's
Honeymoon: weekend in the Keys... layed in a hammock and ate shrimp
Major in College: Psychology
Minors: Anthropology
Degree: MA in Mental Health Counseling, BA in Psychology
Current Work Situation: Mental Health Counselor at an elementary school for at-risk kids and manage a new business while providing tutoring to yet more kids...and dad of a one year old
Siblings: Sunny (my sister who many thought was my twin while growing up)
Kids: JACK aka The Boog
Current Pet Situation: Zip aka Pits (Jack calls her that)
Something you might not know about me: most of these things you don't know for a good reason but one might be that I have seizures on very rare occasions or as Susie refers to them (fits)
My Hobbies: Cooking, gardening, biking (on hiatus), guitar, music
Favorite Color: Green
Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate
Fav. Place to eat: Any French restaurant with Beef Wellington
Favorite Store: Ross
Favorite month of the year: December!
Dream Vacation: Second honeymoon in Paris and Italy with Susie
Greatest Fear: Needles/Dentists
Fav. TV Show(s): 30 Rock
Fav. Music: Radiohead/Tom Waits/Ben Harper/Beethoven/David Bowie
Fav. Actor: Jack Nicholson/Paul Newman
Fav. Movie: Life is Beautiful
Fav. Holiday: Christmas
Favorite attribute in people: Compassion
My Best Attribute: Elbows
Friday, February 23, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
FCAT Blues
The lucky Floridian children that I work with (I'm a mental health counselor) are now full on entrenched in FCAT woes. Monday begins the dreaded test upon which all of their ability and merit is based.
For those adults out there that remember taking SAT's or GRE's or other standardized tests...remember the anxiety that went with taking those tests. Now, imagine being 8 or 9 years old and taking a test of even greater significance. Further, imagine knowing that your score on this one test, which you cannot study for, dictates (solely) whether you pass or fail. Next, throw in the major hardships that come with poverty (as most of the kids I serve come from hard working, lower income families).
Many of these kids have parents who have worked their way from extreme poverty and practically nothing to struggling with head barely above water. Many make slightly too much for Medicare/Medicaid benefits but don't have jobs which provide insurance and therefore have chronic health issues that more affluent families would have easily been treated and freed from long ago. Mental health issues run rampant in lower income families to say the least due to the prolonged stress, often passed like from generation to generation.
In the end, most of the kids that take the FCAT do fine. Year after year they prove themselves and move to the next grade. But, for those that can't handle the stress of the test or the other intangible variables that are so pervasive in their lives (like their father dying in Iraq), or those that simply don't have the IQ to catapult them over these obstacles...those kids are retained...sometimes more than once (I work with two kids in the 3rd grade on their 3rd time around--can you say, "drop out". They don't fail...the system fails!
Should there be an FCAT, sure...as a test to measure along with report card grades and to assist in targeting the types of services needed to help a child do better. Not punish them, often for things they CANNOT control...which is more often than not precisely what happens.
For those adults out there that remember taking SAT's or GRE's or other standardized tests...remember the anxiety that went with taking those tests. Now, imagine being 8 or 9 years old and taking a test of even greater significance. Further, imagine knowing that your score on this one test, which you cannot study for, dictates (solely) whether you pass or fail. Next, throw in the major hardships that come with poverty (as most of the kids I serve come from hard working, lower income families).
Many of these kids have parents who have worked their way from extreme poverty and practically nothing to struggling with head barely above water. Many make slightly too much for Medicare/Medicaid benefits but don't have jobs which provide insurance and therefore have chronic health issues that more affluent families would have easily been treated and freed from long ago. Mental health issues run rampant in lower income families to say the least due to the prolonged stress, often passed like from generation to generation.
In the end, most of the kids that take the FCAT do fine. Year after year they prove themselves and move to the next grade. But, for those that can't handle the stress of the test or the other intangible variables that are so pervasive in their lives (like their father dying in Iraq), or those that simply don't have the IQ to catapult them over these obstacles...those kids are retained...sometimes more than once (I work with two kids in the 3rd grade on their 3rd time around--can you say, "drop out". They don't fail...the system fails!
Should there be an FCAT, sure...as a test to measure along with report card grades and to assist in targeting the types of services needed to help a child do better. Not punish them, often for things they CANNOT control...which is more often than not precisely what happens.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Jack updates
This past weekend I finally cut the boy's hair. Now he looks like a man (pictures to follow soon if our computer can get on-line long enough to upload the pics). He also has been eating huge amounts of food and sucking down gallons of milk...I think he's hitting a growth spurt. The boy has truly become a real person with an incredible sense of humor.
Things he does to make us laugh include:
1) Dancing as if in the 80's video for "I Like Big Butts" until we laugh
2) "Fisheye"--this thing where he looks at you out of the corner of one eye while pretending to be turning away...he usually cracks himself up too
3) The other day he brought his mother a present from his diaper...only he wasn't wearing a diaper and what should have gone in the diaper ended up on the floor and then in his hand...he knew it was garbage and mommy needed to help!
4) He practices to take on the great hot dog eating champion of the world, Kobayashi (don't ask why I know this), by stuffing 50 Cheerios in his mouth at once...it's scary and funny at the same time.
5) Spinning...he loves to make himself dizzy and stumble around after a good spin.
The boy is doing great...we are enjoying him more than ever lately. I try to savor the babydom as I know it will be gone sooner than we know it. He already seems like a little boy and no longer a baby.
The Boog is killing me with cuteness his cuteness!
Things he does to make us laugh include:
1) Dancing as if in the 80's video for "I Like Big Butts" until we laugh
2) "Fisheye"--this thing where he looks at you out of the corner of one eye while pretending to be turning away...he usually cracks himself up too
3) The other day he brought his mother a present from his diaper...only he wasn't wearing a diaper and what should have gone in the diaper ended up on the floor and then in his hand...he knew it was garbage and mommy needed to help!
4) He practices to take on the great hot dog eating champion of the world, Kobayashi (don't ask why I know this), by stuffing 50 Cheerios in his mouth at once...it's scary and funny at the same time.
5) Spinning...he loves to make himself dizzy and stumble around after a good spin.
The boy is doing great...we are enjoying him more than ever lately. I try to savor the babydom as I know it will be gone sooner than we know it. He already seems like a little boy and no longer a baby.
The Boog is killing me with cuteness his cuteness!
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Valentine's Day
I LOVE MY WIFE...as if you all didn't already know that!
Here's why:
1) She's funny
2) She's almost as funny as me
3) She's smart
4) She's much smarter than me
5) She's the kindest person I've ever known...except when it comes to solicitors
6) She's an incredible mother
7) She teaches me to be a better person without even knowing it
8) She's not married to someone else (anymore)
9) She's beautiful (a side perk of this whole love thing)
10) She thinks I'm the greatest...even though she is!
Here's why:
1) She's funny
2) She's almost as funny as me
3) She's smart
4) She's much smarter than me
5) She's the kindest person I've ever known...except when it comes to solicitors
6) She's an incredible mother
7) She teaches me to be a better person without even knowing it
8) She's not married to someone else (anymore)
9) She's beautiful (a side perk of this whole love thing)
10) She thinks I'm the greatest...even though she is!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Almost VD and No WIFI
Our computer at home is not connecting to our WIFI network and therefore Susie and I have been neglecting our blogs for the past few weeks due to lack of access to the internet. I can only access mine at work.
Jack is doing great but seems to be teething again as he spends a good part of the day with his entire fist in his mouth. Susie and I are busy planning our covert operations for Valentines Day...at this point they are so covert, I don't even know what I'm doing! Meanwhile, Judah Barry is still chirping or, more accurately, screaming in the middle of the night...remember, the bird in the swamp. The business is moving along in the evenings and, at least for me, has become a normal routine now. It's still hard to not see Jack at all from early Monday morning until Tuesday afternoon and the same thing on Thursday until Friday.
All in all, life is feeling good lately. Getting that last Jack-head-check out of the way is a huge relief and it's nice to know we don't have to do it again for a whole year.
This picture is from January but it is my new favorite so I thought I'd share it with all.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
The Monster Hibernates
A very long update on the medical issue that prompted me to start writing this blog in the first place.
It has been 6 months since we last had a radiological imaging done of Jack's head. Jack had just turned one at the time of the last check up. You may recall that our neurologist (Trumble) indicated a follow up schedule doubling the time span after each check as long as the cyst does not change or cause developmental delays or symptoms in little Jack.
Anyone who has a baby knows that 6 months in a baby's life is like an eternity...the changes, developmentally and physically are profound. Also the variation in these changes is so wide across babies that there is such a huge window for what is normal and what is not. It is almost impossible to tell if a baby is "developmentally delayed" or "just hasn't hatched yet" as a woman in the neurologist's waiting room indicated about her younger son while awaiting to be seen with her 6 year old son who we gathered was recently diagnosed with cancer and had just started treatments. For this reason or reasons, the past month has had me quite anxious about the follow up appointment with Trumble and the preceding CT scan.
The MRI was scheduled for Friday morning at 7:30am. We live about 45 minutes from the children's hospital so it was a trek. Susie and I took seperate cars so I could go to work after the procedure. Like two pros, as this was probably our 4th or 5th time going through this, we sort of just proceeded as if things were normal. However, I couldn't help but notice my own inability to cope with the world as a whole in the 2 weeks leading up to the appointment. Every little nuance in Jack's behavior over the past 6 months ran through my mind as I ruminated more frequently up until Friday morning. The fact that Jack held his left arm up while walking and did not swing it as he does his right hand, the increased frequency of vomiting this month, the middle of the night awakenings where he clearly appeared to be in pain (always attributable to gas but never fully), or the very noticeable temper (always attributable to inheritance from his father but nevery fully), or the lack of use of sippy cups still drinking only from bottles (always attributable to a very strong willed baby making a choice but never fully)...all of these and many more behaviors which can't don't mean a damn thing suddenly make you wonder...what if it's the cyst?
Driving to the MRI appointment at 6:30am in seperate cars we realized we are driving in incredibly dangerous weather. Susie calls me on my cell phone and we share information about closed roads and tornadoes heard to be moving through the area already wreaking havoc just north of Orlando. I keep thinking, maybe we aren't meant to get this MRI today after all. We finally arrive after a very scary ride.
In the financial receiving room of the hospital the local news in the waiting room is showing damage and storm warnings as the severity has just been realized and is now a national story. Our focus is again on Jack though and the MRI. We check in and our escort leads us to radiology in the newly renovated hospital which we contributed over the past 2 years at least enough to purchase the flat screen t.v. hanging on the wall playing the movie Cars along with several of the swanky waiting room chairs.
The waiting starts but we are used to it expect it now. Susie and I hold hands a couple of times fleetingly while playing with Jack and hiding our fear the best we know how. Jack laughs and plays not knowing to do any different. This is the best part of this whole thing and we always do our best to keep him from knowing it is different or scary or terrifying for us. After about 45 minutes of waiting, a nurse or tech or someone calls our name. We of course prepare to round up the boy and get this thing over with until we are informed that the MRI machine is down, "due to the storm". Susie and I just stare at each other as if to say, "of course". The nurse/tech offers a solution, which I was surprised by as I've become used to being told, "sorry, there's nothing we can do" by just about everyone in the world of healthcare. The solution was that he would call our neurologist and get the script changed to an order for a CT scan rather than an MRI. The tech bragged that he had Trumble's cell phone number. I think to myself but not out loud, good luck getting ahold of a highly sought after neurologist on a Friday, early in the morning, during a flurry of tornadoes. Within minutes we are informed that the procedure has been approved.
Then the real work begins...I have to try and get this change approved by the insurance company which must preauthorize all procedures (thank you HMO's and US healthcare debacle). Nearly two more hours later we finally get approval to go ahead with the CT scan.
Meanwhile, Susie has gotten to know a man waiting alone with his 5 year old son who appears to have Down's Syndrome. The man has basically talked to Susie, and I have overheard while on the phone waiting for the insurance gods to grant us approval to have our son get pictures of his head, that the little boy also has been diagnosed with some very serious spinal cord problems, and possibly cancer. After the little boy recieves his MRI, that has also been delayed/cancelled due to the machine going down, he is to go and have a spinal tap and see a specialist all of which is getting screwed up by the weather. The waiting room in the radiology department of a children's hospital is probably the most depressing place I can imaging being for 3 hours. The majority of the kids have experienced some sort of trauma and many have been diagnosed with noticable developmental disorders, cancers, and so on. Babies to teenagers and the parents that cope with it all collectively waiting to get help.
15 minutes after approval, I headed into the CT scanner, dawned a radiation protecting jacket and held Jack while he was exposed to the radiation, strapped to a table while magnets swirled around his little head. He cried, stopping only to lear at the source of very loud noises only to cry louder several times. Then, the procedure was over and I wisked Jack away, litterally. I like to pretend I'm saving him so he doesn't think I caused the fearful event...it helps me feel better for a minute at least. Then, as we returned to the waiting room winding down hallways, I repeated to Jack how great he did and how proud I was of him, adding that we were searching for mommy...he laughed, very obviously looking around for his mother. Then, he saw her. All was better again. We left happy but not wanting to appear too happy as several children and parents awaited with their myriad of serious problems still looming in that waiting room.
The next 2 days were extremely long...Susie and I snipped at each other...incredibly sensitive, I realized I just wanted to not talk and just get to the appointment with the neurologist to review the results of the CT scan, but life with a baby does not allow that, and neither does loving your wife. Saturday is a blur. Sunday we took Jack to Universal Studios where he played in Dr. Seuss Land and walked about 5 miles. Then, we went home, put Jack to bed, and watched the Super Bowl. We went to bed and I slept about 4 hours, waking in the middle of the night ruminating about the bad news that we could hear about the next morning. I suddenly realized with full force that I needed to prepare for the worst or I would truly be shocked this time as I had come to expect good news. I began preparing to hear the worst and react in the best way possible for Susie and Jack. I was as ready as I could be.
The next moring we drove to Trumble's office. We waited with the boy diagnosed with cancer (we surmized after talking with the family for about 15 minutes). Susie spoke with the little boys father as he asked if we had been there before, his eyes filled with tears ready to burst as if stored up for months. He wanted to know if we liked the doctor. I suddenly remembered feeling somewhat as he did several months ago when we first learned of Jack's condition which at that time was still without a proffessional prognosis. After a few interchanges we realized that their son was probably beginning cancer treatments, something that put our situation, as crappy as it is, into perspective.
Finally we were called back, waited for Trumble for about 30 minutes, and finally he walked in. He greeted us by saying something like, "I'm so sorry about the long wait....how long was it, how long were you waiting?". Both of us thought he met in his office but then we realized he meant at the hospital on Friday when the MRI machine was done and we had to work out the insurance mess. He actually cared enough to remember. This is a man with who knows how many patients of which a significant number are dealing with issues much more grandiose and traumatic than Jack's. The man is my hero. Especially when he proceeded to say, "everything looks the same...everything is without change...in my eyes we are just doing a well visit".
The man just finished meeting with us saying we would follow up in one year, but in his eyes Jack is in the clear and likely to just have a brain that formed different with a fluid filled sac.
I guess in the grand scheme of things...we are extremely lucky!
Thanks Dr. Trumble...not for what you do for us...but what you do for all of those kids and parents out their who didn't hear what we heard from you on Monday. You are truly amazing!
It has been 6 months since we last had a radiological imaging done of Jack's head. Jack had just turned one at the time of the last check up. You may recall that our neurologist (Trumble) indicated a follow up schedule doubling the time span after each check as long as the cyst does not change or cause developmental delays or symptoms in little Jack.
Anyone who has a baby knows that 6 months in a baby's life is like an eternity...the changes, developmentally and physically are profound. Also the variation in these changes is so wide across babies that there is such a huge window for what is normal and what is not. It is almost impossible to tell if a baby is "developmentally delayed" or "just hasn't hatched yet" as a woman in the neurologist's waiting room indicated about her younger son while awaiting to be seen with her 6 year old son who we gathered was recently diagnosed with cancer and had just started treatments. For this reason or reasons, the past month has had me quite anxious about the follow up appointment with Trumble and the preceding CT scan.
The MRI was scheduled for Friday morning at 7:30am. We live about 45 minutes from the children's hospital so it was a trek. Susie and I took seperate cars so I could go to work after the procedure. Like two pros, as this was probably our 4th or 5th time going through this, we sort of just proceeded as if things were normal. However, I couldn't help but notice my own inability to cope with the world as a whole in the 2 weeks leading up to the appointment. Every little nuance in Jack's behavior over the past 6 months ran through my mind as I ruminated more frequently up until Friday morning. The fact that Jack held his left arm up while walking and did not swing it as he does his right hand, the increased frequency of vomiting this month, the middle of the night awakenings where he clearly appeared to be in pain (always attributable to gas but never fully), or the very noticeable temper (always attributable to inheritance from his father but nevery fully), or the lack of use of sippy cups still drinking only from bottles (always attributable to a very strong willed baby making a choice but never fully)...all of these and many more behaviors which can't don't mean a damn thing suddenly make you wonder...what if it's the cyst?
Driving to the MRI appointment at 6:30am in seperate cars we realized we are driving in incredibly dangerous weather. Susie calls me on my cell phone and we share information about closed roads and tornadoes heard to be moving through the area already wreaking havoc just north of Orlando. I keep thinking, maybe we aren't meant to get this MRI today after all. We finally arrive after a very scary ride.
In the financial receiving room of the hospital the local news in the waiting room is showing damage and storm warnings as the severity has just been realized and is now a national story. Our focus is again on Jack though and the MRI. We check in and our escort leads us to radiology in the newly renovated hospital which we contributed over the past 2 years at least enough to purchase the flat screen t.v. hanging on the wall playing the movie Cars along with several of the swanky waiting room chairs.
The waiting starts but we are used to it expect it now. Susie and I hold hands a couple of times fleetingly while playing with Jack and hiding our fear the best we know how. Jack laughs and plays not knowing to do any different. This is the best part of this whole thing and we always do our best to keep him from knowing it is different or scary or terrifying for us. After about 45 minutes of waiting, a nurse or tech or someone calls our name. We of course prepare to round up the boy and get this thing over with until we are informed that the MRI machine is down, "due to the storm". Susie and I just stare at each other as if to say, "of course". The nurse/tech offers a solution, which I was surprised by as I've become used to being told, "sorry, there's nothing we can do" by just about everyone in the world of healthcare. The solution was that he would call our neurologist and get the script changed to an order for a CT scan rather than an MRI. The tech bragged that he had Trumble's cell phone number. I think to myself but not out loud, good luck getting ahold of a highly sought after neurologist on a Friday, early in the morning, during a flurry of tornadoes. Within minutes we are informed that the procedure has been approved.
Then the real work begins...I have to try and get this change approved by the insurance company which must preauthorize all procedures (thank you HMO's and US healthcare debacle). Nearly two more hours later we finally get approval to go ahead with the CT scan.
Meanwhile, Susie has gotten to know a man waiting alone with his 5 year old son who appears to have Down's Syndrome. The man has basically talked to Susie, and I have overheard while on the phone waiting for the insurance gods to grant us approval to have our son get pictures of his head, that the little boy also has been diagnosed with some very serious spinal cord problems, and possibly cancer. After the little boy recieves his MRI, that has also been delayed/cancelled due to the machine going down, he is to go and have a spinal tap and see a specialist all of which is getting screwed up by the weather. The waiting room in the radiology department of a children's hospital is probably the most depressing place I can imaging being for 3 hours. The majority of the kids have experienced some sort of trauma and many have been diagnosed with noticable developmental disorders, cancers, and so on. Babies to teenagers and the parents that cope with it all collectively waiting to get help.
15 minutes after approval, I headed into the CT scanner, dawned a radiation protecting jacket and held Jack while he was exposed to the radiation, strapped to a table while magnets swirled around his little head. He cried, stopping only to lear at the source of very loud noises only to cry louder several times. Then, the procedure was over and I wisked Jack away, litterally. I like to pretend I'm saving him so he doesn't think I caused the fearful event...it helps me feel better for a minute at least. Then, as we returned to the waiting room winding down hallways, I repeated to Jack how great he did and how proud I was of him, adding that we were searching for mommy...he laughed, very obviously looking around for his mother. Then, he saw her. All was better again. We left happy but not wanting to appear too happy as several children and parents awaited with their myriad of serious problems still looming in that waiting room.
The next 2 days were extremely long...Susie and I snipped at each other...incredibly sensitive, I realized I just wanted to not talk and just get to the appointment with the neurologist to review the results of the CT scan, but life with a baby does not allow that, and neither does loving your wife. Saturday is a blur. Sunday we took Jack to Universal Studios where he played in Dr. Seuss Land and walked about 5 miles. Then, we went home, put Jack to bed, and watched the Super Bowl. We went to bed and I slept about 4 hours, waking in the middle of the night ruminating about the bad news that we could hear about the next morning. I suddenly realized with full force that I needed to prepare for the worst or I would truly be shocked this time as I had come to expect good news. I began preparing to hear the worst and react in the best way possible for Susie and Jack. I was as ready as I could be.
The next moring we drove to Trumble's office. We waited with the boy diagnosed with cancer (we surmized after talking with the family for about 15 minutes). Susie spoke with the little boys father as he asked if we had been there before, his eyes filled with tears ready to burst as if stored up for months. He wanted to know if we liked the doctor. I suddenly remembered feeling somewhat as he did several months ago when we first learned of Jack's condition which at that time was still without a proffessional prognosis. After a few interchanges we realized that their son was probably beginning cancer treatments, something that put our situation, as crappy as it is, into perspective.
Finally we were called back, waited for Trumble for about 30 minutes, and finally he walked in. He greeted us by saying something like, "I'm so sorry about the long wait....how long was it, how long were you waiting?". Both of us thought he met in his office but then we realized he meant at the hospital on Friday when the MRI machine was done and we had to work out the insurance mess. He actually cared enough to remember. This is a man with who knows how many patients of which a significant number are dealing with issues much more grandiose and traumatic than Jack's. The man is my hero. Especially when he proceeded to say, "everything looks the same...everything is without change...in my eyes we are just doing a well visit".
The man just finished meeting with us saying we would follow up in one year, but in his eyes Jack is in the clear and likely to just have a brain that formed different with a fluid filled sac.
I guess in the grand scheme of things...we are extremely lucky!
Thanks Dr. Trumble...not for what you do for us...but what you do for all of those kids and parents out their who didn't hear what we heard from you on Monday. You are truly amazing!
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