Sunday, June 27, 2010

My parents have redeemed themselves.

My parents came home from their party very late last night to find me asleep on the landing halfway up the stairs. They woke me up and asked me why I was there. I explained that I was too tired to scoot any further up the stairs so I just went to sleep there. At one point while my mom was helping me into bed, she asked me what I had for dinner. I told her I ate brown sugar. At first she went on a rant and screamed at me.

She went downstairs after screaming for awhile. She must have reevaaluated the situation or looked at the contents of the fridge and pantry that are within my reach. she had my father (the sober one because he was the designated driver after the party) go to an all-night grocery store and pick up food that I like and food that can be within my reach that doesn't need to be cooked. My dad made me eat a banana and instant instant oatmeal and drink chocolate milk before I went to sleep. I had to brush my teeth all over, which is an ordeal because I have to get out of bed and back into my wheelchair, then put the toothpaste on the toothbrush single-handedly, which isn't as easy a it sounds (try it) and then get back to bed all over, but it was worth it not to be hungry.

We had pancakes this morning. I ate two all by myself without feeding any to the dog. We went to mass. We went to one where another priest who didn't excommunicate us was celebrating the mass so we could have communion. I don't know if that's cheating or not, but I don't really care. I never threw a dart at the pond-scum-prom-date-breaker's picture on the dart board, and it was all over the stupid dart board someone else made anyway. It was the first time I'd been to mass aince the accident. My parents have gone, but I haven't. It was sort of embarrassing to be pushed in a wheelchair, especially during communion. The people who don't know us probably felt sorry for me and thought 'Oh, that poor little crippled girl!" I don't like to be noticed in the wheelchair at all.

After church, we went to a store and my parents bought crutches and pink spray paint. I still have about 12 days until I can use them, but they will be ready. My parents can be very nice people.

My mom triple-wrapped my leg and let me float on a raft in the pool with a life preserver on just in case I fell off and no one was watching closely enough. It was hot today, and I didn't get very wet on the raft, but I got wet enough to cool off a little. My cast stayed dry.

One of my friends came home from vacation. She smuggled in the other knitting needle from the pair she had bought. My parents took the first one away. I'll be very furtive and they'll never know about this one. I can't keep it under my mattress, because my parents have grown brains and decided that someone with just one working hand can't put sheets on a bed all by herself with no help at all, but I have a better hiding place. I won't say anymore.

This was a nice day. My friend can drive, but she can't legally transport underage passengers yet, so she's going to bring me fast foood for lunch tomorrow. It may not be the most nutritious food in the world, but it's probably no worse than brown sugar and I don't eat that much of it, anyway.

A boy that was in my anatomy class and on the track team with me visited. We took a walk to a park not too far away. It's not quite as embarrassing being pushed in a wheelchair by a boy as it is when your parents are pushing you.

I hope everyone has a nice day tomorrow.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

I take back what I said before

I want to go back into the hospital. At least they have juice, cereal, and milk there. If my parents don't shop soon, I'm going to be sick from hunger and end up there anyway. My parents go out to lunch and go to parties almost every night for dinner. They get to eat decent food. I just get to make peanut butter sandwiches with no jelly or eat uncooked ramen noodles because I can't use the stove or microwave. Life isn't supposed to be fair, but is it supposed to be this unfair? Is there a camp for the temporarily handicapped?

Friday, June 25, 2010

life sucks

I can't go anywhere. I've watched everything on TV that is worth watching. Even the Judge Alex reruns suck. I can only type with one hand for so long, and even reading is a chore with just one hand that is also attached to a sore shoulder. My parents are rationing the Vicodin as though we're in the Donner Party and Vicodin is the only food our family has to eat, so everything hurts all the time. Anti-inflamatories maake me really sick, so I can't take Motrin or anything like it. My parentss won't let us have aspirin even though most doctors say it's OK by 16. Tylenol does little to help, and if I've had much, my parents won't give me Vicodin when it's time because there is acetaminophen in Vicoden, and they're worried I'll destroy my liver. I'm not sure how much it would matter at this point, anyway.

Speaking of food, there is nothing in the house that I like to eat, and neither of my parents will go shopping. There isn't even any milk or juice in the refrigerator. They just tell me to use my one semi-good hand to make a peanut butter sandwich. We don't even have jelly. My brother is at a baseball camp, so food is no longer important. If he were here, the fridge and cupboards would be full of cereal, ice cream, cheese, and all sorts of good things. He's not here, so my parents aren't shopping. Then they have the nerve to complain when I lose weight.

My friends are off having fun. I'm stuck in the wheelchair for at least two more weeks. It's too hot, and my leg itches inside my cast. My parents took away the knitting needle my friend gave me for scratching on the very rare chance (like it's probably never happened in history with a dull knitting needle; a coat hanger or something sharper, maybe, but not a dull knitting needle) that it could cause a break in the skin and an infection.
What doesn't hurt itches. I'm receiving regular antibiotic injections, which makes even sitting painful. I hate my life.

I know that there are others in the world who have it worse than I. Soldiers are in foxholes in Afghanistan. People are dying of cancer. Little girls have close relatives who molest them. I could be stuck again with my unnamed aunt and uncle, although CPS would probably go after my parents if they put me there again. Children in many parts of the world are hungry to the point of starvation.

Still, I'm so out of it that I barely care. I'd almost rather be in a foxhole in Afghanistan with the use of all my extremities than where I am and in the condition I am right now. I wish something good could happen.

Dad, if you read this and complain to me that I'm starting to sound like an old lady again, you will see a hissy fit that makes the tantrums I threw as a two-year-old seem like cocktail hour at Bar Americain.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

out of the #%&!! hospital, hopefully for the rest of my life

Seriously, I don't ever want to go back. I suppose I might go to visit one of my parents or close friends if one of them were extremely ill, but that's the extent of my intended presence inside any hospital. I've even decided not to have any children because home births don't seem terribly safe (although some would dispute that) and I'm not entering any hospital or hoapital-like setting to give birth. I don't have anything against children; I'm just not going to produce any myself. If I'm really motivated in the future, I'll find some child to adopt, although it's debatable that I would ever be a suitable parent for a guinea pig, much less a child.

Speaking of suitaable parents . . . one night in the hospital, my parents and I became engaged in a heated debate. They both insisted that they had raised my brother and me in a non-sexist manner and had treated us equally as much as was practical. I have no problem with their having clothed me in dresses and put ribbons in my hair on occasion. The thing with the Jolie-Pitt family dressing Shiloh like a little boy and calling her John sseems a bit far out there to me. I'm just as happy my parents didn't carry their gender neutrality quite so far. It's the more recent parenting practices that cause me to question the veracity of their claims.

Some of you may have read from way back that my brother was asked to the prom by a bimbo whose sole intention for having selected him as a prom date was to become impregnated by him. She thought the baby would get her looks and his brains, and that he wasn't so hideous-looking that his DNA would ruin the potential love child's looks. i was supposed to have served as my brother's chaperone to and from the prom, and at the restaurant. Mom's co-worker spies were sworn to keep the frisky adolescents inside the building. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon how one views the situation, my hurdling accident and broken prom date by a bum who didn't want to be seen at a prom with a wheelchair-bound cripple (I would have told him I didn't want to go anyway if he'd just asked) effectively prevented me from chaperoning my twin brother who is less than two minutes younger than I. (For the record, my brother's trying to be secretive about just what happened at the prom, but those who would know say that Bimbo could only have conceived that night by immaculate conception.)

My question to my parents was this: if a boy announced his intention to impregnate me on prom night (this is purely hypothetical; I don't want to share too much information, but it's not likely that I'll be capable of conceiving even by the time next spring's prom rolls around --plus, I'm not EVER getting pregnant because I'm not going back into a hospital as a patient) would I be allowed out the door with the boy with my brother chaperoning, with my mother's friends watching like eagles, or, for that matter, with the very same Secret Service agents who protect President Obama protecting me instead that night?

Of course, my parents were forced to admit that they'd do anything, including taking out a restraining order, to keep the boy in question at least the length of three football fields away from me. So much for gender-neutral parenting.

I did get to swim on Sunday. It was lots of fun except for the time my brother was supposed to be lifeguarding me while my father went inside briefly to take care ofpersonal business. My brother has passed Red Cross Junior and Senior Life-saving, and has passed the Water Safety Instruction course. On paper, he's qualified to watch a girl in a cast with a bound arm while she hangs onto a floatie with her semi-good arm for three minutes or so while her father visits the bathroom. Theory and practice are two different things, however, especially when females my brother considers attractive are present to distract him. I lost my grip on my floatie. With the extra weight of the cast, my ne good leg and arm weren't enough to propel me to the surface. Fortunately, another boy less lame than my brother noticed and pulled me out before it got to the point that anyone had to perform CPR. (If it had been needed, I'm lucky my dad's a doctor, because my brother would have found a way to screw that up as well.) Can you believe what a sub-moron my brother is. My parents were mad at him, but not as mad as they should have been, in my humble opinion.

Despite the triple wrapping, the cast did get wet, but it was cut off about sixteen hours later, so it didn't matter all that much. The new cast is even bulkier. It's supposed to be on for about seven weeks. My hips hurt about as much as my leg right now. The surgeon says in aother day or so, the leg will settle into the cast and won't give me too much pain, but that my hips will still hurt. They give me drugs if I complain enough. I've learned to exaggerate my complaints. I don't want to become an opium addict, but I also don't want to be in so much pain that it's making me hurl. My parents hand out Vicodin the way Ebenezer Scrooge shared his wealth before his visits from the ghosts, so it's unlikely that I'll ever become a full-fledged addict on their watch.

I haven't seen a single episode of Judge Alex since last week. Is he still in rerun mode?

Sunday, June 20, 2010

D-Day, or Dx Day

I don't really mean to equate my own personal milestone with the day in which our troops stormed the beaches at Normandy, knowing that in order for their mission to be successful, odds were in favor that some of their lives would be lost. To do such would be trivializing the sacrifices made by many of the greatest generation. Additionally, it would make me 100% guily of self-aggrandization.

Still, this is a signifcant day in my life, or at least I hope it will be. In a few hours, my father will drive me to a hospital lab, where the technicians will procure samples of body fluids and will determine whether or not my kidney infection has been cured and that no other nefarious bacterial or viral infection has popped up to take its place. If the results are as anticipated, I will have auto-bone-grafting surgery. Pieces will be taken from both hips to put into my leg in order to help the fractures there mend themselves. That's for tomorrow, however. What I'm looking forward to is today.

Test results should be in by noon-ish. If everything looks good, at that time, I'll put on my swimsuit. I'll take off my ace bandage that immobilzes my arm because of the broken clavicle. Then, once my suit is on, my dad will re-wrap the ace bandages to immoblize my arm. I'll put my leg inside one plastic garbage bag, then tuck the top inside the cast. I'll put my leg into another garbage bag, and attach a rubber band around it. I'll put a third plastic bag over the first two, and attach a rubber band even higher than the first two.

Then I'll go into the pool. With the extra weight of the cast and the overall lack of mobility of at least two extremities, I won't be a very effective swimmer. I'l mostly float around clinging to a flotation device, with my dad swimming nearby because he thinks I require a personal lifeguard, and it's conceivable that I will. Still, I've been waiting for this since April, and I intend to have fun if it kills me. Several friends are coming by for my pool party, and we'll order pizza at some point.

Despite my best efforts, the cast will probably still get wet. This is why I'm not allowed to do this unless surgery has been OKed for tomorrow. Since the cast has to be cut off anyway, what's a little water? My dad said I'll be surprised to learn how moldy and smelly it will be just one day after getting wet, but I dont care. I GET TO GO SWIMMING!

I am so pathetic that all it takes is floating around in a giant tub of water to cause me to be excited practically out of my skin, which my brother kindly pointed out yesterday, but I don't care. I GET TO SWIM TODAY! YIPPEE!!!!!!!

Happy Father's Day to any fathers who may read this, including my own father, my Uncle Steve, my Godfather Uncle Ralph, Judge Alex, and even dear sweet Uncle Mahonri. Have a blessed day, everyone.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

To go away or not to go away to college? That is the question.

The idea of life being boring is sometimes a good thing. There are certainly worse things in life than the mundane. My mom is doing better, though not yet 100%. We eagerly anticipate her full recovery. My brother is his usual obnoxious self; he occasionaly resorts to behaving in an almost human manner just to catch me off-guard, but for the most part, his mission in life is to make my life less pleasant. I have accepted this and am thus no longer terribly bothered by it. My dad is putting in extra hours to make up for recent time he had to miss work due to my mom's illness and my injuries and illness. It's good that he likes his work. I would have to feel sorry for him otherwise. Judge Alex has been in rerun mode, but the Hooters episode was one I'd watch ten times; it was THAT funny.

My kidneys are near where they need to be. I have a tentative surgery date of June 21. Pieces of bone will be removed from each hip and grafted into strategic points in my leg. I'm annoyed by the idea of having additional body parts in pain. It seems like a compound fracture of two bones in my leg, a collarbone fractured, a dislocated shoulder (the left one, not the same side as the broken clavicle), infections in both kidneys, and the dreaded (as much as I hate to mention it, I might as well if I'm trying to make anyone feel sorry for me) staphylococcal diaper rash; now I will have to feel as though both of my hips have been fractured. To say I am looking forward to any of this would be a big fat lie, but I am looking forward to having it all finished. The idea that it's probably on June 21 bothers me. I could visit the doctor beforehand, for instance this Monday, have levels of everything checked, and find out that everything is so great that the surgery will be done the next day. Or things couldn't be ready yet by June 21.

This all reminds me of an international case I read about that happened many years ago. A teenager, maybe 17 or 18, named Michael Fay, had been convicted of vandalism in Singapore, where the traditional penalty for such action is caning. It became an international incident. Although, I think as a sort of peace offering, the Singapore government reduced the number of times they hit Mr. Fay with the cane, he still was caned. The thing about his situation that reminds me of mine is that he never knew when he was to be caned. He just knew that one day his jailers would wake him up and it would happen. I feel that my surgery is the same in that I'm not sure when I'm going to be medically tortured (for my own benefit-- I'm not blaming the doctors); I just know it will probably happen sometime in the next two weeks. Not knowing when is stressful.

Just in case my dad violates the agreement not to read my blog because others are monitoring it for safety and appropriate content, and there is thus no need for him to read it, I must discuss something besides my health. If you are a regular reader, such as my English teacher and a few relatives, and my blogging/Twitter buddies Joslyn and Rebecca, you might remember that my dad complained that the only topic old people willingly discuss is their state of health, and that my blog was precariously close to that level. If you're reading at this point, Daddy, keep reading. I'm digressing from my usual hospital stories and medical travelogues.

I mentioned in my profile, I believe, that I have sufficient units to
have graduated after fall semester of last year. I knew that the chances of my parents allowing such a thing were about as likely as the odds that one of the Kardashians would be elected to a high-level government office in the near future. Still, just in the interest of experimentation, I filled out several applications and sent them in with the required fees at my own expense. Before my arms were temporarily rendered useless by my accident, I earned, between school and church piano/organ jobs, almost two thousand dollars a month after taxes. My parents required me to tithe and to bank 90% of what was left over. The remaining amount was considered my "allowance." I have no problem with their requirements of what I needed to do with my money; just the term "allowance" annoyed me, as it was money I earned myself. They could have just called it my "uninvested salary" and left it at that.

My parents have said that they will only pay for public colleges and universities, so I didn't waste a lot of money applying to private colleges. I did apply to Stanford with the idea that maybe enough scholarship money would appear to make enrollment there feasible, as unlikely as that sounds. Also, my mom's undergrad degree was from Stanford; she might soften up a bit if it came right down to the wire. For the most part, I applied to numerous University of California campuses. At about sixty dollars a pop, I'm roughly four hundred dollars poorer for the experience. Anyway, lost in all the drama of the accident was that acceptance/rejection letter time came. My mail piled up until I was eventually conscious and alert enough to care to open it. I was accepted for next year at U.C. Berkeley, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, and ././././././././ (drumroll)././././././ Stanford!

All of this is moot. My parents are not going to let me graduate early. I will be incredibly lucky if they let me go anywhere other than to a university near us even after I've done my four years of high school, because I'll only be seventeen-and-one-half at the time. They're afraid I lack the common sense to be safe in the big bad world without their supervision. I told them that college dorms supervise minors more closely than regular enrollees. (That is something I made up on the spur of the moment. It stands to reason that it might be true, but I don't know
for anything resembling a fact that it is the case. Still, since I didn't know it to be false when I said it, it was not a lie.)

If I knew that I would be able to hurdle and dive next year, it would be my choice to stick around anyway. My doctors can't guarantee anything. One orthopedist told me that chances are my diving won't be severely impaired regardless by spring. I should have enough leg strength to project off a springboard. Gymnasts (which I used to be) are natural divers mostly because of ability to manipulate upper bodies. My leg should at least be straight by then, and able to bear enough weight to spring off the board.
The running/hurdling thing is a bit more questionable. Even if I can physically run and make it over the hurdles, I may not be very fast. We'll just have to wait and see.

In any event, it seems I threw away hundreds of dollars for nothing. Actually, it only seems that way. There were methods and strategies behind my seemingly wasteful spending. I intend to use it all as leverage in about ten months when the time to choose a university for real rolls around. (Additionally, if I can convince any of these universities to defer my enrollment for a year, I may be able to convince my parents to reimburse some or all of my application fees.)

The university near me is a good school, but who wants to attend a university that is practically within bicycling distance of his or her own home? (I should be careful in saying that. It might give my parents the idea to buy me a bicycle[or make me buy my own with my "allowance"] to use as transportation when they finally force me to enroll there.) I would agree to enroll there this year, although it's too late, as I deliberately didn't apply there. Next year, I want the "real" college/university experience. I don't plan to make a roaring drunken fool of myself. I've tasted my dad's and my uncle's drinks, and I'll never taste them again. They taste like cough syrup, which I have to be bribed to take no matter how bad my cough is. I just want the opportunity to watch others in their varying states of drunkenness while I'm in the process of acquiring a high-level education. Is this so much to ask?

Is is really my fault that my parents' poor planning resulted in babies that were born on December 2, which is the kindergarten cut-off date in California? If they wanted me to be eighteen when I went off to college, they should have conceived in June so that I could have been born sometime around February. They also could have held my brother and me out of kindergarten until we were five. They made the decision not to do this. I feel that they need to take responsibility for decisions they have made in the past. They made their bed (or, more literally, had a bit of recreational activity in it). Now they need to man up and sleep in the bed they've made for themselves.

In reiteration, I'm not seriously asking to be allowed to go away to college as a sixteen-year-old, having graduated early. I am requesting, however, that after I've completed my four years of high school successfully, I should be allowed to enroll at a reasonable university of my own choosing. Am I asking too much? Please post your comments.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Interruption of Post about my Parents

My parents recently experienced what they should probably consider one of their less proud moments of parenthood. Maybe they don't feel that way at all. Perhaps they think it wasn't their fault in the least. They weren't the people who left me alone in a a house with some edible-only-to-goats creation baking in a 400-degree oven and without the ability to safely exit the house. It was, however, their decision to leave me with the people who did just that.

My mom is still sick with kidney-related problems. She is home now and can somewhat take care of herself, but she can't take care of me. My aunt needed to work. She is a nurse practitioner; she doesn't work regularly, but she fills in for weeks when other nurse practitioners or office managers take vacation time in her husband's practice.

My dad has to work. He has stayed home with me a little, but he says he can't do it anymore.

I have an aunt and uncle who live in the sticks. I'm not allowed to divulge the location. The uncle in this family is an MD, but either because they have so many children or for some other reason, they sometimes have difficulty making ends meet financially. My uncle Steve was scheduled to attend some sort of medical seminar in the Lake Tahoe area. This would only be about an hour's drive from the nameless aunt and uncle's house. The plan was for my Uncle Steve to drive me to the unnamed aunt's and uncle's house when he drove to the seminar near Lake Tahoe. My father offered to pay them two hundred dollars per day to care for me. The reasons he was offerring to pay so much were: a) the people are in dire straits financially; b) I need help getting to the bathroom and have to either be carried up and downstairs or have food brought to me upstairs; c) I still needed nightly antibiotic injections, and medical care is something for which a provider should be compensated.

I begged my parents not to take me there. I offered to pay for a private nurse from my own savings. I offered to call each of my friends' moms and offer them whatever amount of money my parents would authorize. My parents overruled me and made me go to stay with the aunt and uncle.

My aunt and uncle waited until my Uncle Steve left to take me to my "bedroom." It was a cot with a sleeping bag in an unfinished attic. There was no bathroom. I asked if it was going to be inconvenient for them to help me get to the bathroom. My aunt brought up a stack of Pampers (her almost-four-year-old still wears them, and the kid's so chubby that his Pampers fit me; if anything, they're a bit on baggy on me) and a package of baby wipes, along with a reclosable plastic garbage bag. She told me that, one-armed and legged [temporarily; I'm not an amputee] or not, I would be expected to manage my toileting needs independently.

As I may have told you, I do not own a real cell phone because I once ran up a huge text-messaging bill. My Aunt Heather was concerned, however, so she sent me with a cell phone. I would have used this cell phone to call for help, because surely my parents wouldn't have left me in such conditions. My plans for using the phone were thwarted when my unnamed aunt found it. She gave it to her fifteen-year-old daughter to use.

As far as the injections I was supposed to receive from my unnamed uncle (my Uncle Steve had prepared the syringes in advance), it never happened. At first, I was pleased with that. I hate shots. Eventually, though. I noticed the infection returning in greater force than ever. If I changed a Pamper as soon as it was wet, I would run out of Pampers too soon, and my aunt was only letting me have six a day. If I didn't change it promptly, the stinging was horrendous.

Once a day, my aunt would bring up three sack meals. One would usually be an English muffin with nothing to put on it. Another sack would contain half a peanut butter sandwich on dried-out bread. (Day-old bread was probably all the family could afford.) The third sack would contain a self-opening can of Spaghettios or Raviolios, which I cannot stomach even heated up, much less cold. My aunt also delivered a two-liter recycled soda bottle half filled with water.

As picky an eater as I am, I knew I had to eat something, as disgusting as the offerings were. I settled on the dry English muffin and a few bites of the even drier peanut butter sandwich each day. After a few days, I could feel my temperature beginning to go up despite the relative coldness of the attic. I told my unnamed aunt this on what I think was Wednesday morning. (I had arrived early Monday morning.) my aunt said that I would only be there for three more days and probably wouldn't die in that amount of time.

On what I think was Thursday morning, I heard alarms of some sort going off downstairs. Eventually smoke rose to the height of the attic. It was clear that if my aunt were even home, she had no intention of helping me out of the house. I dropped in my sleeping bag and scooted in it along the attic beams so that I wouldn't get splinters in my bottom. (In retrospect, it seems odd that splinters were even the least of my concerns.)

I remembered one time the first day I was there, when my aunt had come upstairs and told me she was grocery shopping and that the seven-month-old baby was asleep. I should listen for the sound of the baby crying. With my limited mobility, only God knows exactly what I was supposed to do about it if the baby had woken up and began screaming. Keeping that in mind, it concerned me that my aunt might have left the baby in his crib. I didn't want it on my conscience that a seven-month-old infant had burned to death, so I used my semi-good arm to scoot on my bottom down the hall to the children's room, where, fortunately, there was no baby in the crib. I have no idea how I would have gotten him down the stairs without hurting him.

So I scooted back down the smoky hall, went down the stairs one at a time on my bottom, and eventually pulled myself high enough to release the deadbolt and get outside. I scooted myself the best I could along the sidewalk to the curb. Smoke was pouring out the open front door.

This is the part that is a bit gross. Don't read (as though anyone actually reads anymore)if you're squeamish. The quality of the food I was being given, and the conditions in which it was being stored, probably were not of health department-certified quality. I ended up with a case of Montezuma's revenge despite having never been south of the U. S. border. I hadn't been able to bring extra Pampers, and even if I had, I probably wouldn't have felt comfortable changing myself on the curb, even though everyone in the entire subdivision seemed to be working or at least somewhere other than at home. After what felt like hours but was probably more like forty-five minutes, a lady from down the street drove by. She saw the smoke and the unattended and obviously sick child (I look much younger than 15). She called 911, and the rest is practically history. (I still haven't quite gotten rid of the diaper rash, and my aunt and uncle haven't yet regained custody of their children from child protective services.)

As it ended up, my aunt had received a call from her seven-year-old's school that the child was sick. She took the baby and the almost-four-year-old with her to pick up the sick child and to take him to her husband's medical office. In her haste, she had forgotten that she'd left a gosh-awful concoction baking at a fairly high temperature in the oven. There was never an actual fire.

I was admitted to a hospital somewhere not too far from Reno, about fifty minutes away, and was considered in the custody of child protective services until my Uncle Steve, who carries papers authorizing him to take custody of me if my parents are not available, arrived. My kidneys were barely functioning. I was air-lifted to a hospital where my Uncle Steve and my father have privileges. My aunt Heather, who is of a less genteel background than anyone else on either side of my family, offered to drive to the sticks and kick the unnamed aunt's a$$. My dad said he was tempted to accept her offer, but he'd prefer to let the legal system take care of her. He also demanded the money back that he'd foolishly paid in advance for my care. He said it's not really the money, but that you don't take two hundred dollars a day to care for a child and then practically let her die.

I was in the Nevada hospital for one day and in the hospital near my home for five days. I will need one more surgery on my leg, but my kidney infection has to get better first.

All this went down in a tight little Mormon town in the sticks. the Church can't prevent charges from being filed, but they can and will illegally hold files so that nothing ever makes the news . . . not that I'd want it reported in the news that I have diaper rash.