I've come to a conclusion

There are some people for whom life is pretty easy. Things happen as they should, life cycle events come and go, but on the whole it's a relatively simple ride.

There are other people for whom life is a boxing match that leaves you battered and bruised. I've decided that this is my (and Benjie's and Dovi's) lot in life. The pat 24 hours are an excellent illustration of my analogy.

Yesterday at 9 am Dovi had an appointment to get his upper braces on. For those of you who have been reading this lovely blog, you might recall that Dovi has major orthodontic issues which will be hopefully repaired after we pay Dr. Kerzner the entire lifetime income of residents of some Third World Countries (or 1/3 of the JTP, Amy, Gretchen, and Steph if you are reading this....)

So....we went. We tried. Dovi screamed. We got on 5 brackets in his front upper teeth. Dr. Kerzner did not even attempt the bands at this session. Dovi chose red and blue rubber bands (Cubs colors of course)

I got to work by 11 am. Told them at camp that he might be a little sensitive, etc and to brush his teeth after lunch.

I picked the kids up at 3:30 as normal...decided (not sure why this was a good idea) to use the razor blade I got from work to scrape off my city sticker while parked on the side of camp and the kids ate snacks in the car at 3:35. Not sure why it had to be done then, but it did. Well, in the midst of my scraping, my cell phone fell out of the car and into a puddle.

Shoddily made Razr+Water Puddle=dead phone.

Went home. Everyone went inside. I looked at Dovi's mouth closely. I noticed that 3 of his brackets were no longer adhered to his teeth! They were attached to the wire by the rubber bands, but that was it! Oh and the wire was stuck in his little lip :(

Called Dr. Kerzner. "How quickly can you get here?" It was 4:25. We were on the way by 4:28. Oh I forgot to tell you all that Dovi had to be at Children's Hospital at 6:30 for his overnight sleep study on BiPap to get all the settings correct.

Now don't forget, my cell phone was dead, I had no idea how long this would take, I had all the children, and I had to be at Children's in 2 hours (for you Chicagoans, Dr. Kerzner is in Old Orchard and Children's is in Lincoln Park). I called Benjie and told him to call his mom, ask her if when she finished work she would go to our house and call Benjie and he would tell her what to pack up for the sleep study b/c I had no idea how long we would be.

So off we went. Got to Dr. Kerzner at 5:00, and they got us out by 5:20-they simply removed the wire and unadhered brackets and left on the 2 that were still attached.

Got home by 5:40, dropped the kids with my mil (she was waiting for the babysitter to arrive), and ran by Great Chicago to pick up dinner for me, Benjie, and Dovi.

Got to Children's and they informed us that his room was not going to be ready until 7:30. We went down to the cafeteria and ate our dinner, and got up to the room at 7:45. I left at 8:15, got home by 8:40, cleaned up the disasterous house (it still has not recovered from our weekend away-I have not had an evening to regroup!), and cooked for Shabbos.

Benjie called me at 11 and told me that NO, we were not going to be released at 5 am as the sleep people told us, we'd be released 9ish after the PICU docs rounded. This was completely contrary to what the sleep people said, but what choice did we have? Oh and as opposed to what sleep told us, YES we were taking home a BiPap machine. So basically they reversed all that sleep medicine told us.

At 7 am I called my mil and begged her to come back YET AGAIN to my house so I could run to the hospital so Benjie could come home, shower, and go to work. She got to me by 7:45. and off I went, assuming we'd be released by 9, 9:30, MAYBE 10 the latest.

When I got there, the nurse told me that no, we were not leaving after they rounded. The attending PICU doc wanted to SPEAK to Dr. Sheldon once he got the sleep study results and then we would leave-minimally not before noon. I told the nurse that I was very upset-I had gotten COMPLETELY different info from sleep medicine the day before. By this point it was 10:30. They called sleep medicine-and Genevive (the BiPap coordinator) was shocked to hear that we were still there! As were we...

A few strings were pulled, a few phone calls were made, and we were out at 11-only 6 hours after they originally told us.

I informed both the PICU and the sleep medicine people that they had better get their acts together-this was RIDICULOUS!

Got Dovi to camp by 11:30, and me to work by noon-I'd like you all to know that my office is 7 minutes from Children's-but I had to first drive 1/2 an hour north to take Dovi to camp and then 1/2 an hour back south to work.

Oh and my phone, which seemed to have come back to life briefly last night, is dead again.

And I'm supposed to be getting a call from Home Health to coordinate the BiPap delivery. today. oops.