Old-fashioned community doctoring … virtually

Anyone who has tracked our recent medical dramas knows that we live a two-hour flight away from the nearest good hospital.

This doesn’t mean we’re devoid of options when we run into medical trouble.

For starters, there’s always Dr. Google. This good doctor’s wealth of knowledge is seemingly inexhaustible. You can ask Dr G anything. Anything. You can, for example, type in: “I’m 22 weeks and 3 days pregnant and I’ve thrown up 4 times in the last 6 hours and 6 minutes. I think I got sick after eating spring rolls from a street vendor in northern Laos 10 hours and 17 minutes ago. Should I be worried? What should I do?”

And chances are someone else has asked this exact same question, and someone else has answered it.

Granted, sometimes those answers run along the lines of, “drink a liter of goats milk seasoned with the blood of a three-day-old chick and stand on your head for an hour with your eyes crossed and you’ll be fine.”

But, still. Dr Google is on call 24-hours a day and always willing and eager to provide you with a wealth of useful information.

Well, information, anyway.

Then we have Dr Souphan, just down the road. Under protest, I went to see Dr Souphan just last week. To be fair to Dr Souphan, the protest had less to do with her than with the great inertia that seizes me when I’m afflicted with maladies that are more uncomfortable than dire. I just prefer to wait these things out.

Mike, however, is more proactive I am in the face of such problems, especially problems that have been going on for four days. So when we walked past her little clinic and saw that it was open, he gently suggested (read: almost frog-marched) that we stop in.

Dr Souphan’s clinic is one big room on the first floor of her house. While you’re waiting, you sit on chairs in the front half of the room. When it’s your turn to see the doctor you step to the back of the room where there’s a desk, two chairs, and a camp bed. No office door, though. Not that it mattered this time, because everyone else waiting was far more preoccupied with clucking over the little foreign baby with the big cast on his leg than with listening to me try to describe my intestinal disorders.

So we’re not entirely devoid of medical resources here, but what have we done when confronted with problems more severe than spending four days running to the bathroom? We haven’t relied on Dr Google or Dr Souphan. We’ve relied on good doctor friends in Australia, the UK and the USA. Just in the last eighteen months, these doctor friends have:

1. Looked at photographs of Mike’s staph-infected legs and provided advice on which antibiotics to try and whether or not to seek medical evacuation to Thailand.
2. Advised me about what to do when, at 22 weeks pregnant, I came down with a severe case of food poisoning.
3. Let us stay in their house and use their car for a week while they were out of town (nothing to do with medicine, but much appreciated nonetheless).
4. Given Dominic his two-month immunizations for free.
5. Written very specific instructions for us on how to seek appropriate immunizations over here (including brand names) and answered our detailed questions about whether and how we could adapt the immunization schedule according to our shifting travel dates.
6. Given me an entire course of appropriate antibiotics to take in case I get mastitis.
7. Advised me via skype on splinting Dominic’s leg, appropriate pain relief, and how to make Dominic most comfortable until we could reach the hospital in Thailand.
8. Reviewed pictures of before and after X-rays and written detailed letters explaining why the doctors in Thailand probably made the decision they did about Dominic’s care, we might have received conflicting advice about Dominic’s prognosis, and the pros and cons of additional corrective action within the next two years.

Ironically, Mike and I have found ourselves the recipients of more good old-fashion communal medical care here in Laos than we would have ever received (or asked for) if we had been living in Melbourne, yet all of this communal care has been delivered virtually. It’s all come from a “community” living on the other side of the world.

In the olden days, these people might have received some chickens or maybe a sack of potatoes for their help. Now they get nothing but heartfelt thanks.

Doctor friends,

Thank you. And thank you again. We’re so grateful that so many of you are willing to share some time and expertise via facebook, email and skype. You have eased the stresses that come with living somewhere with limited medical facilities more than you may ever know. Should you ever want to come to Laos, our guest room is always open and we’ll be happy to get some of those chickens and potatoes for you, too. Heck, we’ll even throw in a needy dog.

Love Lisa, Mike & Dominic

How have your friends reached out and helped you virtually?

Writing Wednesday: Marketing yourself and your work

When I signed the contract five years ago for My Hands Came Away Red I had ridiculously little idea about what went into getting a book out there. As far as I was concerned, I’d done my part by writing the thing and whatever happened next was up to the publishers – I was just along for the “fun and games” ride.

Against all odds, this actually worked out quite well for me. Moody Publishers got me reviewed, printed marketing materials, organized radio interviews, hosted me at trade shows and even got me on the cover of a magazine. I got into the spirit of things and organized a couple of readings, a lecture at my alma mater Notre Dame, and an appearance on a nationally-syndicated Canadian television program. Perhaps best of all, this all felt like fun and games rather than work or something that I was trying too hard at and taking too seriously.

I hate feeling like I’m trying too hard or jumping up and down saying: “Look at me! Look at me!” I do this sometimes, of course. I think most people do. But I do it a lot less than I used to and whenever I catch myself attention-seeking now – looking for others to reassure me that I’m cool, or admirable, or interesting or worthwhile – I cringe. And I try to stop.

Which is why I’ve struggled to think deeply about marketing in relation to my next book, Love At The Speed Of Email.

Because this time I am self-publishing, which means that there is no publishing company to organize interviews for me and tell everyone that the book is worth their time and money. And it’s a memoir. So, basically, I need to get out there and tell people some version of the following: “I wrote this book about myself and you should buy it and read it because it’s really good.”

I also, however, need to find ways to not let this book (or myself) become too big a deal in my own mind, because therein lies the road to desperate, self-promoting narcissism. And no one wants that, least of all me. (Well, actually, probably least of all Mike.)

This all seems like a bit of a Catch-22 to me. Even thinking about marketing the memoir makes my teeth feel furry. Yet I suspect the minute it starts to feel completely comfortable – the minute I stop second-guessing myself, and examining my motivations and methods  – I’ll have crossed the line and become overly self-absorbed.

Le sigh.

And while I hate the idea of getting out there and selling this book, I also do want people to read it. I’ve worked hard on it, I’m really proud of it, and I do think it’s good.

Le sigh, deux.

I’ll be back next Wednesday to write more about this topic and share a marketing strategy I’ve come up with that I am really excited about – one that I think will help word get out there without feeling like I’m jumping up and down saying “Look at me! Look at me!”

In the meantime, I have some links and a question for you.

First, the links: For those of you also thinking through this thorny tangle of marketing your art and yourself, you might find the following posts useful.

1. Should I be investing in my own publicity? (Chip MacGregor): “YOU are in charge of marketing your book. You. Not the publisher, who will help you but may not do all that much unless you’re a proven bestseller. You. Nobody else knows your message as well; nobody else is as committed to your story as you are.”
2. Know your audience (Chip MacGregor): “Don’t assume your book is for everyone, at all times. It’s not — no book is… If you know your audience, you can determine where they’ll be, so you can go stand in front of them. You’ll also be able to best determine how to approach them and what to say.”
3. Monthly marketing to-do list for authors (Rob Eagar): “There are thousands of ways to promote your books. But, trying to do everything won’t necessarily make you successful. Usually, you’re better off sticking with a consistent plan that keeps you focused on a few main priorities.”
4. A spreadsheet for the self-published (Jenny Blake): Jenny has provided a great resource – a multi-pages excel spreadsheet for those thinking strategically about marketing. Set aside some time, it’s not a quick read.

Now, the question: Here’s the current draft of the back cover text of my memoir. If you were in charge of my publicity, what might you recommend that I do?

Lisa looks as if she has it made. She has turned her nomadic childhood and forensic psychology training into a successful career as a stress management trainer for humanitarian aid workers. She lives in Los Angeles, travels the world, and her first novel has just been published to some acclaim. But as she turns 31, Lisa realizes that she is still single, constantly on airplanes, and increasingly wondering where home is and what it really means to commit to a person, place, or career. When an intriguing stranger living on the other side of the world emails her out of the blue, she must decide whether she will risk trying to answer those questions. Her decision will change her life.

Sometimes you try

Saturday was a long day. There was a 5AM start, a flight to Thailand, four doctors appointments, three immunizations, two X-rays and a cast removal. We’d known it would be a hard day, so Mike and I had planned a special treat for after it was all over – we booked into a nice hotel with a pool and took Dominic for his first swim.

The result? Well, let’s just say the photos belong in Mike’s “Sometimes You Try” facebook album.

Me: “Dominic, guess what, we’re going swimming. Swimming is fun!”
Dominic: “You also said the needles would only hurt a little bit. I totally don’t trust you on this one.”

Family kodak moment fail. Here are a couple of other photos that belong in that “Sometimes You Try” album:

“Just for the record, totally not enjoying this sightseeing trip up Phousi Hill.”

“You want to know what my wish is for when we release the birds? I’ll give you one guess and a hint – it has to do with going home.”

“Are you two kissing me again? Do you have no concept of personal space at all?”

“Grandparents? Boring.”

“I love me some Zulu.”

“And Zulu loves himself some baby spew.”

Mike: “Dominic! Smile for the camera!”
Dominic: “I don’t know who these two are, never seen them before in my life.”

Finally, a bonus “sometimes you try” video: Dominic’s introduction to vegetables (and don’t worry, despite all appearances to the contrary at the end of this clip, Dominic was not seriously choking).

What sells a blog post and drives traffic on your blog?

If you’ve clicked on over looking for a how-to post about styling yourself as a mega-blogger … sorry. This is not that. Too much talk about branding yourself and building a platform tends to make my eyes glaze over and my brain yawn, but for those of you looking for that sort of information I’ve included some relevant links at the end of this post.

No, this isn’t going to be a blog on the importance of compelling titles and posting consistently on topics closely linked to your niche and brand. Instead, I just wanted to share something I’ve been thinking about during the last month:

So here’s a screen shot of my recent blog traffic. The spikes on the far right shrink everything else down a bit, but there have actually been three unusual “spikey areas” in recent weeks.

The first came around the 14^th of January, the day I put up this post in memory of my friend, Patrick, who passed away last month.

The second big jump began on January 24^th, the day of Dominic’s accident, and continued all week as people tracked our stay in hospital and return to Laos.

The third, an unprecedented leap, came out of nowhere on February 7^th when a whole bunch of people suddenly took it into their heads to share a post I’d written weeks earlier called 24 things that have surprised me about motherhood: I never thought I would… on facebook.

What to make of all of this?

I wanted to write a thoughtful commentary relating these blog stats to the flavor of what we consume as “news”, but the last three weeks has seen our little family blessed with two sets of parents in town, one broken leg, three days in hospital, two international flights, three head colds, two courses of antibiotics, and not nearly enough sleep. Also, we have given notice on our house and are starting to prepare to move in six weeks to another house in town that will hopefully be devoid of constant woodworking noise, dangerous spiral staircases, and unfenced pools.

Ergo, no bandwidth for thoughtful commentary.

Ergo, a list.

1. People pay attention to bad news and sad news.

Anyone who has driven past a car accident or watches the evening news shouldn’t be surprised by this – what we call news is a litany of all that’s going most wrong in the world (punctuated by the occasional celebrity death or sweet animal story).

It is still a little weird, however, to see the power of the bad&sad to draw attention play out on your own blog. And for the record, I am not advocating anyone adopt the bad&sad model to grow their blog audience. It’s so not worth it.

2. People pay attention to things that make them laugh

After all the stress of the last couple of weeks, it was actually really nice to see something get more attention than our medical dramas. It reminded me that in addition to being hardwired to pay attention to the bad&sad we also hunger to encounter things that make us laugh and warm our hearts, and that when we find those things we like to share them.

3. The power of social networks like facebook or twitter to promote something is awe-inspiring. It is also impossible to really predict or control.

Strangers sharing a single post on facebook were responsible for a banner day of blog traffic, but it was also not something I had much to do with. It wasn’t the post I would have predicted to go viral or the time (nearly three weeks after I first posted it) that I would have thought it might get picked up.

I probably helped the process along by putting the “share on facebook” button at the bottom of the post and participating in Sarah Bessey’s blog carnival last week (I suspect it was one of the visitors from her site that picked up the post that first time) but the whole experience simply reminded me that if I want to maximize the likelihood that people will share my posts on facebook, twitter, or their own blogs, I should just:

1. Write good posts
2. Make it easy for people to share them
3. Engage with people on facebook, twitter and their own blogs (and when I say “engage” I mean “interact because I want to, with sincerity, not because I’m trying to build a brand or lure people into following my blog.”)

(“Congratulations,” Mike said when he read that third point. “You’ve managed to outline a strategy for making friends.” To which I said, “Perfect.”)

4.     Sex sells, too

No, I didn’t manage to extract this lesson from those blog stats – you can thank my father for that piece of unrelated wisdom. I was discussing this blog post with my parents and Mike over lunch. We were talking about how people are drawn to pay attention to the extremes – the sad, the bad, the funny, the touching.

“And sex,” my father said. “People pay attention to sex.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot all about that,” I said.

“Yeah,” Mike said mournfully. “Yeah.”

And on that awkward note, I promised links to posts that will actually furnish you with useful information on strategies to increase your blog traffic. Here are six of them:

1. 7 Ways To Grow Your Blog Readership (Amanda Ludeke)
2. 5 Audacious Goals Every Blogger Should Have For 2012 (Alexis Grant)
3. What social media can do for your blog (Alexis Grant)
4. 21 ways to increase blog traffic (over on SEOMOZ)
5. What Not To Blog About (Rachelle Gardener)
6. Platform and Social Media Must Not Be Your Center (Jane Friedman)

Bloggers, what lessons have you learned about what influences traffic on your own site? What resources have you found helpful in thinking about marketing and platform?

Feeling weighed, measured, and found wanting

I did not stop to seriously consider the implications of my actions before stenciling a giant PATIENCE on Dominic’s cast.

Luang Prabang is a tourist town and it’s the tail end of the cool season here. There are thousands, literally thousands, of tourists in town. Not many of them, however, are walking around with babies, so our little trio already made an unlikely sight even before the accident. Now we’re a downright curiosity.

I watch people watching us when we’re out and about. First they see the stroller. They do a double take and search for the baby with a smile. Then they see the cast and their eyes go wide and a look of voyeuristic concern washes over their faces. Then they tilt their head sideways just a fraction as they take in the artwork adorning Dominic’s leg. Then their eyes jump up to my face.

The gaze seems confused and, sometimes, speculative.

But do you know, not a single person has asked me why on earth that word is on his leg? Plenty of people have asked me what happened to his leg, but no one has followed it up with, “so, uh, what’s the go with patience?”

I sometimes wonder if they know what I now know – that 70% of femur breaks in babies under 1 year old are the result of child abuse. I sometimes wonder if they suspect that the story about a fall down the stairs is just a convenient cover and that I needed a daily black and white reminder to reign in a vicious temper.

I would be willing to bet our first-born chi – OK, our dog – that the specter of feeling judged by strangers on these points has never entered Mike’s mind.

The difference between Mike and I in this regard was apparent long before Dominic’s accident.

Every time we go out walking with Dominic I need to build in several minutes to stop and exchange greetings with people who live on our street. There’s the friendly couple who own the small paper-supply shop and the unfriendly woman who blatantly rips us off at the fruit stand because we’re falang (foreigner) but who adores Dominic – he’s the only one of us she ever smiles at. There’s the disabled teenage boy who occasionally takes my hand when I walk past and gently kisses it. There’s the woman who sells donuts that ooze bright pink custard, and the one who sells organic vegetables from a blue tarp laid down on the sidewalk (sometimes she sells dead rats or cats, too, but let’s not go there). Then, of course, there’s anyone walking past who just wants to stop for a peek at the chubby white baby with coppery hair.

When I walk past with the stroller, none of these people hesitate to tell me when they think that Dominic is too hot or too cold, or that it might rain on us, or that he looks like he needs to sleep, or eat. When I was out with Mike one evening and the second person had stooped over my child, felt his fat little arm and then commented that it was cold and pulled up the wrap to cover him, Mike felt me tense.

“What’s the problem,” he asked as we continued on our way.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” I said. “All these people telling us that we’re getting it wrong? That we’re not taking good enough care of him?”

“What?” Mike said. “That’s not how I take it at all.”

“How do you take it then?” I said, wondering how else you could possibly take a phalanx of virtual strangers telling you that you haven’t dressed your child warmly enough.

“I take it as: ‘Wow, you have a beautiful little baby. We all love babies. Let’s find some common point of discussion whereby we can connect with you as parents and demonstrate that we’re paying attention to caring for the baby’s wellbeing,’” Mike said.

“That is a much nicer way to take it,” I said, not completely convinced.

“Do you really feel like people are telling you you’re not doing a good enough job as a mother?” Mike asked, amazed.

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

I wonder if this is only the beginning – whether I’m always going have to fight the instinct to take it personally whenever other people comment on what my child says and does. And I wonder where it comes from – what hidden deficit of self-esteem or deep-seated need for affirmation fuels this tendency to feel judged when others reach into the stroller and tug up my baby’s blanket.

I can tell you one thing though. If, heaven forbid, anything like this tumble down the stairs happens in the near future I won’t be adorning any casts with the words “gentleness” or “self-control”.

When have you felt judged as a parent? What helps you in those moments?

Practices of Parenting

A blogger I read regularly, Sarah Bessey, has been hosting a Practices of Parenting Carnival this week, where she invited readers to submit posts on their practices of parenting via a link-up. (You can find all of Sarah’s original practices of parenthood posts here.)

The response was extraordinary – 117 posts and counting! I linked up my Peace Like A River post, and over the last couple of days I’ve looked at all of the other posts that bloggers linked to on Sarah’s site.  They were heart-felt and moving and some were gorgeous. Here are seven that stood out to me.

Making Mama (and Papa) Art: This is a beautiful post, one after my own heart, about writing notes and letters to our children, “because the written-words seem to go beyond the everyday-words.”

In which I assign beauty: “The best way I can make the world a better place is by sending my little people out into it as the most compassionate they can be, and so I tattoo this message beneath their skins, in their hearts and in their sights and in their bloodstreams: this world is filled with beauty. That person is filled with beauty. You are filled with beauty.”

I love the message of this post – a message so closely tied to gratitude. There’s something in me that jumps up and down and says a big “Yes!! It makes the world and our hearts a better place when we notice and celebrate beauty”

The practice of a happy bedtime: “Our happy bedtimes benefit both my children and myself.  It is a chance for all of us to let go of the failures and frustrations of the day, as well as all of the worries of tomorrow, and just remember how much we love each other.”

I love bedtime. I the peaceful grounding provided by all the little bedtime rituals, and the big exhale that comes when I crawl into bed and know that the busyness and demands of the day are done. I liked this reminder about the important role parents play in kids bedtimes when they’re young.

Parenting in our little village: “This is what joyful parenting looks like to me. Not just staying at home with my kids, but taking them out into the wild and woolly world and engaging with it.”

This post challenged me. I want this sort of rich and multi-cultural parenting circle. But as crazy as it sounds, given where we live, this is something we do not have going for us here yet. Or maybe I should say, “this is not something we’ve worked hard to get going for us here.”

Speak out love: “The idea that somehow it can get a bit old, or tired, to hear “I love you” too much doesn’t stick either – I would much, much rather be told it too much, and say it too much, than to spend each day longing to hear those words, or not knowing how to get them out.”

I was raised in a loving home and I can still find it uncomfortable to say these words out loud. Why is that? Mike’s much better at giving these three words away than I am.

The practice of creativity: “There is something sacred about the act of creating together. I wrote about why I want to raise creative children, and I know that the best way for me to do this is to live creatively in front of them.”

This challenged the writer in me. Writing is a solitary creative pursuit and it was a good reminder to start thinking about how to involve kids in creative projects that we can do together.

Watering weeds into flowers: “That day I didn’t want to pay the price for future fond memories. Right then, that day, I didn’t want to be yelled at about tightening the straps of tiny shoes. I wanted to do my work, alone.”

I liked the way this was written – a good example of storytelling without hammering home the message too hard.

Do you have a Practices of Parenting you’d like to share? Leave a comment below, or a link to your own blog post. Then head on over to Sarah’s blog and link it up there.

Heading back toward normal

This is my first Writing Wednesday post in quite a while. Sorry. It’s been a tough couple of weeks over here. Normal routine went right out the window with Dominic’s fall down the stairs and it hasn’t returned yet.

It’s not just that, though, my ability to focus and my desire to write seem to have been just as abruptly displaced and they haven’t really returned yet either. In particular, I have no desire to write in detail about the day of the accident – even thinking about that day still makes me feel sick.

But.

Many of you have written wanting to know how Dominic is, and a couple have even inquired after book baby. So as I’m inching back toward trying to write something more demanding, here is an update on both of the babies.

Baby in cast: Dominic seems to be doing better. He veers between ferociously grumpy and ferociously cheerful on a minute-by-minute basis, but he’s off pain medication and he’s moving that leg more – trying to hoist it up in the air, and sometimes succeeding. Of course, then it comes crashing down again and hits the floor. I’ve seen him do this more than once (it makes me wince every time) so either cause-and-effect hasn’t really kicked in yet or his leg is feeling much better.

Only twelve more days until we travel back to Bangkok to (hopefully) have the cast removed. My parents also arrive here for a visit on Thursday so I’ll have more grandparent hands on deck to help with baby entertainment soon.

Oh, and if you’re new to this blog and you’re wondering why on earth Dominic’s cast is decorated the way that it is, read this. T’is the month of patience.

Baby in press: Plans for Love At The Speed Of Email are moving forward. The manuscript is finished and I should even have a cover within a month, which is a very fun prospect!! I’ve received some overwhelmingly lovely endorsements about the book from other authors that I’m excited to share with you in time, my website and blog will be getting a total facelift, and I’m tentatively starting to plan for a release about mid-April.

And speaking of books: A great friend of mine, Nicole Baart, has her next book releasing today: Far From Here. She’s running a neat launch-day challenge (A Celebrate Books Party) and will be donating books to an orphanage in Liberia based on how high the Amazon ranking gets today. I bought my copy on kindle this morning (and here, please pause for a melodious ode to kindle and nook and all other e-readers that jump oceans and cross borders in the blink of an eye). I love Nicole’s writing. She’s a natural poet and a graceful novelist and I can’t wait to read Far From Here. Happy book launch day, Nicole!

And speaking of writing: A weird thing happened last night: I had a post go viral on facebook for the first time. Not viral as-in the Influenza pandemic of 1914-1918, more like viral as in the cold that swept through this house last week, but it was still a bizarre thing to come home from dinner and find that while I’d been out this post about things that had surprised me about motherhood had been shared dozens of times by complete strangers and scores of people were flooding to my blog. More on that topic soon.

So, I’m curious.

Do you all have any thoughts on reigniting that creative spark and getting back on track with your work after hitting a major speed-bump in life?

And how has writing (or other creative pursuits) helped you during times of great stress?

From Peace to Patience

Every day of life is a gift. Sometimes, however, the daily gift feels a bit like finding polyester socks – the kind that make your feet sweat and itch – under the Christmas tree.

So it has been every day this week. I’ve had a vicious head cold – the kind that makes it impossible to breathe easily and sends sharp pain through your ears. I’m also still breastfeeding, so can’t take any of the good stuff (the stuff that they now sell from behind the pharmacy counter in the US because people were buying it in bulk and using it to make illegal drugs). It’s only this morning, on day four, that I’ve started to feel marginally better and can dare to hope that I’m on the upswing.

Dominic has been grumpier and needier than normal – not that I blame him for that in the slightest. He’s been waking up multiple times a night (and here I must give a shout out to Mike for taking him away at 4 a.m. several times this week so I could try to get another hour or two of sleep). The cast means that several of my normal baby-entertainment strategies are out. Reading stories has been challenging with a sore throat and a stuffy nose, and twice this week I must admit that I sat both of us down in front of the television and watched Glee. Well, we watched Glee for at least nine and a half minutes before someone started crying and throwing things.

For the record: Not that it wasn’t tempting, but that someone wasn’t me.

Everything slows down when you have a baby in a cast, and we have to be particularly careful during these early days given that the break is above the knee. Every time I go to pick him up, change his diaper, carry him anywhere, sit him on the bed, lay him down… every movement has to be slow and gentle – a thoughtful ballet. Sleep training has also gone by the wayside for the time being. I feel I’ve accomplished almost nothing this week except practice patience.

And you know what? That part hasn’t been too hard.

I mean, sure, when he gives me all the tired signals and I put him in his crib and then he starts moaning and flapping and, finally, screaming, it’s still tiresome. When all I’m longing to do is overdose on decongestants and lie on the couch with a good book it’s really, really hard to find energy for baby play.

But then I look at his tiny body weighed down by all that plaster and 99% of the time patience is not that difficult to muster …

***

OK, all of the above was written before 10 a.m, during a brief and glorious half an hour when I was feeling pretty good about myself. You know, along the lines of: So I feel really sick and my baby’s got a broken leg and I’m making zero progress on publishing my book (what book, again? Did I write a book?) but, yeah, I’m rocking this patience thing. Someone should nominate me for sainthood. Or give me a medal. Or at least find me some ice cream.  

But that was this morning. This is this afternoon. This afternoon when my cold has reminded me that it’s not through with me yet, not by a long shot.

This afternoon with a baby who has slept for approximately 47 minutes all day and who is currently lying in his crib wide awake, screeching maniacally and yanking on the crib bars. (Did anyone else’s children basically stop napping as soon as they started eating solid food?)

This afternoon when I was going to finish this post by writing all this great stuff about how patience also seems to be rooted in empathy. But to write that stuff I sort of have to think it through first, and this afternoon I am a bear of very little brain indeed.

Oh, and also? This afternoon when the power tools next door just started up outside Dominic’s window.

I am not yet at the end of my patience rope. Not quite. But I can see that frayed knot from here.

When do you find yourself running short on patience? What is it about those situations (or people) that push your buttons?

10 things to remember if your child breaks a bone and you are nowhere near a hospital

How’s that for a light-hearted title? I bet you’re well cued that this is going to be one of those laugh-out-loud posts.

Or maybe not.

Most of you probably won’t be in the position of having your child break a bone and being thirty hours and an international flight away from good medical care, but if you’re a parent thinking this topic through can’t hurt. Presumably, for example, some of you go camping. So today I’m going to share some of the lessons we learned or put into practice last week when Dominic broke his femur. Some of these things we learned the hard way as events unfolded, some we already knew and came in very, very handy.

 1. This doesn’t strictly count because it’s prevention, but we all know that prevention is infinitely better than any cure, so … Sit down with guests when they arrive and specifically warn them about any hazards in your house. Staircases and swimming pools are always significant hazards (visit this website to review other common hazards). Briefing guests will not prevent all accidents, but it can’t hurt.

2. After an accident happens, do not assume that the people involved are able to relay a complete and accurate account of events. Accidents happen fast – those involved may not be aware of everything that unfolded in that instant. They will also be shaken themselves and may be in shock. Assume that your child is seriously injured (and handle them accordingly) until you are reasonably certain that nothing is broken and that they did not hit their head.

3. If in doubt, get it X-rayed. We were fortunate that the X-ray machine here in Luang Prabang was working last week and the technician was in work. When local doctors examined Dominic’s leg it was the only time all morning that he didn’t scream when it was moved. The doctor seemed very confident that it wasn’t broken but we had it X-rayed just to be sure.

4. Use your friends. This is not time to be shy about calling in favors from your medically trained friends. Get on your phone or get on skype and call a doctor. Even if you think you have things under control, you are also very stressed and outside observers may be able to provide helpful input on something you’ve missed. (In our case our friend, Asha, a pediatrician, got on skype with me at 10pm her time, walked me through appropriate pain relief and provided advice on how to make Dominic as comfortable as possible during the night).

The pharmacy near our house

5. Have a variety of infant pain medication on hand. We already had children’s paracetamol in the house but nothing else, and it is not advisable to administer more than four doses of paracetamol in 24 hours. Apparently, when treating breaks and fractures, one good strategy is to alternate doses of infant paracetamol with doses of infant nurofen. Luckily, when Mike got on his bike at 6:30pm and made an emergency dash to some of the local pharmacies, one of those stores had infant nurofen in stock.

6. Have a medication dummy/pacifier in your first aid kit: We don’t have one of these (yet) but I’ve since learned of their existence. It works by loading the medication into a reservoir that then flows through the dummy teat. Apparently they can sometimes work better than syringes when it comes to getting babies to swallow medicine they don’t like the taste of (orange-flavored infant nurofen, for example).

7. Breastfeed upon demand. Breastfeeding apparently reduces distress and lessens pain, and so does proximity to mum (or dad, if dad is the child’s primary caregiver) so stay close by.

8. Splint the limb to hold it stable and reduce your child’s pain. Our insurance company’s doctor told us over the phone how to splint the leg. We used packing box cardboard and a gauze bandage. Cardboard turned out to be a good choice because it didn’t have to be removed for the X-rays in Thailand. I taped the cardboard edges with gauze tape so they wouldn’t scratch him, but another thing I wish I had thought to do was slip a soft pair of my cotton socks over the cardboard to make it marginally more comfortable against Dominic’s skin.

9. Move your child as little as possible. This one is common sense – anyone who has broken a bone knows how much it hurts when that limb moves – but make sure you think creatively about how you can minimize movement. We were assuming we’d put Dominic in his travel cot as usual during the night until Asha pointed out that we could just leave him on the change table mat to sleep for the night rather than trying to maneuver him into that small space. And to that end…

10. Sleep your child somewhere where you can get to them to comfort and/or breastfeed without having to move them. The change-table mat on the floor by my side of the bed worked for us – I was able to feed Dominic by kneeling over him.

Finally, a bonus number 11: If you take up yoga while you’re pregnant, don’t quit after you give birth. You never know when you’re going to find yourself on an airplane having to breastfeed a baby who is strapped into a carseat.

Any tips to add? Leave them below to help out others who will read this post.

Feeling much better in hospital in Thailand

Conversations in hospitals

As you can probably imagine, Mike and I have talked about many things since Dominic’s accident. Much of what we’ve been mulling over is serious, hard stuff and nowhere near funny. These two snippets, however, I can share. They’re as close as we came to laughing this week.

In the doctor’s office, staring at Dominic’s X-rays on the computer screen while three specialists debated out in the hallway about whether Dominic needed surgery:

“I think I should quit the fruits of the spirit project,” I said.

“What?” Mike said.

“Think about it,” I said. “It took me more than a month after Dominic’s birth to untangle how I felt about the fact that maternal love hadn’t swamped me upon delivery. Then the month of joy was full of days that felt decidedly joyless. During the month of peace a friend dies and one of my worst fears fulfilled – now the month is ending with my baby in a cast. If I wanted to speak Christianese, I might say that I was under spiritual attack. Now, I sort of have to do the month of patience given what’s in front of us during Dominic’s recovery, but after that I think I should quit.”

Mike laughed.

“I wouldn’t laugh,” I said. “You know what comes after the month of patience? The month of kindness, then the month of faithfulness. I would want me to quit if I were you.”

Day three in the hospital. I’ve only left the room once each day, briefly, to go downstairs to the lobby and procure a caramel macchiato and a cream cheese muffin. Mike is trying to do some work and I’m on the bed pretending a toy bear is looking for honey in Dominic’s ear. When that stops working in about 23 seconds I will move on to fake sneezing, because that’s always good for a smile at the moment.

“Remember last time we were here?” I said.

“Yeah,” Mike said.

“I mean, I know you had an IV stuck in the back of your hand and all,” I said. “But once we knew the staph was under control it was sort of fun, wasn’t it? We ate French fries and ice cream sundaes. We got to hang together all week and work, then cuddle up in the evenings in the hospital bed and watch movies on the big screen TV.”

“And go for walks in the evening down to the nursery to look at all the babies,” Mike said. “And now we have one of our own.”

We both looked at our baby. He looked frustrated and needy.

“Last time was sort of like a little holiday, wasn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “It sort of was.”

Yes, folks. We were reminiscing about previous medical evacuations … wistfully. It was that sort of week.

We’re back in Laos now. Dominic seems to be doing OK. Not well, but OK. He still needs pain medication every couple of hours, which is a bit problematic because he’s decided he hates the taste of the infant nurofen (not that I blame him, it’s sickly sweet and orange-flavoured).

“You think I’m going to take that nurofen nicely? Think again.“

Every time we try to dose him with nurofen it’s a trial that starts with locked lips and glaring and inevitably progresses to screaming and sticky orange goo all over his face and clothes. The strawberry-flavored panadol, however, he gulps down like a starving piglet and doesn’t let a single drop escape. This week has so ruined his taste buds for broccoli and carrots.

Now the countdown begins. We take Dominic back to Bangkok for more X-rays and (hopefully) the removal of his cast three weeks from yesterday. My parents will be in town then, so on that day we were hoping to land in Bangkok at 9:30, clear immigration and customs, get to the hospital, get X-rays, see the orthopedic specialists and get the cast off, see a pediatrician and get 6 month vaccinations (sorry little guy, you’re just having the worst run at the moment), and make it back to the airport by noon at the very latest so that we can fly back to Laos at 1:30 that afternoon rather than overnighting in Thailand.

After seeing the lines at Bangkok airport immigration yesterday I think our chances of all that unfolding on schedule are … (insert appropriate idiom here). I’m tempted to go with “a snowball’s chance in hell”, but Mike thinks we can do it. Anyone want to place a bet?

Finally, here’s how today’s introduction to rice cereal went:

“Oooh, what’s that? Maybe it’s strawberry-flavored Panadol!“

“Yuck! Rice cereal tastes worse than nurofen!”

“Why are you torturing me like this? What did I ever do to you?”

“How many times do I have to say no?”

“Much better. You got any panadol around, though? Cuz I’m sorta hungry, you know.”