Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
We knew as the season for skating drew to its close that the first priority (before Meredith went back to school) would be surgery on both of her feet for her flat-feet condition (which her sister shares) that we had confirmed this spring with the family podiatrist. Mere didn’t get nervous about the surgery until [...]
As you can imagine, the champions (my Mere and her pairs partner Eric) are in seventh heaven – as I write this, Susan and Mere are on their way home to us, bearing a new gold medal. And, of course, all their stuff. The last year, in dealing with Mere getting serious on roller-skating competitive [...]
Meredith and Eric took first place at the National Championships with a flawless, beautiful performance… stunned the people online and the commentators with **OMG WHO ARE THESE GUYS!!!** reactions. They can’t go to World Championships until the elder is 14, which is next year. But my god, they were the best I’ve ever seen them, [...]
Went to the podiatrist/surgeon on Monday, and he’s leaving in the stitches for longer – I’m a slow healer, and there’s a couple of small gaps in the thing. He’s switched over to a much smaller bandage thing, essentially enough to cover the incision, and has to be redone every day with special silver gel [...]
Susan and Meredith are supposed to leave tomorrow in the morning for Lincoln, Nebraska, to the roller-skating National competition, and they will have to work really hard to be ready by then. I worry about Susan burning the candle at both ends mentally and physically with this trip, but there’s darn little I can do [...]
The latest on all of the medical stuff is that I haven’t healed enough on the bottom of my foot for the Doc to be able to let me really walk on it again, so he has basically told me that I will be off my feet until my next visit with him next Monday [...]
* the kids have this insatiable desire to mess around with and ride on my walker, wheelchair and roll-about knee walker; Mere has been drooling over the idea of a swiss army knife for a while, bought one with her money, and proceeded to try to disassemble everything in sight – including the aforementioned AND [...]
Thanks for all the good wishes, prayers and thoughts! The pain in my left foot is a LOT less, and I now have my roll-about knee walker, so I’m more mobile to get around inside the basement and out to the driveway – but it’s hot enough that I don’t much feel like doing so. [...]
At the present, my LEFT foot surgery has been rescheduled for the 5th of July; hopefully nothing else will blow that out of the water. My RIGHT foot – well, went to see a podiatrist on that, and he took new X-rays of my foot that show how crippled up it looks (which never fails [...]
We now have the schedule for Mere’s events in Cincinnati, (pdf) and it basically rotates around the following: We have to leave VERY VERY early Friday the 25th to be there at the arena by 9 in the morning (ick) – Mere has practices for each of her events from 10 to 6, and then [...]
(1) The surgery on my LEFT foot is still hanging fire, but this time, it’s because the various docs who had to give me clearance didn’t do so (first due to a goofy EKG that showed up nothing in a stress test, and then due to a white count that is pretty comparable with what [...]
Meredith will be going off the last week of this month for her Regional roller skating competition in the Cincinnati suburbs – and in very late July to the National competition in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is a considerable cash drain because of the travel costs and hotel costs (for 5-6 nights each time), entry fees, [...]
For the last few months, Mere has been crazy busy with stuff to do – endless tons of homework (I’m amazed at how much they hand out to kids these days) along with extensive reading projects from school (she’s managed to get through the complete Harry Potter) and more – choir, band (she’s turning into [...]
I’m finally over a horrible upper respiratory cold that knocked me around quite a bit – with a nasty dry cough that seemed to go on forever. It pretty much levelled me for weeks on end and took a huge chunk out of my general stamina. Everyone else in the house has been felled by [...]
I’ve been asked to speak at a Wright State University forum; their Honors Institute is having a symposium on Chinese-American relations called “Connecting With China”, and I’m to talk on “Exploring Issues in Cross-Cultural Adoptions” from 2-4 pm, February 17th. The event is free to the public, but you have to register in advance to [...]