Clover Autrey

Me, Marjorie Liu, & my sister Heather

I’m here at the World Con and making a total ditz out of myself. I came out of the gate strong, making a goggled-eyed impression right at the hotel reservations. There was a beautiful woman waiting behind my sister and I me with a very nice blouse on, so I complimented her on it. She smiled and said thank you then, and went to check in at the counter beside me. I overheard her say Marjorie Liu, at which point I leaned back around my sis and exclaimed. “Did you just say you are Marjorie Liu? I have your book!” Yes, I know, exactly the kind of professional air I wanted to walk in with, but come on – It was Marjorie Liu!

Her face lit up. She was so sweet and kind. Unfortunately I made a fool of myself even further when I asked for her autograph later and couldn’t stop stammering and giggling like a complete idiot.
Then I did it again when we stepped on the elevator and there was a nice lady already on and I did a quick glance at her tag, and couldn’t help blurting out, “You’re Elizabeth Moon! I’m on the elevator with Elizabeth Moon!” As though she didn’t know who she was or that she was indeed on an elevator. She gave me that kindly indulgent smile, very poised, and was quick to exit when the elevator reached her floor, probably relieved when I didn’t get off and follow after her. I have so much more to tell you about the Con, but that will have to wait for a few days. More pictures too. A lot more.

Back in early August, Chase was listening to 106.1 when he heard a random announcment about Kidd's Kids wanting more families to sign up for their Disney World trip this year. I had never even heard of this before. Anyway Kidd Kraddick in the morning founded this really cool organization where they send disabled or chronicly ill children with their families to Disney from donatitons they receive. All excited Chase asked if we could apply. He heard them say that diabetics could go. I'm thinking, diabetic? Like that's the worse of his problems. I've never signed up for anything like this, never even thought of it. Why would I? Things like that don't happen for people like us, do they? An all expense paid trip to Disney World for the entire family? Get real. That happens for those kinds of people in like, well, Hallmark Lifetime movies or something. But it never hurts to try and it sounded like we qualified. Certainly we've had the most devastating finincial three years ever. We haven't been able to take the kids on any sort of vacation for I don't even know how long. If we couldn't drive there, we didn't go. And Chase definitely has a chronic illness. Unbelieveably, we got a letter that said we get to go. It's still a little hard to believe. And I'm afraid to get too excited - for when you live with an ill child, you never know what is going to happen day by day. And sure enough, during all this excitment, Chase ruptured his spleen and now we are doing all the preparatory work to get him evaluated for a new liver. I've asked all the doctors and so far the consenus is that we should go and have a great time. We could all use a little stress free time. Stress free? More than that. It's gonna be awesome! All right, I'm gonna quit suppressing my excitement. It's gonna be great!
Thank you Kidd Kraddick, Derrick, and all the crew. You're the best!

My only older sister, Bekie, came out for a weekend visit. It was great. She is wonderful fun to hang out with. We were able to take the kids out to the State Fair of Texas. It was a beautiful cool and cloudy day -- just perfect for roaming. And roaming my little ones did -- all over the place and in many different directions. Keeping them all safely un-lost took most of the time so we barely were able to traverse a third of the fair grounds, but that's the fun with kids. It was just nice to be out doing something in the cool Texas air.




See Tate straggling in the rear. That's the closest we kept together the entire time.




Big Tex!
Kids loved watching his mouth move.

I've been to so many appointments lately I haven't had much time for blogging. I asked my boss yesterday to lower my hours. I'll be going from 4 days a week to only two. My paycheck will be almost nothing, but I just can't do it anymore. Tuesday when my five year old broke his arm was the last straw.

Neither dear heart or myself was home. Dear heart got there first and took T to the emergency. For some reason I'm still trying to figure out, they sent him home with it wrapped and said to come back in the morning. In the am, I took him back to the ortho clinic and they were also surprised that the arm hadn't been set right away.

Anyway, T has seen Chase get too many IVs so he was prepared on how he was supposed to act. . . kicking and screaming and fighting all the way, which he did with gutso and after two attempts, the nurses gave up. I kept asking them over and over, if they were going to put him out anyway, why not give him the happy juice and put the IV in while he was asleep. Please, this was not my first trip to the OR and I know my kids. Stubborn and tough as hell and with too many experiences in hospitals. It also didn't help to have 7 adults standing around in a very small room as my little guy goes balastic. One nurse even had the nerve to tell me that T needed counseling. Hello! What does she know about it? What he needs is a mother that isn't always gone, either working or at medical appointments or financial appointments and a family who is not in severe stress. Plus not having 7 strange adults watching him and holding him down to pierce needles in his arm. That's what he needs. Even if I thought he needed counseling (he's 5 people) that would just be more appointments that would further the problem.

I didn't tell her this all at the time because by then I was in tears, not over the procedure, which I'm sure they assumed. Scared mom, yadda yadda, but it was when they told me that they would do it with the juice, but couldn't schedule it until that evening or possibly the next morning, that I got emotional, I couldn't help it. I simply could not manipulate my exhausted mind around the fact that I still had to go to work in a few hours, and finish the profile for SSI medicaid, and get Chase's pulmonolgy visit completed. My mind went in a meltdown right there in front of everybody. No wonder they thought we all needed therapy.

Fortuneately the surgeon took charge, came in and told me that he rescheduled things and was going to do it right away and asked me if I could get T to drink the juice so they wouldn't have to hold him down and attempt an IV again. Then he kindly kicked all those numbskull nurses out of the room so I could calm T down. Guess what, T drank the stuff even though he didn't like it and very shortly got happy and silly and all was well. Why couldn't they have just done that in the first place?

I'll tell you, I've been going to Cook Children's Medical Center for 17 years almost every 3 months if not more. My oldest child died in my arms in that hospital and I think about that everytime I'm there, brace myself every time Chase is admitted and pray that I don't get put in that same room . . . so far we never have, but I've passed it, looked in, remembered . . . but regardless, I would tell anyone that Cooks is the greatest hospital ever and they have always managed things exceedingly well . . . except this one time. I don't know what happened, but from the start in emergency, it was mishandled badly, one thing after another, until the surgeon came on the scene then all fell into place how it should. I even got T home in time for me to go to work.

But then I worked two midnight shifts in a row and was dragging, and seeing that my children were suffering, T physcially, and my oldest boy, who I had hoped would step up to the plate, reacted the other way and has gotten beligerent and acting like he doesn't care. Or he is simply turning into a teenager. O crap, maybe we all do need counseling.

I do have some tremendously good news, but Chase's nebs just finished so I'm off to bed for now, so that will have to wait for later.