Scrapbook Creation

I have been diligently working on a scrapbook for my best friend to give to her daughter on her wedding day, which is coming up in a couple of weeks. Because I started the project so late, I have had to work 8 to 10 hours per week on it. I have about 34 pages done so far with only a few to go.

My friend has been coming over to help with the text on her daughter's pages.I have been corresponding via email with the groom's mother in the UK to get more information on the groom's pages . This is my 4th scrapbook since 2003 and I have to say it has been a lot of fun to work on and I have really enjoyed doing it!

Cats Rule

I decided to paint another feline picture, inspired by my very spoiled cat, Smoke. Worked on it for two days and this was the result:

"Pampered Cat" Original watercolor and ink painting in my etsy store.

The relationship between people and cats goes back eons. The cat was considered sacred by the Egyptians and they even had their own cat goddess. They were mummified and put into their own special cemetery. The cats were valued as pets and as mousers by the Greeks, Romans, Chinese , Japanese and etc. Throughout time, cats have been depicted in many art forms. They have shown up in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci to Andy Warhol. They are as fascinating to paint as they are to observe.

I have only recently become a cat owner in the last year and 1/2. My neighbor's cat had kittens and so we took two of them. I just enjoy watching them so much. They are very friendly and smart. I was surprised as I thought they would be very aloof.


I just read about how cats may be as smart as toddlers. Lab studies are hard to do on cats because they won't perform on cue which may be a sign that they are a lot smarter than we think.

Appointment is finally made!

Children's finally called me to say that they would let me make an appointment for my son for next week. All I can say is that it's about time! However, they told me that we still did not have tests done that were requested but they would schedule us anyway. So after hearing that again, I called my doctor's office and read them the riot act for the second time about not giving us the info on the right tests that we needed . I received a call back from my doctor's nurse saying that she had all the emails from Children's and according to them, Children's did have all the test results that they needed and that I should have been able to schedule an appt on July 9th.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing because that is not what I was being told. I finally got a hospital number from her to call-some parent patient advocate line. I did call and told her what was going on about the run around I was getting and the fact that all I wanted to do was schedule an appointment and I could not! She told me that all test results have to be reviewed by the critical nurse dept before it is passed on to what ever dept it needs to go to, in my son's case the GI dept and then it is reviewed again by the GI doctors. What I think happened was the critical nurse dept was telling my doctor's office one story and the GI department was telling the receptionists handling my appointment a different story. That was why there was massive confusion and I was in the middle of it all getting mad at everyone.

Children's has heard my complaints and I am still not finished. I am supposed to contact their hospital relations person to give them feedback about my experience dealing with their hospital and believe me they are going to hear every sordid detail of what I had to go through!

Anger can be a good thing

Well, I still do not have an appointment at the hospital. Twelve calls later and nothing. I probably should have driven the 3 hours up there and just demanded to be seen. It would have been a lot easier and less of a headache.

It's been two weeks of mix-ups and screw-ups. I was on the phone reading the riot act to my doctor's office because none of their faxes with the latest test results made it to the hospital. They said it probably got lost in cyber space but every single time! I think more likely someone just plain did not send it! On the hospital end of it, they finally got the fax I sent of the test results but initially they said they did not. It was only after I asked them to go through everything they did get from my doctor's office, the insurance company that they found it.

So now 3 days later, nothing! They sent it to the Nurse Practitioner but she hasn't responded. I called yesterday and today and they said the NP has not responded to her email. So I asked, "Can't you go back and ask her if she got it! The answer was No, because we are not in the same building.

Everybody up there is divided into different buildings and nobody sees anybody. They all communicate by email or by some electronic means. They probably have never seen the person on the other end of their emails. Maybe this is the way to cut costs and make things more efficient but for the patient, it totally sucks! The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing up there and they can't find out either. It just makes my blood boil!

I called my doctor's office again and demanded the doctor get on the hospital. I am tired of dealing with all this crap and I am not going to be nice about it anymore.

Healthcare has become strictly a business. I was just talking to a friend who has worked in the hospital labs and she was saying the patient is now the client and she has been seeing this coming for the last 10 years. So true. Just in the past few months I have noticed that it's like my son and I are numbers and not people. It doesn't matter if you have a life threatening condition and need to be seen by the doctor. If their office is full up, you just have to wait until the next day or two to get in. They don't care about your problem, they just want to run things efficiently and make money. It is very scary!

Thanks goodness for bette jo of bettejo bead creations , tonia from the family jewels and ibs group.org. They have given me invaluable information and support that has helped my son and so far he is doing much better. He has dropped some more weight but it has slowed considerably since he is able to eat and his D is still under control . Anyway the saga continues...

The shower is done!

Yesterday was the wedding shower that I did for my best friend's daughter. The weather was a scorching 98 degrees but luckily we had a lot of big shade trees and the temperature started to drop. It was very comfortable sitting under the trees. I had about 40+ people come , down from the potential 100 but that was OK. It was much better that way and I didn't have to borrow as many tables and chairs.


(Some of my decorations in keeping with a health profession theme, I used horse syringes filled with mints and made a functional minature first aid kit with burn ointment, sting ointment, antibiotic wipe and waterproof bandages + a lifesaver mint thrown in for good measure.)

When I was putting my decorations out, the night before to see how they would look on the tables, I discovered that the flowers that I was going to use as centerpieces were way too big and they took up too much space on the table. I was in a panic for a short time. Luckily my husband reminded me that I had made up all these little first aid kits in little red bags that had tags with the bride and groom's name + wedding date. He said do something with those. So I got some empty round glass cylinder dishes that I had used for my son's graduation party, wrapped them in white tissue paper. Tied red ribbon into bows around them and filled them with the little red first aid kit bags. They were the right size and it worked on the table!

We served shrimp cocktail, sushi, salmon, BBQ pork tenderloin, wine, beer and other drinks along with 4 different salads. I was working hard but it was fun to do and the bride- to- be said, "It was the most perfect shower." So I am very happy!

Tagged for the first time

Oh my gosh, I have been tagged by Tonia from Family Jewels.
It's my first time so here goes:

Five Things to do before I die:

1. Definitely I have to sky dive
2. Ride a horse along the ocean
3. See the world
4. Learn to play the guitar better
5. Learn to speak Spanish

Five things I can do:

1. Support my sons
2. Ride a horse
3. Paint
4. Ballroom dance
5. Be creative

Five things I cannot do yet:

1. Speak another language
2. Make Japanese food
3. Swim
4. Wear a bikini
5. Ski without making it into a suicidal run down the mountain


Five things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Sense of humor
2. Shows affection and kindness
3. Has intelligence
4. A compassionate soul
5. Adventurous spirit

Five celebrity crushes (I think I am way passed this stage)

1 Viggo Mortensen ( loved him in the Lord of the Rings)
2. Clive Owen
3. Hayden Christensen (way too young for me but what the heck!)
4. Mark Wahlberg
5. Hugh Jackman

Sorry I don't have five others to tag. Maybe next time.

Healthcare Frustration

I called the hospital again to make an appointment for my son. They were supposed to call me back when the results were in. I heard nothing so I called them again. This is the 5th time I have tried to make an appt. Apparently, they still have not received the results. A person could literally die here just waiting to get in! I told the hospital in no uncertain terms that I was not happy about this. I know she is the receptionist and it isn't her fault that the results aren't there (after being faxed by my dr.'s office twice). I am very tired of getting the run around. I ended up faxing the lab results ,for the 3rd time, to her myself.

Now I tried to show restraint but believe me if my son was having the big D everyday and losing pound after pound, I would be calling them night and day to get him in. So far the calcium, probiotics and enzymes are keeping food in him. But he is still not normal. He wakes up everyday and he feels like crap for at least the first few hours but that is a big improvement from before when he was waking up with severe pain (a ten on a scale from 1-10).

I don't know how parents deal with having a sick child. Not only do they have to cope with their love one being ill but they have to deal with all this bureaucracy too. I am also getting ready to battle my insurance company as they want me to take my son to a doctor in the area. Well, I would, except there are no GI doctors that accept children unless you travel three hours away. I don't have a choice. This is another headache that I am going to have to contend with.