Back to school

Well, classes began Monday. Sorry there were no posts the last couple weeks; I was enjoying the end of my summer. I'm looking for a regular day to blog during the school year; it might end up being Wednesday afternoons. Might not. Stay tuned.

So, I received this request several weeks ago from Sams:
"Here's a request! The Prince has another set of ear infections, and trying to get him to take his antibiotics is challenging, to say the least. Any tips, or will you promise to work on a better way to get babies to take medicine when you're a famous pharmacist?"

I asked one of the pharmacists at Kaiser, and basically, the answer is no. I'm assuming you're referring to ear drops (not oral antibiotics), and it's never going to be easy. It should be easier than eye drops, because at the very least you can hold his head still while you drop the medicine in his ear. Eye drops are an absolute nightmare, even for adults, and can be almost impossible with an infant. On the other hand, if it's an oral medication, it shouldn't be extremely difficult. The key is to be quick and direct. Get the syringe into his mouth and put it up against the inside of his cheek. Then empty into his mouth, and he should naturally swallow it. He won't like it, and you might have to keep surprising him with it to prevent him from closing his mouth at the sight of the medicine, but it should help. Also, depending on the medication, it can actually be mixed in milk or formula. Diluted like that, he won't really taste the medicine, and it won't look any different from his normal bottle. You can't always do this, so ask your pharmacist about the specific medication before you do this. And that brings me to another good point: a disclaimer.

I'm not a pharmacist (yet). Even if I were, this blog is not designed or intended to give medical advice of any kind. Without knowing the specifics of your situation, I can't recommend a product or course of medication to you, and nothing I write here should be considered as such. I'm simply relating things I've heard, seen, or read about, not trying to be some kind of Internet pharmacist. You should always check with a real pharmacist if you have a question, and never change your medications or the way you take them without consulting your doctor or pharmacist.

My wife is six months (or so) pregnant. I can feel the baby kicking now, which is great. Sadly, she's not been in the best of health lately. Her doctor really thought she had gall bladder disease, since she had every symptom thereof, but after an ultrasound of her gall bladder, that seems not to be the case. So it's a medical mystery. And then her blood glucose came back high, but that turned out not to be gestational diabetes. I hope they can figure out what's going on (and hopefully it's just "normal" pregnancy symptoms), and I'm really grateful that she gets to keep her gall bladder.


The best news of all is that it looks like I'm going to be able to manage this course load well enough to get ahead a little bit before the baby comes. I don't think I'm going to get to many classes in the first two weeks of December. Also, if you're in Denver and want to help out with a 2-year-old and various around-the-house chores while Jaime recovers from a C-section, we would never say no.


That should do it for today. I'm sure to have plenty on my mind as the semester gets going. The second year looks like it's going to be extremely challenging but also extremely interesting. Thanks for stopping by.

Vacation report

After this week, I have two weeks before the school year starts. Ugh.

I had a great time in Wisconsin. I'm so glad my grandmother finally got to meet my son, whom she has been spoiling rotten since he was born. They took to each other immediately. He also spent quite a bit of time with my cousins Thomas (age 9) and Michael (7). They, like everyone else, adored him. It was great to spend almost an entire week a) with my extended family and b) with no responsibilities. Having my cousins around took all of the pressure off my wife and I to play with Xander. He was thoroughly entertained the entire time, to the point that bedtime became something of an ordeal because he just wanted to go play with his new Thomas the Tank Engine trains or with his super cool cousins. By the end of the week, he was asking for Michael and Thomas by name and spontaneously telling my grandma, "Lovoo, gramma." Waaaay cute.

My cousin Ashley got married on Friday with a backyard reception on Saturday. It wasn't really what I expected. They got married at the courthouse and had the reception at her husband's Aunt's house (I think - I'm still not entirely clear on whose house that was). It was obviously not a big budget wedding, which is fine. It made me really appreciate coming for the entire week. We looked at just going for the two key days, since that would mean less time off of work, but that would have been a disappointment. It wasn't a big enough event. I don't mean that to take anything away from their wedding or their marriage, it just wasn't a big enough deal to mandate flying a thousand miles for. Being able to spend time with all my Midwestern relatives made it worthwhile. And I don't regret going to the wedding, either. I'm glad I was able to be there for that.

Whatever was under my L key that was making it touchy in my last post is under the / now. It sucks for writing questions.

Yesterday, Alex Rodriguez hit his 600th career home run on the three-year anniversary of his 500th home run. If he keeps up that pace (he won't), he'll be 40 years old when he becomes the all-time leader and 41 when he hits number 800, in 2016. Maybe I'll start caring then. Even though he's only the seventh player in major league history to do this (hit 600 homers), I'm entirely unimpressed. It just always seemed inevitable. I also think that his admitting to using steroids took some of the thrill out of it. I mean, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa almost certainly juiced, too, but it seemed different a few years ago. And it wasn't blatantly obvious at the time Bonds hit 600, either. We sort of figured that out later. The part that does impress me is that A-Rod is the youngest player to reach 600 home runs. It's not ridiculous to think he could clear 800, or maybe even 850, before he retires, especially when he inevitably moves to a DH role. My big hope is that Albert Pujols can continue his torrid pace and make a run for A-Rod's eventual record, whatever that ends up being. It certainly appears that Pujols never used any performance enhancing drugs. It's not as easy to say that as it once was, since the saving grace for Barry Bonds breaking the record was that A-Rod would eventually catch up to him and the idea was that we would only have a steroid player on top of the pile for a few years. It no longer seems safe to assume that anyone was or wasn't juicing back in the late 90s and early 2000s. Still, I'm pulling for Pujols. And I hate the Cardinals. He's just fun to watch.

That's the other piece that makes A-Rod's accomplishment sort of nonplussing. I don't think anybody really likes Alex Rodriguez. I mean, Barry Bonds was hated by a lot of people, but Giants fans still rooted for him, and a lot of people liked him before his head got huge and he started just belting long balls. Sammy Sosa was beloved by Cubs fans and many others. Ken Griffey, Jr., is a baseball icon about whom nobody has a bad word to say. And of course Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, and Hank Aaron are baseball icons, so all of the other members of the 600 club are these really interesting, iconic guys and A-Rod is just sort of unlikeable. You either hate the Yankees or you love the Yankees (I happen to fall into the former category), but I get the sense that even Yankee fans don't really like A-Rod.

I did get some requests since my last posts. I'll start dealing with those the next time I write, but I wanted to take care of my news while I actually had some. Thanks for stopping by.