My Plate is Full
This has been a tough couple of weeks. I thought last week was bad, but this week was rough enough to make me forget last week. Thank God it’s Friday. No shit.
I really can’t relate the scope of all that has happened in the past couple of weeks. Instead I can give a breakdown of the current situation:
- My Son’s Health
- On top of my son’s (high-functioning) autism sits peanut and tree nut allergies and asthma. Well, the asthma kicked in strongly last week as what started as a simple cough turned into a full-blown series of asthmatic complications. So now my son is on albuterol and Flovent, the latter a steroid-based medication that turns my loving, peaceful son into a monkey with no impulse control. Every time he’s on the Flovent, his problem behaviors take flight. Thankfully, the school knows and has been helping him adjust, though he had his worst day yesterday.
- My Wife’s Health
- Over the past few months, as I’ve related before, my wife has had a series of episodes which features severe abdominal and chest pains. Finally, after a battery of invasive and non-invasive tests, the episodes were caused by a hiatal hernia, which caused a series of reflux events which then forced itself against a narrow part of her esophagus. The fact that we have a definite diagnosis helps, but other issues came up and the search for the diagnosis for the hernia triggered a series of other tests in other areas which prompted yet more tests. Etc. Thankfully, everything else has turned up negative so far, but all of these tests take time.
- My Mother-in-law’s Health
- My mother-in-law has breast cancer. She’s also 83 years old and is reaching a point where she wants my wife to be with for all of her appointments. Since my mother-in-law is not one to handle stress lightly, my wife has been keeping her own health issues a secret from her mother. This makes the scheduling of all the appointments a tricky business.
- My Son’s Therapies
- As I mentioned, my son is autistic, or, officially, suffers from PDD (Pervasive Developmental Delay). The fact that he has come as far as he has is a godsend and is the direct result of many, many hours of behavior therapy. These therapy sessions have taken place in our house over the past 5½ years, though now they are taking place out in the community. In addition to behavior therapy, my son also undergoes feeding therapy because he lacked the ability to chew. Like a stroke victim, my son lacked the fine motor skills needed to learn how to eat solid food. Again, after many years of trying, and after many setbacks caused by the school’s occupational therapists, he is finally getting that skill down. All these therapies, while beneficial, take time after school. The sessions themselves take up six hours per week, not including travel time.
- My Car
- I should have known better. Ever since I got my car’s emergency brake cable fixed, it’s had a hard time moving on very cold mornings. On previous occasions, whatever was causing it worked itself out by the time I got down the road. Well, on Wednesday I found out the reason. My left rear brake caliper was frozen shut. I discovered this while on my way to work after a motorist came up next to me and frantically shouted that my car was burning, whereupon I bailed in a hurry, grabbing my iPod and laptop computer bag. It turned out that my car was not on fire, but there was certainly enough smoke pouring out of the left rear wheel assembly that showed that ignition was near. Fast forward to today, I still don’t have my car back. Parts had to be ordered, the dealership wouldn’t stand by their work, yada yada yada… Being house-bound sucks, particularly since I’m still responsible for my tasks at work.
- Zoran
- I can’t get into particulars here, due to customer secrecy and all. Suffice it to say that I’m a major part of a team that supports Zoran Imaging Division’s most important customer. I’m also involved in another project for ZID’s #2 or #3 Japanese customer, depending on revenue. (Those two customers alone combine for $21million annually.) That project was the reason I went to Japan last May. Couple that with learning the Postscript language and being involved on a consultant basis on yet more internal projects and my time is certainly maxed out.
- Extracurricular Activities
- Without going into details, I have several projects of my own going on. I run and maintain this blog, a web forum (Barscape), an on-line dice rolling service (Dice Service) and a series of wargame battle resolvers (Britannia, Samurai Swords), but I’m also building a fiction site for a friend of mine, building an on-line Britannia game manager, building and maintaining two web sites in partnership with another guy (Vision Forge Films, Shining Full Clear) and building and brainstorming two game development projects with the aforementioned partner.
- Other
- Finally, when I’m not doing anything else project-related, I play chess at Chess World, plan hiking expeditions in the White Mountains and play with my son. Additionally, I’m a member of the US Chess Federation, though I’m unrated and haven’t played in a tournament all year, something I’d like to change soon.
Needless to say, I’m running at full capacity.