Hey, Y'all!

The state of Mom

Those of you who are my friend on Facebook or in real life will already know that it's been a rough couple of weeks where my mom in concerned.  I thought I'd take a moment to fill you in on the details, since status updates can be a bit hazy and my mind has been reeling a bit this week.  I hope no one else ever has to go through what my family went through last Saturday.

On Tuesday, April 20, Mom woke up with chest pains. They were deep and they scared her.  My dad took her to the ER where they admitted her to the hospital in Oxford (where she lives).  If you don't already know this, my mom had a kidney transplant 17 days before Dean was born (December 19, 2007 to be exact).  Any time there are medical issues, we watch her kidney to make sure it stays healthy.  When she got to the hospital, they ran an EKG and echocardiogram, both of which were normal, but they wanted to do a heart cath to check for blockages.  The doctor said he was almost sure she had a full blockage and would at least require stents.  Her heart cath had to be delayed until her creatnine was 1.4 and they couldn't do the test until it was 1.0.  So they waited. She had a couple more episodes of chest pain, for which they gave her aspirin and nitroglycerine. 

On Saturday morning of last week, she got up to go to the restroom and took a bad fall due to dizziness.  She hit her shins on the bottom of her IV pole. By the time my dad got to the hospital several hours later (no one called to tell him she had fallen), she had developed compartment syndrome.  Her shins swelled to three times their normal size and she developed severe blisters. It looked as though she had third-degree burns and extremely bad bruises.  The doctors began talking about doing surgery because if they didn't , they might have to amputate her legs. They also said she needed a blood transfusion due to the amount of bruising and that a transfusion would pretty definitely kill her donor kidney.  At that point, my father decided she should be airlifted to UAB Hospital in Birmingham where her transplant had taken place so the doctors there could care of her if/when she rejected the kidney.  Due to weather, her flight was delayed 7 hours. She didn't leave Oxford until 11:30pm.

In the meantime, she was in horrible pain and asked to see her pastor and Bradley, her kidney donor, and his family.  She said goodbye to my grandmother when she left the room.  She talked with her pastor about her funeral.  I called and she said goodbye to me and gave me explicit instructions on what I should say to Marcus and to Dean.  We truly thought we had lost her. My dad said watching the blood transfusion go into her central line was like watching someone receive a lethal injection.

I found out about this as I started my afternoon show on Saturday.  I got a call from my dad, but didn't answer it.  I texted Marcus and told him to call my dad and tell him I'd call him at intermission. He texted back with this:  "Call me before you call your dad."  I was certain she'd died. I had to shut down and just go into hyper-overdrive to push through the first act of my show.  I called the production stage manager and asked her to come in to learn to call my show so I could leave in the evening.  At intermission I called and found out they were taking her to Birmingham.  Once the show was over and I'd talked Tanya through how to call it as best I could (she hadn't seen the first act), I drove like the wind to get home and pick up Marcus. We waited until Dad called to say she'd taken off in the UAB jet, then made our way to Birmingham which is, thankfully, only 20 miles from home for us. 

We arrived in her room before the jet had landed, so the nurse had me start giving her history.  I mentioned the blood transfusion and that we wanted her here when she went into rejection. The nurse asked, "Why would she reject?  We give transplant patients blood all the time."  Um, HUH?  The doctors in Oxford ALL more or less guaranteed us she'd lose her kidney.  Needless to say, the tone of the room changed a bit after that.  Once she arrived and the doctors checked her legs, it was determined that she would not need any kind of surgery.  They began managing her pain and dressing her wounds and by the time my dad and grandmother arrived 2 1/2 hours later (it's normally a 4 hour trip, by the way), we were out of the woods.  Amazing what can happen when doctors know how to handle a patient, eh?

It had been determined through a series of tests this week that her chest pains are due to severe reflux and a heart cath and stents are not needed.  Her kidney is working like a champ and her creatnine is down to 1.0--perfectly normal.  The swelling in her legs has decreased monumentally, but the wounds and bruising are still very bad.  They hadn't given her any pain meds yesterday before they started changing her dressings and she was in more pain than I've ever seen.  We had to make them stop until they could get her some Demerol.  She's got a pain patch now that seems to be helping. She is able to walk to and from the bathroom with a walker and today we washed her hair and got her a caramel macchiatto.  She is in good spirits, as she always is, and we're hoping she can go home on Monday or Tuesday.

Needless to say, the hospital in Oxford is never touching her again. If there are ever any more complications or issues, she will come to Birmingham, no doubt about it.  I cannot say enough good things about the doctors here. Mostly, though, I'm so thankful that God has, once again, given our family a miracle where my mom is concerned.  As bad as the results of the fall are, I think it saved her life because it got her to this hospital. She's got a bit of a long-haul ahead of her as far as rehab is concerned, but she's a tough bird. After all, in the past 28 months, she's had a kidney transplant, sinus surgery and both hips replaced and she's done it all with grace.  We could all learn a lesson or two from her.

What I do

I arrive at the theatre approximately an hour before my cast.  I print out the day's sign-in sheet and post it on the callboard.  I check and respond to email.  I eat chocolate.  I chat with my friend Tanya about her show and she listens to me talk about mine.  I make sure my assistant and my crew are set up and ready to roll by half hour to showtime.  Once we're set, I go onto the stage, adjust a pillowcase on the bed, which is a part of my set, (this pillowcase drives me nutty--it's always a wrinkled mess) and check to be sure the most crucial prop in the show is pre-set in the drawer of our nighstand.  Once everything's set, I tell the house manager to open house, or let the audience come into the theatre.

Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening! This is your half hour call, half hour til the top of the show.  Please sign in on the callboard if you haven't already done so.  Half hour.

I make my way from the office, where I've just done the half hour call from our phone/intercom paging system, to the callboard. I make sure all of my actors have initialed next to their names to let me know they are present.  If I have general notes for the cast, I write them on the sign-in sheet so they can read them when they arrive.  If I have individual notes, I go to the dressing rooms to deliver them personally.  Sometimes I drop by the dressing rooms just to check-in and say hi.  One of my actresses is a total foodie like me, so she often has tasty treats to sample. Another gets so excited whenever I bring her herbs from my garden.  The guys always have questions about the last show--were they loud enough? Did the audience like the play?  Is there anything that needs improvement?  My ten-year-old cast member likes to show me what she's working on for school and sometimes has questions about theatre life in general.  The personal "mother hen" touch goes a long way in my job. 

I swing by the wardrobe room to say hi to the ladies and check out the quote of the day on their white board.  Sometimes I add one if they haven't already done so.  I also check their makeshift growth chart on a weekly basis to see whether or not I've grown since grad school when I marked my own height. (while wearing shoes)

I wander up to the green room where I check in with my assistant and make sure all the props are pre-set.  I tell my crew supervisor whether or not we're doing a post-show discussion between actors and audience and how many chairs we'll need for that.  I make sure our sound operator has checked the ten-year-old's microphone.  I sit for a bit and visit with the other stage managers or reminisce with the crew about zany things we did ten years ago.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your fifteen minute call.  Fifteen minutes til the top of the show.

This is when I SHOULD cut myself off from all liquids, but in reality, it's when I usually make myself another cup of coffee.  At ten minutes til showtime, I go to the bathroom. I usually go again at five minutes, just to be sure.

The actors slowly trickle into the greenroom in their costumes.  One is in a nightgown, another in a searsucker suit.  One is dressed like Edgar Allan Poe, his bushy mustache darkened with mascara.  I help the ten-year-old adjust her collar, which is always flipped up.  Hamlet is playing in the other theatre, so lots of folks in Elizabethan garb are intermingled with our present-day characters.  Sometimes someone's fake facial hair falls off and we all have a good laugh.  There are people in crowns, people in capes and people in ball gowns.  The crew wears all black.  I wear whatever I want.  It's good to be in charge sometimes.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your five minute call.  Five minutes til the top of the show.

Someone inevitably screams out "I can't pooooossibly be ready!"  I glare at them, wish everyone a good show and head up to the control booth.  The smell of the stairwell still transports me back ten years every day as I begin my climb.  I arrive in the booth, stand for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dark, lest I bump into a wall, then make my way to the calling desk.  I greet the sound and light board operators, two lovely female interns who do an excellent job and are perfect boothmates.  I peek out my big window to see how many people have come to see our play.  I put on my headset, a lightweight beauty I bought for myself as an opening night gift for my first show of this run.  I check in with everyone to be sure they can hear me and wait for the house manager to call and say everyone is seated.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your call for places. Places please for the top of the show. Thanks and have a good one!

Once the actors are in place, I warn the light and sound board operators for their top of show cues and get my stopwatch ready.  Once the announcement to turn off your cell phones and buy season tickets has concluded, we begin.

Lights 1 and Sound 10...GO.

I call every light and sound cue in the show and cue most of the actors' entrances with cue lights. (On means standby, off means go!)  At intermission, I get a quick bathroom break and refill my water bottle (who am I kidding? I get more coffee!), then head back up to call the second act.

I love what I do.  I'm good at it--better than I ever thought I'd be at anything.  I am so, so thankful to be able to do what I love.  These past 8 weeks have been a whirlwind, but I have enjoyed them so much. 

I call my last show today at 2pm.  Then it's back to the only thing I love more than this:

 

I'd say this is a win-win situation.

I don't have strep throat and other news

The pollen, it is KILLING me.  I know it affects me this way. I know to check weather.com for daily pollen reports. I know better than to even think about setting foot outside when the pollen warning is high, let alone VERY high.  Seeing how I know these things about myself, why in the WORLD did I pick yesterday, when the levels were VERY VERY HIGH, to re-do my garden???  Am so silly sometimes.

Dean has been addicted to playing in our yard lately, which is pretty awesome, especially when he brings me a "flowie."  It's less awesome when he finds random dog poop and flings it at me, but whatcha gonna do?  Yesterday, he started asking to go outside as soon as we got up.  After breakfast and a quick trip to town for new tires for Marcus's truck, we came home and got to work on the garden.  We pulled up weeds, pinched plants that needed pinching, pruned others and pulled up the out of control brussels sprout plants that grew to be 5 feet tall but never produced a single solitary sprout.  It was at this point we discovered our poor strawberry plant, which never did a thing last year, had 8 flowers on it.  We may have berries soon! 

After this little excursion, we had lunch, then Dean took a nap. I drank oodles of coffee (yes, more than usual) to combat the worst sore throat I've ever had.  I told Marcus of my woes and he told me strep was going around and that I probably had it. THANKS.  I should have just gone to bed then.

But I didn't. Mostly because there were promises of O'Charley's, Lowe's and the bookstore and I'm a sucker for yeast rolls, paint chips and best-sellers.  At Lowe's I bought new banana pepper plants to replace the ones from last year, plus some yellow squash (Dean's favorite), cucumbers (Marcus's favorite), green bell peppers and basil.  My rosemary, parsley and chives survived the winter and are already in full bloom, so my garden, she is full.

When I woke up this morning, I felt like someone had hit me in the face with a waffle iron and stuck a hot piece of charcoal down my throat.  I went to the doctor.  They did a strep test. I had to sit on my hands while they swabbed my throat because I have this bad habit of involuntarily grabbing people's hands when they put them in my face. As you can imagine, I'm a ball of of fun at the dentist office. (They usually just strap me in.) My strep test was negative, thank God, and I don't have a sinus infection.  So home I came, armed with instructions to take Sudafed PE and suffer through it to go back in a week if I'm not better.

In other news, Dean counted backwards from 10 today which FREAKED US OUT. We have this cool bedtime book called "Ten, Nine, Eight" and it counts things backwards from 10 to 1. He pointed to each number and counted backwards. Clearly, he is genius child.  He also said "W" the other day in his cute little boy elfin voice.  I make him "read" to me every day and I love watching the different things he discovers in his books.  My personal favorite is the one featuring "a bones," "a bread," "a milk," "a cheese," and "lettooce." (Lettuce) 

My show closes on Sunday. Sure, I'll miss going to the theatre every day, but MAN I'm excited to get my house back in order, cook and eat dinner with my family every evening and sleep in my own bed every night.  I actually moved back home full-time last week and it's been nice.  The commute's not bad and it gives me a chance to mentally prepare or wind-down, depending on which direction I'm going. 

And now, pictures.

 
Yeah, I'm wearing big boy Mickey underoos.  What of it?  At least I match better than my dad does! Stripes and plaid?  GAH.  Check out the cool t-shirt my Grammy got for me:

SO Dean.

My filthy child and me planting vegetables in our garden. He was really just there for the dirt, though he did end up helping put some of the squash in the ground.

  And that, friends, is what we've been up to.  Yay, spring!

Comfort Food Saturday: Kat's Hoppin' John Salad

This week's guest post comes from my dear friend Kat. We met 10 years ago at ASF--I was a grad student and production assistant and Kat worked in the wardrobe department. She was also in her last trimester of her first pregnancy at the time. I still can't believe her daughter is turning 10 in a couple of months. It seems like yesterday I was visiting them in the hospital to celebrate her birth!  Kat and I became instant friends while working on a phenomenal show called A NIGHT IN TUNISIA.  Kat's husband, Tom, was the lighting designer for the two shows I've been working on at ASF.  She brought red velvet cake balls to our tech table, thus making her my favorite person ever during tech week.

I’ve spent my entire life stuck between two cultures. I was born in Framingham, MA but the first 5 years of my life were spent on the road as my dad was in the Coast Guard. We traveled from Massachusetts to Washington State to Baltimore to Birmingham and when I was 6 we moved to Mississippi. There is something about the south that has become part of my soul. I have spent more than ¾ of my life south of the Mason Dixon line. It makes for a very conflicted soul; while I feel most comfortable in the Northeast there is something about the south that always calls me home. It’s a heartbeat, an energy, a language that is not my native language but I understand its nuances, its rhythms. I love the south and while I may one day move away for good it will always be a part of my soul.

I’m always amused by non southerners who cook southern food; they understand the spice and perhaps the history but they don’t get the love and passion that southerners put into their food. Seriously y’all, people from the south really know how to cook and they do some wonderful food. Unfortunately, most of it can be full of fat, sodium and sugar; all things that as I am getting older I am really trying to avoid. So a few years ago I found this recipe for a great rice and bean salad. Now it was tasty but still a little hard core for my tastes; I couldn’t feel 100% virtuous about eating it so I have slowly but surely been adjusting it. Now the ingredients are not traditionally southern but the flavors are right on and you can feel good enough about it to eat it on a semi regular basis. A great vegetarian dish that both vegetarians and meat eaters can enjoy.

Kat's Hoppin' John Salad

• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 can black eyed peas, rinsed
• ½ cup finely diced onion
• 1 package frozen chopped spinach, thaw and squeeze out all liquid
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• ½ tsp salt

Cook brown rice according to package directions. I have a rice cooker which gives the rice a nice chewy texture but cooking on the stove works well too. Add remaining ingredients to rice while it’s still warm and stir. This salad is just as good hot as it is cold. Serves 4.

Somebody write on this blog, already!

Since my mom seems to have lost the ability to type or somethin, I have decided to take over blogging responsibilities, at least for today.  (I'm 2, you see, and I can't make any promises about how long this will hold my attention.)  Anywho, Dean here.  Mom's been working hard lately, but she says she'll be home every night now! Her show opened, so now she just goes down to Montgomery once a day, then comes home.  This week, she got 2 days off!  I talked her into letting me skip school today (it wasn't very hard...she's a sucker) and we went to the zoo!

I liked the draffs (giraffes), the grilla (gorilla) and the mamas (llamas).  They are building a new elephant house, so the elephants were gone.  Mom said we got a big discount on admission because of all the crazy construction.  There wasn't even a sea lion show--what a gip.

My favorite parts of the zoo were the toucan, which is a bird, which lives in a nest (I learned that at school last week. Also, God made the birds. Did you know?), the choo choo train and the splash park.

Here's mom and me on the choo choo:

It was SO cool.  I kept saying "Wheeeeeeeeee!" and I really liked the tunnel. 

The funniest part of our visit was when we saw a monkey pooping, but mommy didn't take a picture of that.  I did use the opportunity to show off my favorite new phrase:  "Oh, no!"

Here I am in the splash park: (Be sure to check out the kid to my left...)

What's he doing!?!!!!???

Here's one of my face:

 

It was totally fun.  A little girl took off her bathing suit and swim diaper and played nekkid for a while before her mom caught her and wrapped her in a towel.  Mommy says she's glad, but surprised, it wasn't me.

Mommy says I have grown so much this week that I look like a college student now.  College seems pretty boring, so I"m in no mood to hurry there. They do sing songs sometimes, or at least they do in Daddy's shows at college, but they don't have nap time or anything.

Mommy signed us up for swimming lessons at the YMCA this summer. I'm so ready. I tried really hard to swim last summer, but Mommy wouldn't let go of me. She really cramps my style sometimes.  I like to do things to throw her off-kilter. Tonight, for instance, I refused pasta, but ate 3 pieces of bread.  Maybe I'll try chicken soon just to keep her on her toes.

I need to get someone to take me outside now so I can pass out on the couch at 7:00 again, just like I did last night after our walk around the block:

Being 2 wears you out, yo.

Comfort Food Saturday: Stuffed Shells

A couple of weeks ago, I read this post over at Eat At Home (a great food blog that you should check out if you haven't already!).  I was inspired to try my own version of sausage and spinach stuffed shells.  The result was fantastic and made enough to feed me and two friends.  I served them with a big green salad, dressed with a homemade dressing which complemented the shells quite nicely. Heck, I'll give you the recipe for that, too!  I made these shells yesterday morning, then put them in the fridge until dinner time, when I baked them in the oven for about 25 minutes before serving.  A great make-ahead meal for busy weeknights.  You could easily omit the sausage or use ground beef instead.  You can use any kind of pasta sauce, as well. I had some marinara leftover from a batch I made last week, so I used that.

STUFFED SHELLS

• 1 box jumbo shell pasta
• 1 pound bulk Italian Sausage
• 2 cups pasta sauce
• 1 1/2 cup baby spinach leaves, chopped
• 1-15 oz. container ricotta cheese
• 1 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, divided
• 2 eggs, beaten

Boil pasta according to pacakge directions, about 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, brown sausage and drain.  In large bowl, mix eggs, ricotta, 1 cup of mozzarella, spinach and sausage until well-blended.  Stuff each shell with about 1 tablespoon of mixture and place in shallow baking pan.  Top with  pasta sauce and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese.  Bake at 350 25-30 minutes or until heated through.

HEY, Y'ALL EASY SALAD DRESSING

• 1 cup garlic-infused olive oil
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• dash of Mrs. Dash Italian seasoning blend

Whisk ingredients together and pour over crisp salad.