Ponderances, Inanities, and other Nonsense
Archive for July, 2006
My Theory on Landis’ Alleged Blood Doping
Jul 27th
I believe French doctors should not be allowed to decide whether or not a non-French cyclist has a high testosterone level, as it is a well known fact a Frenchman (other than Zidane, who is clearly exceptional) doesn’t have balls and therefore the doctor would have no basis for comparison.
The defense rests.
Progressing famously
Jul 25th
Well, everything was fine with Sophia’s toe (they had infiltrated a vein or artery in her foot and it caused her toe to turn purple). The doctors did some tests and it seems everything was fine.  After that, they were supposed to give her some meds to fix the partially open valve in her heart, but while waiting to see what they needed to do about her toe, it “healed” itself. So, then they were able to start feeding her milk. Two days ago, she was on 3cc every 3 hours, then yesterday, she was on 5cc every 3 hours. Today, she was up to 8cc, and still tolerating it well. With that volume, she should be gaining weight much faster (it is already noticeable).
Antonella is doing well, too. Her blood pressure is back to normal, but with the meds to lower her blood pressure, it actually got a little low today, so she had them check her blood pressure. Everything is fine.
Everyday, it seems to get better and better…
Another Update
Jul 21st
Everything is still going great. Antonella got to come home for a little bit. We are waiting to see if we can get a room at one of the “hardship” houses, like the Ronald McDonald House. The social worker said she might have something from Saturday to the following Saturday, which would be perfect. My mom is flying in on Sunday, so she will get to see the baby.  “You GOTTA see the Bay-bee!” (you know, Seinfeld).
 Anyway, I am running around like a chicken with my head chopped off (insert chicken joke here.) Antonella is asleep, so I got to catch up on my emailing and what not.Â
Sophia is progressing wonderfully. They heard a heart murmur, which is pretty usual, so they did an Echocardiogram on her and found that one of the shunts didn’t close up. They will treat her with some hormone that should do the trick (it does in the majority of the cases.) If it does, they’ll start her on milk. That’s good because one of the conditions of her discharge is that she is no long on IV nutrition.
I also got to hold her for about 10 minutes. She was fighting to stay away and she kept looking at me. Of course, it was too cute for words.
It seems she looks like me in most respects, including my huge noggin’, but got Antonella’s temperament. The nurse joked about her temper a bit. Poor, sweet baby.  DramaQueensInTheWorld++.  (I am only kidding, of course. Bad nurse!)
Update on Sophia
Jul 19th
Well, she is doing much better. As Antonella had to be on Magnesium Sulfate to control here blood pressure, the baby’s ability to breathe on her own was impeded a bit until she got that out of her system. So, they had to run an endotracheal (sp?) tube that is merely a tube run down her windpipe a little bit (not a tracheotomy). Anyway, she did so well, she is back on a CPAP (which is just at the nose). She is off antibiotic and so far, all of her tests are negative. (I don’t know what that means, but they said it was good, so…)
Mom is up and about a little bit, and I have wheeled her over to see Sophia every couple of hours.
Thank you everyone for your outpouring of support. We feel blessed twice over.
I set up a private account on flickr where I have the pictures. If you want access, just comment on this entry. (Note: Your comment won’t appear until I approve it, but I’ll still get it.)
Again, thank you everyone,
Antonella, Sophia, & Bryan
Introducing Sophia…
Jul 16th
Wow! I am so exhausted, both mentally and physically. The past 24 hours has been such an emotionally draining time. On Saturday, Antonella was complaining about some intense high abdominal pains. They started out mild in the morning, and progressively intensified as the day went on, until at about 11, she was squirming around. I took her to the hospital, and her blood pressure was like 230/150, or something like that (I remember the 230, but the second one is a guess). They basically called Johns Hopkins and had the helicopter come and pick her up after an hour or so. I had to drive, and I really wasn’t taking it all that well.
I was afraid I would miss the birth, as they had decided that the preclampsia (sp?) was getting dangerous and they needed to go ahead and deliver her. I arrived, and about three hours later, at 11:37 am, Sophia was born. She is so tiny, at just 2lbs. 8oz., but when they said for me to look over the shroud and she was looking at me I just lost it. The operation went on for a further 2 hours to stitch Antonella back up. She was such a trouper and I am very proud of her.
The doctor in the NICU said that the baby would have to stay until its planned delivery date of September 13th. I hope that is just to keep us from getting our hopes up of some unrealistic expectation, but I may go out of my mind before that. She further stated that the baby could be transferred to the St. Mary’s within the next four weeks and then we could go see her a little more frequently.
Antonella’s Caesarian Section went very well, though she got to see the baby much less than I did. I don’t know when she will get to see her again, though I hope soon.
As I have gotten 15 minutes of sleep in the past 36 hours, I am going to call it a night.
Updated with her real weight on 7/18/06
All your beer are belong to me!
Jul 10th
I love beer. Not in a Leaving Las Vegas kind of way, but I am quite taken with it. I like it like it, to use something from grammar school. Let’s put it this way: if beer passed me a note in class, I would enthusiastically check “Yes”. And, if everything went to plan, me and beer would be smooching under the stadium bleachers, whimsically planning our future together.
Anyway, last weekend, Kathy, Mike, Antonella and I went to Ram’s Head to imbibe a few pints. I picked the next beer on my “World Beer Club” list, which was Chimay. I have never heard of it…sounded French. The waitress came back and said that the bartender recommended a suitable replacement that was the same size. I guess I didn’t really hear the “size” part of it. I figured she misspoke and meant “similar taste” or something. Anyway, the beer that came was just shy of having some attached wheels to make it easy to wheel it in. It was 750 ml! A fifth! What’s more, it was some bottom-fermented brown ale called Ommegang, and not only was it “not my type of beer,” but it had an alcohol content of 8.6%. So I got a little lit on a lot of potent beer that had sediment in the bottom of the bottle.Â
I guess even though it wasn’t my favorite, it was still quaffable. After all…I don’t think I’ve had a bad beer. Some are a little bigger than others, with a bad aftertaste, but they need a little love, too. I wonder how many of these mutant beers are in the 100.
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