Christmas lights victorious; seizure dog, not so victorious; FMMP: Milk

This weekend was the judging of the Christmas lights in our complex. Tery went even more crazy than last year, but her secret weapon was something I bought for her -- one of those boxes you plug the lights into that makes them flash in time with musc. They were originally $100 and I said "Oh, HELL no," but then after Christmas when the markdowns start kicking in I bided my time and watched and waited, finally swooping in when they were 75% off. That was quite a coup.

(I was a little hesitant about buying something meant to be blared loudly into the neighborhood, but since most of our neighors are literally dead and gone it's not such a big deal anymore.)

Good thing, too, because she actually had some serious competition this year. The renters below Tracey FCW (and also evidently her friends -- she solved the problem of how to shovel dog shit off her porch without her neighbors complaining) had a really nice display up since last week. Tracey herself was out literally two hours before the judges came around, frantically hammering and drilling to get her stuff hung. Two problems -- they were the exact same decorations she had last year, and the eleventh hour installation kind of defeated the purpose of the contest to encourage people to get into the holiday spirit (if history repeats itself, she'll take them down again tomorrow).

Tery invited her bar friends and our neighbors Mike and Anna for an anticipatory victory celebration. Tery was pleased to see parents from the neighborhood bringing their young children to view her work. Anyway, she took first ($75). Second went to the renters ($50) and third to Tracey ($25). Justice was served, and I guess that isn't too shabby for an hour's work. We invited the judges in for some food which I was glad for, so they could see our spirit extends to every possible inch of our house, not just areas visible for judging purposes.

Award-winning display

I think the only way Tery can top herself next year is to hire a chorus line of snowbunnies or something.

Tery also outdid herself for the party, making an enormous amount of hors d'ouvres for us. My favorite was a Martha Stewart idea, pea pods with Alouette cheese and tomatoes with pesto.

It's a Christmas tree! I had to snap this before it got completely decimated

Christmas also came a little early in the form of someone finally closing our neighbor's door downstairs. Thank god.

~*~

Funny thing is, I was talking to neighbor Anna about how the only thing I really hate about working at the hospital is never knowing what I'm walking into. I had to leave Tery's party to go into work, where I discovered Dr. Norton still present; I hate finding anyone there when I arrive -- it typically means they had a last minute emergency come in that would be left with me. Not the case, however, she was staying with a seizure dog, Colby, who had been there a few days already who she was afraid to leave alone. Terrific.

It turns out this dog was on a continuous Valium drip, absolutely crucial fluid maintenance. We were also having a Valium shortage, never having to administer it in the massive doses this dog required. Dr. Norton hinted if we didn't control the seizures soon, we'd have to send him to an emergency 24-hour facility (so I spent the rest of the night praying for just that to happen).

In the ten minutes it took her to explain everything to me we started having pump difficulties. I was nervous, because in my experience once a pump starts giving me problems, it's nonstop all night long. We thought we had fixed it and she went on her way.

She hadn't been gone ten minutes when the pump started again. Normally I'd do everything I could to fix it myself, except liquid Valium can't be exposed to light or it loses potency, so the tubing and connections were wrapped up super tight, making my troubleshooting work twice as challenging. Rather than futz with it I decided to call her before she got too far away. She came back, fortunately.

Again we had it licked and she left, and again it started alarming on me. The second time she brought a pillow to stay overnight. I felt terrible, she'd already worked a full day, but she insisted.

The trouble with Colby was he was a 4-year-old lab, and when he wasn't seizing he was strong and willful and impossible for one person to do anything with without him fighting to get away. Dr. Norton eventually decided to re-lay the catheter, succeeding after two attempts. This made me feel much better, as I would never have been able to do this myself. The one she removed had a defect in the line that puzzled her.

But that wasn't half as puzzling as when we got him hooked up again and the pump STILL complained about an occlusion. There was no reason in the world for this that we could see and the doctor was stumped (again, making me feel better about keeping her there).

We finally got it going, though it was a tentative victory at best. She went upstairs to try to get some sleep, I tried to accomplish something else on my list of duties. The other trouble with Colby was he had occasional very violent sneezing episodes to boot, during which he would smack his head full force against whatever surface was nearby. The recurrent head trauma couldn't have been helping his condition, and from the next room sounded identical to a seizure, making me dash back into Recovery about every ten minutes.

He had his first seizure since my arrival at midnight. The head smashing with sneezing was nothing compared to what he did while in the throes of an epileptic fit. I fetched Dr. Norton and we sort of nursed him through it. He had a second one about fifteen minutes later. The good news was when he was post-ictal he immediately became sleepy and passed out, making him much more manageable. We pulled him out onto the floor where he seemed more comfortable and she again retreated to her office.

I gave up the idea of doing anything else that night and settled in beside him. The fluids would still inexplicably stop flowing occasionally and need some messing around to restart so I had to keep an eye on the drip. Let me tell you, if you ever suffer from insomnia, don't waste your time with pharmaceuticals -- try staring at an IV fluid drip for about 20 minutes (or perhaps a more practical substitute might be a steadily leaking sink faucet). I absolutely couldn't keep my eyes open, and settled instead for checking in every five minutes or so.

Also for obvious reasons, there would be no setting up my cot that night. By about 3:30 a.m. I was so exhausted it turned out the desk chair with my feet propped up felt just as good. All told I slept about a half hour that night, and I really felt it the next day. Hard. But these medical reports don't type themselves, you know?

Colby was okay the rest of the night (except for more of those alarming sneezing runs), and I was extremely happy when 5 a.m. finally arrived. I called Dr. Norton through the intercom and she sounded as cheerful and refreshed as if she'd slept a solid 8 hours. I asked how she did that, and she replied, "Many years of practice."

She still had to stay, as the next seizure was due in the next hour or so, judging by the previous trend. I felt just as bad leaving as I did making her stay, but she's not hourly so wouldn't impact Tery's payroll the way I would. It turned out the morning doctor let her go home and come back later in the afternoon rather than work through.

Reportedly the kid who owns Colby has no money, so it will be interesting to see what becomes of the bill resulting from essentially four days of intensive around-the-clock care for this dog. Also the kid was going to pick up the dog the next morning, but then leave town at 2 p.m., trusting his roommate to watch over him in his absence. The Valium was all used up at that point, so they sent him home with rectal suppositories to administer if (when) he seized again. I'm sure the roommate was thrilled.

My point is, the dog is only four years old and having these problems, with an owner who has no money. I think the kid is going to have to make some very difficult decisions very soon about what he plans to do with his pet.

Fortunately I only had two boarders that night, one of which looked like the American werewolf in London:

Kasey the Keeshond, who was actually much sweeter than her cinematic counterpart

~*~

Finally, Tery is very interested in seeing the movie Slumdog Millionaire, but since she hates leaving the house on her day off and it wasn't available on Graboid, instead we watched Milk which WAS on Graboid.

I won't bother cutting, I don't have much in the way of spoilers or length. Sean Penn did a predictably outstanding job as Harvey Milk, first openly gay elected official. Well, he was a bit more buff than I'm sure Harvey was, but he had the voice, the accent, the hair, everything else down. Josh Brolin was also perfect as Dan White, the insecure, frustrated co-worker that ultimately assassinated him -- if anything, he was a little underused. I didn't really get any idea of why White was driven to commit murder. The scenes between him and Penn, with the knowledge of how their relationship ended, seemed very tense and charged to me.

I think hanging out in the boy_touching community has completely inured me, as I saw nothing at all titillating or unusual about watching Sean Penn and James Franco kiss. Perhaps if the rest of the world joined, two men together would no longer be such a controversial event.

My one complaint (apart from Penn's bordering-on-prizefighter physique) was the first scene of the movie; Penn passes Franco exiting the subway, and greets him warmly. At this point the viewer isn't sure if they are already together or not, and the rest of the scene really does nothing to clear it up. They talk like old friends, then they share a passionate kiss. It turns out that no, they were complete strangers and this is the first time they hooked up.

I didn't buy it, until coincidentally while browsing Netflix's "watch instantly" selections as our afternoon entertainment, Tery chose a documentary called Gay Sex in the 70's (making it quite the theme for the day). This is full of aging queens reminiscing about all the free gay love before AIDS hit the scene, when the community was pretty exclusively about random anonymous encounters, and hooking up really was as simple as walking down the street. So I'd like to think this quick scene in Milk was a brief nod to that time.

The end of Milk, obviously his assassination and the famous Candelight March, had me predictably crying like a baby. It was very understated and very well done, no over-the-top Hollywood dramatics. Tery, equally predictably, reacted not at all. She chastised me for crying so early in the day, as if crying was the same as drinking. As usual I did my best to ignore her.

The movie was very relevant to our time, portraying a major step in our as-yet unwon struggle for equal rights. In particular, I think about Obama's much-criticized choice of evangelical homophobe Rick Warren to perform the invocation at his inauguration. No, it doesn't make me happy, but this is how I see it: It's a two-minute prayer, not a cabinet position. Obama is trying to bring the two extremes of the political spectrum together, not an easy or enviable task, because right now our differences are what is tearing the country apart.

Milk operated the same way. In the film, he challenges one of the biggest anti-gay rights proponents of the time, John Briggs, to a public debate. But he does so with an extended handshake and a warm smile. Because screaming at each other is getting us nowhere. Because if you can't shake your enemy's hand and look him in the eye, how can there be any real communication?

~*~

Is this what it's like getting old? While flicking around, Tery stopped on something called "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour." I watched this young, not particularly talented chick leaping all over the stage in front of thousands of squealing teenage girls and asked, "Now which one is she?" Tery rolled her eyes. "They're the same person, goofball."