Parental dilemma

This morning I got up quite cheerfully, thinking that Peter and I will be escaping this afternoon. Then Patrick walked out complaining that his throat hurt and his head hurt, and I checked and he had a fever.
Bad news.
Patrick insisted that we should still go, he would be fine, Christopher was seriously offended by the insinuation that he would not be able to look after his brother well, and we all saw the weekend we had all been looking forward to moving very quickly out of reach, as Peter wanted to call the hotel and cancel immediately.

I took Patrick straight in to Joachim, our family doctor, who said it looks like a virus currently circulating in Linz, and he said there really isn't anything Patrick can do but rest, drink lots of tea and take Parkamed, if the headache gets worse (his fever dropped within an hour and the tea had already helped his throat). When I explained the dilemma, Joachim started to laugh and recommended that Peter and I should go and relax and enjoy the weekend. He has been to this hotel, he says it really is nice and it would do us good.
Can Peter and I really be such irresponsible parents and leave a sick child at home in the care of his flighty brother? How relaxing could it be to spend a weekend with a concerned father winding himself up worrying constantly about the boys?
Peter has meanwhile talked to his parents, so Oma and Opa will check in on the boys this evening and tomorrow. Patrick swears he will make sure that Christopher does a good job looking after him, so I think we can go ...
In any case, I still have a few hours to talk myself into believing it will be all right.

Where did this month go?

Last week I got to go to London for a few days to gather information from artists and art people there that might be useful for their counterparts here in Linz. Since I ended up spending the better part of both Wednesday and Saturday sitting in airports, I really only had two days to meet with people, but it went well and I enjoyed it very much. It is amazing how much work can accumulate in just that short amount of time, though. Since I got back Saturday evening it feels as though I have been running and running to try to catch up with work and family and various other responsibilities.

Paddy seems to be doing quite well these days, and I am glad that Peter enjoys his company so much. He also seems to have found at least a few things at school that entertain him, and he passed his main German test a few days ago, so he doesn't have to worry about that now.

Christopher, on the other hand, complains about having to work so hard, but the crazy guy has no idea what work means – at least that is the impression that Peter and I have. He hasn't been sick again, though, and I am almost ready to start hoping that it might actually be over. I hope it doesn't bring bad luck to state that in public like this, but occasionally I have the feeling he might be getting ready to get his life back together.

This year Peter and I decided to give each other a weekend away together, just the two of us, for our birthdays. We are not going very far, but thanks to generous contributions from his family, we have a nice room reserved for us this weekend at a nearby spa hotel. I never would have thought that I would want to go to a place like that, but the idea of being able to just sleep and read and go in and out of a sauna and not have to think about cooking or washing up or organizing anything from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon is the most desirable luxury I can think of right now.

And I am not going to think about whether leaving Christopher alone with only his brother to supervise is a wise or safe thing to do.

Up and down and all around

This day has been so crazy, I completely forgot about posting an update to the blog, until I received a very thoughtful message from Jean.

So this is the update: Christopher's temperature stopped rising yesterday afternoon, so he went to school today and has had a normal day. He still seems a bit tired and a bit low, but otherwise all right so far. I suspect this means that another episode is coming, but it isn't here yet.

We also received the report from the psychologist today, which I will attempt to summarize. If I can explain it at least somewhat coherently in English, at least Amy might actually understand it.

*intellectual abiltiy: average to above average
*thinking: adequate in content and form
*attention: short-term selective attention low average; on the basis of the presumed intelligence before meningitis (indicated by the tests), a slight impairment is to be assumed, a clear impairment in complex stimulation constellations
*stress tolerance: reactive tolerance decreases with complex stimulation under time pressure
*memory: short-term general memory capability, short-term verbal and visual memory above average; significant differences suggest lateralization; however, an increased process of forgetting is displayed, and differences in performance suggest organic causes.
*executive functions: mosaic tests (?) indicate behavior planning in keeping with the norm (I assume that means for adolescents)
*affectivity: indications of slight depressivity
* on the whole there are reasons to suspect slight brain-organic components

There is a recommendation for cognitive training emphasizing longer-term attention and developing mnemotechniques.

The report generally makes sense to me in German, but psychology is definitely not my area of expertise as a translator. On the whole, it simply confirms our observations.

Time - passing, stopping

Outside, through the window or on the balcony, it always looks the same, just an endless succession of gray days. I have been working hard to get enough things finished so that I can go to London next week, just measuring time in numbers of lines and pages translated, so that I sometimes forget why I want to go to London. At least I have a brand new Austrian passport now, since yesterday, so I can cross borders again.

The other night the boys gave up watching King Kong, because Christopher couldn't keep his eyes open any more. Still, he heroically stuck to his offer to do the dishes, but by the time he got to the last two pots, he was so exhausted he was nearly in tears. When I mentioned it to Peter later, his first thought was the Christopher is getting sick again, but I didn't want to think about that. Yesterday morning Christopher was still tired, and after lunch he went to sleep and slept so deeply all afternoon that I made him take his temperature. It was still normal, though, and he seemed fine this morning when he left for school. At 10:00 he called me at the office to tell me that he had come home from school, because he wasn't feeling well.

Suddenly time stops.

He is asleep now on the couch, and his temperature is only just starting to rise. I hope we can keep him at home again this time, since that seems to be easier for everyone, but it depends on how it goes this time. They can't really do anything for him in the hospital except to give him a spinal tap to relieve the pressure on his brain, so unless the pain gets to be too much for him, he doesn't need to go in.
We'll see.

It's someone else's turn to do the dishes tonight

Since I have been working all evening, I just went in to make more tea - and I could hardly find the kettle! Obviously no one was specifically delegated to wash the dishes yesterday, so at lunch time I had to quickly wash up a few things I needed. So now there are dishes from yesterday, breakfast and lunch today, and on top of that Christopher made scrambled eggs for himself and Patrick for dinner, and now Patrick has just made popcorn for the two of them (Patrick has become an expert at making popcorn - Grandpa would be proud of him).
Washing the dishes is definitely not my job tonight, but as cosy as the two of them look munching popcorn together and watching the original King Kong, I suspect we may be in need of some kind of magical creatures tonight, if the kitchen is to be useable tomorrow.

My stateless state

Yesterday I went to Vienna, to the US Consulate, where I renounced US citizenship - officially, solemnly and irrevocably. Now my US passport, which expired last December, is marked cancelled: "bearer expatriated self". Tomorrow morning I have an appointment to get the document that will declare me an Austrian citizen. Today I am stateless.

After 27 years, it was certainly time to take this step, but in the end it was an odd, slightly sentimental feeling sitting there in the office of the US consulate, where I have been so many times before in so many different situations, knowing that it was for the very last time. Except for the first passport I got in California when I was 18, every passport I have had since then was issued at the US consulate in Vienna. Peter and I went together to get a paper so that I could be married as a US citizen and thus keep my own name; we brought each of our newborn sons there. Sitting downstairs in the Merriot Hotel drinking tea before my appointment, I remembered sitting there with the boys waiting for Francis, having pictures taken at the photo shop downstairs that does instant passport photos for US passports, going to the English bookshop around the corner afterwards, where Patrick, at the age of 5, happily noted, "They speak English in this country, don't they?" - and the same man who took my forms yesterday was the one who gleefully announced last year that Christopher was six feet tall, when he stood against the measuring stick to find out his height for the form for his new passport. I never realized how many memories I associated with the US consulate until the moment that I realized I never need to go there again.

But this is my home, and after tomorrow I will no longer be a "foreigner" here. I have no doubts about my decision at all.

It was good while it lasted

It seems to have done us all good that Christopher was so calm and rational during semester break and that it lasted, more or less, all through the first week of school. Now we seem to have returned to a more "normal" state of affairs, however, and I am thoroughly exasperated. I have the feeling he just bounces around all over the place, both mentally and physically, and if he is not on the phone or out with friends, every time a stray thought accidentally wanders into his mind, he starts shouting for me to drop everything immediately and run to wherever he is, so that he can tell me about it. Why does it always sound like an emergency, whenever some trivial thought occurs to him? It's lucky for me that I managed to get somewhat caught up on work while he was in his calmer phase.

Yesterday he was so tired and irritable that I made him take his temperature, but it was normal. Or maybe it is just me feeling tired and irritable? I just checked, and it has only been four weeks since the last round of meningitis, so I suspect this is simply ordinary obnoxious adolescent behavior, but it would be nice to have another phase of rational reasonable behavior before he is sick again.

But at least I don't feel constantly on edge any more. Whatever comes, we can deal with it, even if not always gracefully.

Everyday routine again

Semester break last week was good for all of us, I think. Paddy had a wonderful time in England (thanks to everyone who welcomed him and Precious), proved himself quite capable and responsible, came home with a number of additions to his DVD collection and a delightful little digital video of Precious talking about The Meaning of Life, True Love, and Sounding Like Jackie Chan, punctuated by train announcements of the next stop at some banal little place in England.

Christopher was at his very best all week - calm, thoughtful, charming, cooperative - and he cooked lunch and even studied a little every day. With everything going so smoothly, I didn't have much to post to this blog, but I got quite a bit of work done that has been hanging over my head for ages.

Getting back into our everyday routine has been harder. Paddy is not happy at school; he says he is tired of just studying to pass one test after another, he wants to actually learn something, and he doesn't feel that is happening at school. In addition, it appears that most of his teachers have figured out by now that he is quite bright and capable of surprising achievements - if he is interested and motivated. Since there is little that he finds interesting and motivating, most of the time he just makes sure he does enough work to comfortably maintain average grades, but he is tired of hearing from his teachers that he could "do so much better". Of course he could, but why should he? I am curious to hear how his German teacher reacts to the essay he wrote this afternoon. His assignment was to write an essay comparing the advantages and disadvantages of having a refrigerator in the classroom, but he was so bored by the topic that he couldn't think of anything. After I suggested it might be all right this time to allow his imagination a little more free rein, he started having fun (allowing refrigerators in classrooms will ultimately lead to the destruction of life as we know it on this planet), and I think his essay is both hilarious and well written. We'll see what his German teacher thinks, though.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with the eye doctor in the morning, then Christopher has his appointment with the psychologist in the afternoon. I don't think I want to think about either of those things right now.