Dana Daily

For the first time since I moved to Shaler in 2004, we attended the homecoming parade. The kids wanted to go for the candy, and for some reason, I agreed to this adventure. The parade, while barely covering a 1/2 mile stretch of roadway in front of the football stadium, took nearly an hour. It was a chilly too. Emmy was to play her flute during the pregame with all Shaler bandies from 5th through 12th grades. We took her up to the stadium, and then I ran the other two kids home. I fought traffic, and made it back to the stadium, just in time to hear the kids play the national anthem and the alma mater. They sounded great, and Emmy was so excited when she came off the field. She said she wants to play at every football game. In just a few years, she'll have that chance. Emmy has been bitten by the band bug. After the football game, we decided to go to the Dorseyville Pow Wow. I loved the "indian dancers" I had seen as a girl scout years ago, and was expecting somethi...

Seth's teacher uploaded a few pictures from the kids' nature walk today. I just thought this was the cutest, and Seth loved looking for leaves and taking in the fall sights. Seth is third from the right in this photograph.

Yesterday I found out that my position, project coordinator, had been eliminated. I've been given a technical writing opportunity for 30 days on a trial basis. If at the end of those 30 days everybody is happy, I'll have a job and continue with my employer as per usual. If not, I'll be given severance. This is going to be a stressful month.

I hope our recent illnesses aren't an indicator of how this winter is going to go. I woke up with diarrhea early Monday morning. This is a highly unusual occurrence for me, even when sick. I blamed it on a combination of ice cream cake, which had previously upset my stomach, mulled apple cider, and peach tea. While I didn't feel well all day, I dragged myself into work and actually felt "okay." Not great, but okay. By evening I was feeling more like myself, but exhausted too. I went to bed at 9:08pm, just after tucking the kiddos into their beds. Tuesday I woke up and felt like a million bucks; the best I've felt since the weather turned. I had tons of energy and just felt really good. Unfortunately this high energy continued well into the night, and I didn't sleep a wink. I heard Sal wake up around 4am with awful diarrhea. Not unusual for him, but the fact that I had just had this issue a couple days ago threw up a red flag. He called off work an...

Today was a much better swim class. We had told Seth that if he got through class without screaming, we would go to Eat-N-Park afterwards. He did have some anxiety, but he was calmer too.  He knew what to expect this week so maybe that helped as well. He still can't relax in the water, but he has weeks to improve, and there are many levels ahead of us.

Seth was finally able to start swim class today. I wanted him to start like the girls had, when he was a baby. However, with his ear infections it just didn't seem like a good idea. Now I'm confident those issues were resolved, and he has a fear of pools, of course. He's fine in small "baby" pools, he likes the bathtub, and he's okay with his own plastic pool in our backyard. However, larger pools terrify him. . .so of course it's time to start lessons. I would say today was nearly a failure. He screamed and carried on the full 25 minutes, but he didn't try to escape the pool either. Next week I'm getting in, and I'm bribing him with Eat-n-Park afterwards. His last swim class isn't until mid-November so he has lots of time to get over his fear.

Seth's first day was delayed by about a week due to his illness, but we finally made it. He had no issues with me leaving.  We arrived early and I walked him to his classroom. We met his teacher, and Seth spotted a fire truck and other toys along the wall. He wasted no time pulling a couple a out. He gave me two seconds of his time to snap and a picture, and then he was ready to explore.

(9/3, Day 15, p.m) Seth was being admitted to children’s. He’s lost too much weight, and they don’t know what’s wrong. He just had an MRI to rule out a mass on his brain since tumors can cause vomiting. The drs are optimistic it’s not that because he has diarrhea as well which would be atypical. He’s also throwing up more than once a day (also atypical for tumors). My mind never went to something so serious or traumatic in all my worrying about him so I completely broke down when the dr said he was ordering one. My poor baby. UPDATE 1: Seth moved a lot during the MRI so some of the pictures were unreadable, but from what they could see from the few that were clear there’s nothing abnormal. My feeling is if they were convinced that’s what it was, they would retake them. Instead they’re admitting him to gastroenterology.  UPDATE 2: (9/4, Day 16, a.m.) We slept! Seth was fine overnight. The doctors are puzzled by his combination of symptoms. This morning he’s asked fo...

Seth had a good night, and a good early morning for that matter. He hasn’t had zofran since yesterday evening, and he hasn’t gotten sick. He freaked out with the IV in his hand, but once they put the sock over it, he calmed down. He hasn’t tried to take it off, and never asks about it. The tractor came from child life, and there’s no way he’s going to part with it. The GI team will be back in sometime before noon to update us. Update: We are cleared for discharge. There are no further tests to run, and he is keeping food and water down. He'll continue his recovery at home.

I remember my grandma telling me that when I was barely 5, I told her that someday I was going to live in Pittsburgh. She had grown up on Polish Hill, and my grandfather was from Verona. They lived on a farm outside of Butler and never felt the pull of the city, but I did. We were always back and forth visiting family, and even as a child the city spoke to me. I loved the city neighborhoods with tall, thin houses stacked one upon the other, the small specialty shops for any  item you wanted, and traffic jams made for great people watching. The city has an energy, and I was mesmerized. I was going to live here. I moved “down here” and dove right into learning my way around, navigating the random one way streets, sometimes in the wrong direction. Never panicking if I got lost, but looking for a sign for 279N so I could reorient myself. Now I can get people from one neighborhood to another, and to points downtown. From my living room I can hear the fireworks when the Pir...

We took Seth back to Children's this evening. Over the course of the day he stopped eating and drinking, and he's already lost so much weight. If nothing else, he needs fluids.