My Dad, the gentleman.

I started college early.  I was a sixteen year old senior in high school when a local community college began offering to let seniors take college courses at night for a ridiculously reduced rate.  I'd recieve full credit.  My parents asked me if I'd like to try it out and eager for more reasons to overachieve, I said yes.  I couldn't drive yet, too young, so twice a week my father and I would stroll out to his little car and drive thirty minutes to campus.  It was autumn and dark and my father was not willing to risk his teenaged daughter's safety on a strange new campus, community college though it was.  So he walked me to my class each night, my arm tucked safely in the crook of his elbow.  He carried my books for me too.  Some day it made me roll my eyes.  I was SIXTEEN.  Practically GROWN UP.  I would be fine.  Truthfully, it was dark and cold on that campus and I was really glad to have my dad backing me up.  He walked me right to the door of my classroom.

During class Dad hung out in the library, a few buildings away.  There were mostly older women in my night class and they thought it was spectacular that Dad took such good care of me.  I became their pet.  The professor liked me too.  He was a tiny man; I remember specualting that he must be part dwarf; not the achondraplasia kind, the mythical kind.  He looked exactly like I imagined Prince Caspian's tutor to have looked, right down to the goatee and the sparkling blue eyes. 

At the end of class my father would be waiting outside the door, smiling gently.  He'd carry my books and we'd laugh about the mysterious way the lights along the sidewalk always flickered when he walked by.  I hung back once to see if it was just him and it was.  (Maybe my dad is Dumbledore with his putter-outer?)  The head start in college was nice but thing that stands out the most to me is those walks and drives back and forth with my father.  It was time when I had him just to myself, time when I was at a vulnerable age and I knew I could tell him anything.  And I did.  Those rides were always over too soon and I was always looking forward to the next one. 

I've always known I have an extraordinary father but it's taken me years to realize how rare he really is.  Tonight I hope very much that I am even half the parent he was.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a lovely celebration last night.  Me, I decided to do it up right with a migraine so bad I had to call Sarge at 4 AM to come home from the all-night youth event he was staffing.  If I could have stood the car ride, I'd have gone to the hospital.  As it was, the ambient light from the street leaking around my room darkening shades was enough to make me want to throw up everything I'd ever eaten.  It's 10:58 AM and I've only just crawled out of bed, feeling as though someone has taken a baseball bat to every part of my body.

Here's to a 2009 without migraines.

Post-Christmas Roundup

I didn't mean to be gone for that long; sorry folks. Between traveling for Christmas, the cleaning fit that came upon me once we got home (I don't look those things in the mouth; I just let them take me) and a visit from my parents, I've hardly been on the computer at all. A nice change, actually. While I was away from you, though, many interesting things happened. Lucky for you, I was able to document most of them with photographs!

Item the First:

The penguins found their Christmas spirit:

Sam was delighted with the tree and loved to spend time in his exersaucer just staring at it. He actually helped me decorate. I'd hold up an ornament and ask "How about here?" He'd scream his excitement at the spot (or cry his disappointment) and I'd place or move the bulb accordingly. It was So. Much. Fun. He also loved it when the tree was lit up at night:

He'd grab at the spots the light would make on the floor, like a cat with a laser pointer. Since he's too young to grab the tree on his own and won't likely remember this next year, I sat him on my lap and let him touch the bottom branches. He was so interested in the texture and the way the lights made his little hands turn colors. Watching him explore and discover the tree made me so happy.

Item the Second:

Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus! He sent Sam a present using the USPS.



I'm not kidding, the box came with a return address of "Santa Claus, North Pole." I have no idea who did this but thank you. Sam loves the doggie and we are so grateful for the formula. People have been so kind to us this year (well, not just this year). "Thank you" never feels like enough to say. This was just incredibly awesome.

Item the Third:

Sam quit his job as a drummer in a rock and roll band and got a job as a banker.

Item the Fourth:

When I wasn't cleaning, we goofed off. We actually did this a lot. It was awesome.

Item the Fifth:

NEW CAMERA!!!!!! I am SO EXCITED! Expect many, many more pictures in the future. MANY. Thank you, Mom and Dad Szczubelek! We are STOKED! (Canon Digital Rebel, for those who know about these things. I did not expect anything so nice. And they got us another lens for it that I'm excited to try as well.)

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to a great new year full of broken resolutions (who am I kidding, I'm not making any resolutions) and a happily imperfect life. There is so much to be thankful for; cherish each day.

Dear Uncle Josh~

What's up?!

Auntie Beff told me that you think Mommy doesn't post enough pictures of me on the internet.  And I think you are totally right.  She has been completely slacking off on her responsibilities lately.  After all, she didn't even write me a letter when I turned five months old! 



She was all: "Your father is having multiple seizures!  We have to travel for Thanksgiving!  I'm having so many migraines I think I'm going to stroke out any second!"  Lame. 

I figured I'd take things into my own hands. 

I can do all sorts of cool things now.  For starters, I was observing my cousin Deacon when we hung out in August and I've acquired his technique of housing cereal (well, any food really) like there's no tomorrow.  Oh man, that stuff is SO GOOD.  Have you tried it?  Food?  You really should.





In addition, I can now rock out on the drums.  Oh yeah!



The ladies love it, I'm not going to lie.  I've got this one girlfriend, Addie CutePunks...well, I'll save that story for when I see you in person.  All I'll say is she wears this little pink barette...CUTE!

I'll bet Mommy never told you that I am good with animals, either.  Uncle Josh, I am a veritable BeastMaster.  KaKaw!  Look at how I tamed this guy:



Now he just follows me around all day, meowing for treats.  I know.  I am THAT good.  Please notice my awesome pirate bib and skully booties.  I am fierce!  Do not mess with me.  Tigey knows.

Aside from tiger taming, rocking the drums and eating myself into a coma every night, I like to spend time working out in my jumpy seat.  Gotta keep my muscles in shape, you know?  Fitness is important if you want to be a cage fighter.



When the endorphins kick in I just get so happy!  I start laughing and I  jump higher and higher until someone eventually says "Whoa!  Slow down there!"  No one seems to mind that I am damaging the molding in their home.  Being intensely cute has benefits.

At the end of the day, I'm pretty tired.  Being a baby is hard work, what with all the public appearances, trying to grow (cell replication is REALLY HARD) and all the digestion I'm doing.  I normally sack out around 7 PM.



Anyway, that's about all that's going with me.  Sorry Mommy didn't fill you in sooner.  I'll have a chat with her about that. 

Love from your favorite nephew,

Samster the Hamster

What's up New Jersey?!

A big thank you to Megan McCullen for the awesome onesie!

Eets not a toomah.

So saith the doctor, at any rate.  He found the burnt toast smell interesting and asked if I'd ever had an MRI.  I confessed my deep clausterphobia and my inability to even get near so much as an open MRI, even with medication, and he didn't push it.  I might have fallen a little in love with him just for that.  He said we could do a C/T if it came down to it but he'd like to hold off.  Yay for that!  There was discussion of how burnt toast could be indicative of siezures (ack!) but since I am cogent (just miserable) during my headaches and Topamax is an anti-convulsant, he feels that is extremely unlikey.  WHEW!

What he did suggest was this: upping my dosage of Topamax and adding a few other meds.  I'm on kind of a low dose of the T. at only 50 mg. a day.  Turns out the max is significantly more (500 mg./day) and he feels there is plenty of room to work with.  Of course, the more I take, the spacier I will become so we are trying to keep it within reason.  I'll try taking 75 mg. at bedtime and if that really leaves me in orbit, I'll climb back down and we'll see what else we can do.  The good news is I should lose a few more pounds with the increased dosage.  I can't be unhappy about that!

He gave me four or five samples of as-needed medication to try when the headaches come. Whichever works best will be what we go with.  Lucky Penny did warn that there may be some unpleasant side effects to some of the meds he gave me.  He told me that if the side effects lasted only ten minutes or so then I would need to make a decision about what was worse, the headaches or the side effects.  What happened with the Immitrex lasted a full 12 hours; if these side effects will last only ten minutes but work to clear my migraines, I'll take it.  I'd rather be down for ten minutes or an hour than a whole day.

He also gave me an anti-nausea medication to help manage the symptoms of the migraine.  I tend to become freezing cold when I have a headache, no matter what the temperature outside, and the doctor told me today that this is because my blood pressure becomes very low.  He suggested I drink lots of fluids.  The anti-nausea meds should help make that possible. 

I'm to try all this for six weeks and then come back for a re-evaluation.  I'm really hopeful that I'll find the answer in one or more of these drugs.  I've taken the anti-nausea med before and I know it works really well so that alone makes me feel like I've finally got a safetly net.  The others, well, I'll wait and see. But I really think it's going to be okay.

(And the nurse I saw told me they would only take Sarge's lisence for three months, not six.  So WAHOO! for that!)

Off to see the neurologist

The doctor's last name is Penny.  Do you think it's okay if I ask him "Penny for your thoughts?" at the end of the appointment?

Tell you all about it when I get back.