In which I bitch about the FDA and the Media and Big Government

Thank you, FDA, for trying to protect my children from my own stupidity. (Insert annoyed ironic smirk here.)

Unless you've been living under a rock (or, like, parenting a sleepless child or something) - you've probably noticed several media stories discussing the FDA and children's "cough and cold remedies."

If you haven't read anything, you can read an example here: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1201599302271000.xml&coll=2

Amid all this brouhaha, I have two main complaints:

1. The media stories do not discuss WHICH cough and cold remedies they are suggesting don't work in children. I'm not asking for brand names, I'm just asking the media to do their job and report on the specific drugs, by their generic names.

• For example, if the FDA is saying that Phenylephrine (this is in products such as Sud*phed PE) is ineffective in children, I would say, "Hallelujah" and "they are abso-f**king-lutely correct." Why do I feel this way? Because phenylephrine at the maximum over the counter dose for adults (10 mg) is NOT effective in relieving nasal congestion. I have personal experience with this, but, actual scientists say so as well. (The FDA may SAY it works in adults, but, I tend to to believe the scientists at the University of Florida over the FDA.) Call me crazy. http://www.herbalist.com/news.details/2557/category/0/start/0/ This is not new information to me - Back in 2006, Rep. Henry Waxman was asking the FDA to look into the effectiveness of phenylephrine: http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1143. So, is the FDA finally ponying up to the idea that PE products don't work? WE DON'T KNOW because the news stories aren't telling us which products the FDA is questioning - they are just lumping them all as "cough and cold medicines".
• I'm curious if the FDA is suggesting that pseudoephedrine (i.e. Sud*phed) is ineffective in children? Because, if that is what they are saying, they are FLAT WRONG. When I give my children pseudoephedrine, THEIR NOSES STOP RUNNING. Guess what? The same thing happens when *I* take pseudoephedrine. It works. So, don't tell me, FDA, that it doesn't work. If you want to tell me I cannot buy it anymore because of the f**king meth-heads, whatever, tell me that. (I'll be pissed, but, less so when I feel like you are using this study as a means to an end, as opposed to just being honest with the American people about wanting to take this incredibly effective product off the market because of drug addicts - who, by the way, are not handing over their driver's licences to get a single box, but are instead stealing whole cases off of trucks, or, more likely, importing the stuff from overseas.)
• Diphenhydramine HCl (aka Ben*dryl) is also an effective over the counter drug - most effective, in my experience, for non-life threatening allergic reactions to things like bug bites, or for putting (many) people* to sleep. I defy anyone who has ever parented a sick child to begrudge them the fact that Diphenhydramine HCl quiets coughing and allergy symptoms in children, (probably because it puts them to sleep), because sick children need rest. I use it when *I* have a cold, too, because I need sleep. Shoot me for finding this drug effective and useful. But, again, we don't KNOW if this is one of the drugs the FDA is questioning BECAUSE THE MEDIA ISN'T TELLING US.

2. My second problem with the research is that most of the articles are saying that the problems that the FDA is concerned about arise when parents overdose their children because they give them two brands of cold-medicine that have the same ingredient, or when the children overdose themselves when the medicine is left out. Excuse me for feeling like it is NOT the FDA's job to keep stupid people from doing stupid things. What about *MY* responsibility as a parent to READ THE DAMN LABEL before I put something in my kid?? What about *MY* responsibility as a parent to put the medicine out of harm's way? My house is full of dangerous chemicals, like toilet bowl cleaner and nail polish remover. Should the FDA take THOSE things away from parents as well?

I'm a grown-up of reasonable intelligence. I want effective products to be made available to me. I don't want to be told that I cannot treat my daughter's runny nose because some yahoos have, on occasion, overdosed their children or left the product out where the child could reach it. (I'm not saying these aren't sad stories, I'm just saying that we cannot ask the government to protect us from our own poor choices.) I want the media to be just a little bit responsible, and NOT underestimate my intelligence, and tell me what the FDA is really saying about which drugs. And I want the government to keep its nose out of MY KIDS noses!

Lastly, what does the FDA THINK will happen when they take children's cough and cold medicines off of the market? Because what I think will happen is that lots of parents will cut adult cold medicines in half and give them to their kids. If they think lots of kids are being overdosed now, I cannot imagine what they think will happen when parents have no other option but to try to guesstimate a child's dose of an adult medication.

Possibly overreacting a bit,

LM

*admittedly some people, among them Husband, have a reaction to Ben*adryl that is more like mania than sleeplessness. It is not a good product for those people.

Freaking Out About Kindergarten

Well, it's January here in the frozen tundra we call home (and no, I don't even live in New Brunswick or anything- it's just very freaking cold here)...so, of course, what is on my mind but - AUTUMN and BACK TO SCHOOL.

Lana will be starting kindergarten in the fall, and I have it on good authority that if she doesn't have a private school placement by March 1, she will not get one.

No, I do not live in Manhattan. Or Chicago. Or some chi-chi suburb of either one. I'm just a mid-western girl in a city on Lake Erie, and I did not expect this kind of PRESSURE.

It's not that I have anything against public-school. In fact, I'm married to a public school teacher who does a darn fine job educating the public (if I do say so myself.) I have many friends and relatives who are fabulous public school teachers. I support public education. And I am generally happy with the public school district in which we live.

Gabriel attends 2ND grade at the public school.

Need I go on to convince you that I am not anti-public-school?

I think not.

BUT....

You knew this was coming, right? The big BUT...

BUT, the school district we live in is one of only two school districts in our county that has half-day kindergarten.

Which is, frankly, kind of a pain-in-the-neck for a working mom. And not really what Lana, in my opinion, needs.

Since March of last year, Lana has been in a NAEYC-accredited all-day pre-school program located on the campus of a large university. They have done a phenomenal job with her - she has two awesome teachers in a positive, comfortable setting. Lana is happy there. She loves S~ and S~, her teachers, and she loves her school friends. Her ability to speak English as well as she does is really a testament, I think, to the school and her teachers. Bottom line, I love Lana's current school situation. Gabriel was in the same day-care/pre-school from the time he was a baby until he started first grade. Gabriel did his kindergarten year at the school and it was a great success.

The problem is, there may not be enough children this coming year for the school to have a kindergarten program. Which means I need a second choice.

I'm all freaked out about this. As near as I can tell, our options are as follows:

1. Hebrew School - although I'm left wondering if it's totally inappropriate for me to send my Vietnamese-American-previously-Buddhist-being-raised-Episcopalian daughter to Hebrew School, merely for the convenience of it having all day kindergarten.
2. Catholic School - there are two options for all day Catholic school kindergarten near our home. One of them has an extremely inconvenient start and end time, so, it's out. The other one would be okay, except that I have many deep, unresolved issues with the Catholic Church...like, just as an example, birth control. I'm all for it, they're not, and I cannot reconcile giving tuition money to them. Does that make me too rigid?
3. Montessori School - we have an excellent Montessori School option. It is quite expensive, but, I'm leaning in that direction.
4. Public School in the morning, some kind of after-school day-care program. Honestly, this would be the most convenient for me, but, I am not sure about the after-school program. She would be bussed to a different building from her kindergarten...I'm all in a tizzy about this. I'm not sure it's a good fit for Lana when she has been in one place getting consistent care and lessons from the same people all day, for her to have kindergarten with a brand-new teacher, followed by afternoon care with brand-new care givers...I think it is worth mentioning that this is the option that Lana would probably choose for herself, because she is desperate to go to the same school as her big brother...

Just not sure what to do,
LM

"Within the Normal Range"

I am embarrassed to admit this, but, frankly my frustration level extremely high right now, and I just need to write about this before my head explodes.

I spent 20 minutes this morning crying in my eye-doctor's office. Crying to my eye-doctor. Slow, drippy frustrated tears of complete and utter frustration.

I'm not even sure where to begin.

I've talked to three doctors (well, and now an eye-doctor, who is not an M.D. or a D.O., but rather an O.D. ) in the past three weeks. I've had an MRI done of my head and three tubes of blood drawn, a visual field test, and two other eye tests the names of which I cannot recall. I've had unpleasant things slapped against my eyeball in order to check the pressures.

And I wish I could say what the bottom line is, but, I can't.

I've been having these massive headaches. Pretty much daily. They respond to Excederin or ibuprofen. Usually. But, I'm not convinced that going through life taking excederin or ibuprofen twice a day is a great solution.

In addition to the headaches, I've been working out like a maniac, and also following WW, and having extremely minimal success.

My fingers and my face are puffy. I'm tired.

Did I mention the fricking headaches?

What I have been told, by the three doctors who have looked at the tests, is that I may or may not have a 7mm tumor in my pituitary gland.

This is not news. 2 years ago, I was told, categorically, that I had a 7mm prolactin inducing tumor in my pituitary gland.

Except, now, they are not so sure that's what it is, since, well, someone finally said, "hey, let's test the prolactin levels in her blood" and - guess what? The results of that test? "Within the range of normal."

So...the next response was "perhaps it is an abnormality of the pituitary gland that is ([F**K]) within the range of normal." WTF????? I was also told, "maybe your pituitary gland is just shaped that way," and also reminded that "up to 30% of people can show an abnormality on an MRI."

REALLY? So, pardon my french, but, WHY THE F**K did you diagnose with a TUMOR 2 years ago, and NOW YOU DON'T KNOW???

My TSH was tested, and provided I take my prescribed synthroid daily, it is also, "Within the range of normal".

I suggested that perhaps it was a cortisol producing tumor and was told that, two years ago, your cortisol levels were [F**K!!!!!!!!!!!!!] "within the range of normal."

I suggested that perhaps they might want to run a cortisol test, NOW, on my saliva, which I had read on the Internet was a more sensitive test. The response was that "I don't think that's the problem. It's probably just PCOS."

Yeah. About that...we don't have ANY IDEA if I have secondary infertility because I NEVER TRIED TO HAVE A SECOND BABY and RIGHT NOW I AM VERY WORRIED THAT YOU, DOCTOR PERSON, ARE ASSUMING I HAD SECONDARY INFERTILITY BECAUSE YOU KNOW I ADOPTED MY SECOND CHILD. And I have no ovarian cysts. And my sugar levels???? Yeah...WITHIN THE F**KING RANGE OF NORMAL.

I called my family doctor demanding his opinion as to whether or not I might have a cancerous 7 mm tumor hanging between my eyeballs. (No one has even mentioned the word cancer. It's just that I hear the word "tumor" and my mind goes there). He graciously said "I can tell you it's not cancer." The reason he knows I don't have cancer is because "whatever is in your head, if it is anything, is still 7 mm after 27 months between MRIs - if it were cancer, it would be growing. Also, cancer in your pituitary gland is incredibly rare. But, if that is what it was, it would have grown."

So, this morning, as I sat with my eye-doctor, and he said, "well, there's a place on your visual field test where your peripheral vision has decreased from your last test, and the size of your optic nerve in your right eye is large, but, it's within the range of normal."

I JUST LOST IT. I said, "look, if one more doctor says to me something that sounds like, "well, I'm concerned about xyz, but, it's within the range of normal I think I will lose my mind."

So, I end up telling the whole saga to the guy whose expertise is solely of the eye. And he said he didn't know what was causing my headaches, that he was sure it wasn't my vision because he was testing my eyesight at 20/20 - but, he thought I should see a neurological ophthalmologist, which is evidently a neurologist who specializes in eyes.

I frankly don't know what to do from here. (Aside from seeing the neuro-eye guy), but, it freaks me out to be told, that, basically, there is something the size of 7 mm hanging out between my eyeballs, it's not what they thought it was two years ago, and, maybe it's just nothing. But, no, they cannot tell me why my fingers and eyes are puffy, or why I have headaches every damn day, and, no, they don't really think these symptoms are necessarily related.

My lunch hour bitch fest has now come to an end. I have people to divorce and tenants to evict and an estate to file, so, I'm going to go practice some law now.

I just wish I could convince someone do more for me than just practice some medicine.

ARGH.

LM

Panick-y

You know that feeling where you cannot concentrate on anything for more than 30 seconds and you feel like your head might actually fly off your body and go spinning around the room and your stomach feels like it is sitting directly underneath your heart?

What?

You don't have that happen?

It's just me then?

Huh.

I guess I must just be a FREAK then. Or crazy. Or possibly I dropped a speed-ball or something, but, I really think I would have remembered engaging in recreational drug use. (Kidding!!)

Right. So, I'm not sure what's brought on this feeling of panic, since I don't have any truly pressing issues right now. It started about 4:30 this morning. Maybe, actually, it started last night. I couldn't fall asleep until midnight, and woke up at 4:30, feeling like everything was, just - not right.

I kind of feel like I'm about to jump out of my own skin. (Well, that would be MESSY...)

It could be because I spent part of yesterday dealing with a completely OFF HER ROCKER distant relative of mine, who wants me to sue someone, over something stupid, and insane, and the fact that I explained that I could not (first and foremost because the person she wants me to sue is MY CLIENT and I'd rather not lose my license to practice law, thank you very much) didn't seem to get through her fantastically insane skull.

Sigh.

I've got a funny post percalating in my head about Lana's new mad language skillz, and I'll try to post it later today, since this post is kind of, well, a dud.

Cheers,
LM

Sushi-lust = Irony

My craving for California rolls and cucumber rolls is OUT OF CONTROL. It's like I cannot get enough of them.

Well, that's not exactly true. It's not like a I want to eat a mountain of California or cucumber rolls in one sitting or anything. I just, you know, want A roll, just 7 or 8 pieces.

But I want them EVERY DAY.

To the point that I have actually purchased pre-made California rolls at KR*GER.

FYI, they are not particularly good. I mean, they are mass market sushi, what could I possibly expect, right?

The irony of this is, when I actually LIVED in Japan...I never ate sushi if I could help it. I really didn't enjoy it, I hated the taste of the seaweed...and also the idea of eating raw fish skeeves me out. (I still don't do raw sushi.) (And yes, California rolls are not authentic, I know this. They are a California invention. Hence the name, and all.)

I've had Japanese food four times in the last two weeks. And tonight - Husband and I are having an actual date. And guess what I want? Again. Japanese food.

Is it possible that seaweed is addictive?

LM

Daydreams

There was an article in our newspaper this morning, indicating that daydreaming is a healthy and productive activity. Evidently it can be calming and can assist in problem solving.

Since it is evidently a positive thing to do, I thought I'd throw out this question - do you daydream and what about?

And since it's MY blog and all, I'll answer first.

Yes, I daydream. About a variety of things - sometimes I make up alternate endings to books or movies. Sometimes I daydream about lying on the beach with a drink in a coconut and the wind gently blowing my hair.

But, mostly, I daydream about a horse.

Which, is stupid, really, because I've only ever ridden a horse 3 times in my real life.

But, my daydream goes like this:

I win the lottery or otherwise come into some large sum of money and we buy a secluded piece of property someplace beautiful. And on the property, which is very far away from everything, lives my horse. Sometimes the horse is black and sometimes the horse is brown, and sometimes I name the horse Mercury and sometimes I name the horse Freya (see, it depends on if the horse is a boy horse or a girl horse, of course). But, the horse is always huge. And fast. And the horse only likes me and nobody else.

The daydream isn't complicated. I get on the horse, and we run. Fast. Faster and faster. And the horse is incredibly graceful and surefooted and incredibly fast, and the scenery is beautiful. (Sometimes it's like, a perfect verdant meadow, and other times it some kind of valley in some mountains.)

And that's it. Sometimes, in the daydream, Husband has a horse, too. Like a matched set.

Having never been fast, graceful, or surefooted myself, I think, is where this daydream comes from...

So, what do YOU daydream about?

LM

Landmines

I've been trying to figure out how to blog about this...bizarre...conversation I had with Lana the weekend before last.

We were at the family wedding we attended the weekend before last. I had taken Lana to the ladies' room, and Lana looked at me and said, "She [the bride] have baby in her belly?"

(Allow me to say that it was, in fact, true, that the bride was pregnant. But, the bride and groom were both 38 years old and never married, and had been engaged for 18 months, and no one was anything but ecstatic for them.)

"Yes," I said. "She has a baby in her belly."

"Ashling [her cousin (not her real name, but, the way that Lana pronounces it)] told me so. Ashling told me 'Nee [Lana's rendition of the bride's name] has baby in her belly."

"Yes, that's right," I said.

Lana then looked at me with a very serious glint in her eye. "You grew Gabriel in your belly?"

I suck air in through my teeth.

Landmine.

"I grew Gabriel in my belly, that's right."

"Aunt S~ [my sister], she grow D~ in her belly?"

"Yes." I nod.

"She grow R~ in her belly, too?"

"Yes. And Ashling, and J~ and M~."*

"Buddy's mom [this is what Lana calls my other sister, whose child is nicknamed Buddy] - Buddy's mom grew Buddy in her belly?"

I nod again. I am waiting for another landmine. I am terrified.

"What about me, mommy? What about Lana? You grow Lana in your belly?"

[Landmine delivered.] I am pretty sure my eyes were as large as proverbial sausage plates at that point.

"No, sweetheart, I didn't. I didn't grow you in my belly."

"Maybe I grow in Daddy's belly?" she asked, hopefully.

"No, honey, Daddies don't grow babies in their bellies."

"Whose belly, mommy? Whose belly grew me? Whose belly grew Lana?" she demanded.

Holy crap. Has she peppered this bathroom with landmines?

Suffice it to say that this was not a conversation I expected to be having with Lana yet.

Certainly not in the LADIES' ROOM in Erie, Pennsylvania in the middle of a wedding reception.

For several seconds, I have a conversation with myself in my head that goes like this:

Me: Holy Mother of God. What the hell do I say?
Me: How the hell do I know?
Me: Why are we having this conversation right now?
Me: You have to tell her SOMETHING.
Me: WHAT?? What do I tell her?
Me: Tell her the truth, idiot.

(Do you think this inner dialogue indicates I might have just a touch of the the crazy?)

I looked at her tiny face.

"Whose belly, mommy?" she repeats.

I step on the landmine and wait for the explosion.

"Her name is Lien**." I said quietly. "Her name is Lien and you grew in her belly in Viet Nam."

I wait for further landmines. They do not come in the form of more questions.

"Let's go dance some more, mommy," Lana says.

The explosions, I think, come later - delayed detonation, perhaps. In the form of the drama/trauma and distress I described last week.

LM

*Yes, my sister, who is 5 ft tall and a size 2, has had FIVE BABIES. A size 2!! FIVE!! BABIES!! How is that even possible?

**Anybody speak enough Vietnamese to tell me how to pronounce Lana's birthmother's name? I have been pronouncing it almost like the name Lianne, but, with more of a soft 'e' sound than an 'a' sound.