ok...my life (as of recent) is a real 'as the world turns'. first off, i will start with LC's metabolic disease, carnitine transport deficiency, which his pediatrician called me tuesday (a week ago) to confirm that he has. the doctor did say there was a very TINY chance he might not have it, but they were fairly certain he did. the good news is he could basically live a normal life but he would have to take medicine starting now (he was 2 weeks old last tuesday) for the rest of his life. the complications (if disease is untreated) are very serious - sudden death for infants, cardirespiratory attack, and the majority are heart problems. let's say they are serious enough that the other boys need to be tested, and even if they don't have it, they need to be tested to determine if they are genetic carriers. dr. brock (who is a totally chill, laid-back guy) said he wanted me to make an appt with the genetic specialists at ucsf even though they did not feel it was imperative since he does not know much about this rare disease. he said we needed to have strategies in place for when he's sick, etc. etc. now, he's such a 'everything's fine!" type of dr. that if he said go talk to the specialists, i'm there. he gives me their number; i call for 2 days and leave voicemails (they are predominantly research scientists) and get no call back. friday i call my doc's office for help getting in touch. the genetic counselor, kara, ends up calling me from ucsf metabolics clinic and, after a roundabout discussion of about 20 minutes, determines MY doctor had a game of 'telephone' going and misunderstood. they think it is highly UNlikely LC has the disease as he doesn't have any of the very serious seconday symptoms (i.e. cardio myopathy, renal and liver issues, etc) are you KIDDING me? i share the good news with E and family and can't leave doc voicemail til monday.
E's sister takes the 2 older boys for sleepover saturday morning so we can work on unpacking - so nice of her. we unpack all day long and move things up from storage. i get a wild hare and we even go out to dinner with LC at terzo. look out! friday night we slept horribly as LC was up every 1.5 either wanting to eat or crying. we decide it's time to whip out the bottle topper saturday night as we are desperadoes. so, we do and we get an extra hour of sleep - 3 instead of 2. i'm thinking 'this is the good life'. he wakes up screaming to eat at 2.15. i pull him into bed and start feeding him and doze off for about 8 minutes. i look up at the clock and i hear something fall in our flat downstairs. i think 'maybe i'm imagining this and something was precariously perched', so i listen... i hear something else and i know i'm not wrong. i know someone is in our house. just thinking back to how i felt shortens my breath and causes my heart to start racing. i wake E who would sleep through a freight train (and honestly i would have as well one of these newborn nights when i'm short on sleep) and tell him ' wake up - someone is definitely downstairs in our house.' i have visions of homeless rummaging through our stuff - not as nefarious as it could possibly be. he goes to walk out and i point out he might want to put boxers on. he walks out our bedroom door to the top of stairs, then all-too-quickly, returns and confirms my worst fears. "SOMEONE IS DEFINITELY HERE - CALL 911." thank god he had installed a phone next to me in bed (even though i didn't really want it there). i am on the phone with 911 operator giving them all of our info. he tells me my husband shouldn't have gone downstairs i'm like ' it's too F---NG late for that!' this whole time i'm breastfeeding the little guy. then, i hear E. yell at them 'WHERE ARE YOU GOING?' i freak out and think they are trying to run away from him i.e. upstairs to where we are. i'm telling the dispatcher i think they are coming upstairs 'should i hide in the closet?" he says 'yes' and 'lock yourself in". i tell him there's no F--NG doorknobs in the house yet. i'm ineffectively trying to hide between the clothes. next thing i know he tells me the police are in the house and it should be ok to go down. turns out there was a man & woman climbing out hall bath window when E went down; he ran to front of house to see them, then went to back and saw them hopping fence (when he yelled to them). the guy said "dude, i was just looking for my house". the cops told us they say this in case they go to court they claim they were drunk & mistakenly went into wrong house. they whisk E off to try to ID couple matching description around block who are being detained in cuffs. E said they totally matched description but it wasn't them. E said the guy in cuffs was loaded doing perp walk - what a buzzkill that would be. 10 SF cops chasing them and they escape. they call CSI to come in to print the next day. i'm envisioning emily procter in her tight pants and fitted button-down with blonde hair swinging in wind. instead, we got super-nice bulldyke with horrid short mullet-cut, full brace and plus 65 lbs in all the wrong places who gave us some fascinating insights into crime life. she printed and couldn't get anything to convict; this is not the CSI you see on tv but we all figured that. no enormous budgets for every hi-tech gizmo to catch the bad guys (esp in SF with our super-low conviction rate).
we have trouble getting back to sleep that night - needless to say, we are tired in the morning. we try to keep it under wraps from the boys to not scare them. i would have had a heart attack if they were down there and i knew someone else was, too. got the alarm co in the next day but haven't hooked anything up yet.
i feel like a main character in my own soap opera - hit & run 2 weeks before due date, move, move into hotel, someone slashes porsche roof on nob hill, birth, move back to hotel, on and off again genetic-disease, company financing limbo, move back into house that's partially done, and now this. i need a valium just listening to it but, surprisingly, don't feel like i'll lose it just yet. the lack of sleep must have me numb to a certain point.
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