As a follow up to my post about Vladimir Nabokov’s son’s dilemma, it seems as though Dmitri has come to a conclusion about whether or not to publish his father’s last story The Original of Laura.
Monthly Archives: April 2008
Doing the Necronomicon
On Thursday we managed to get out on the town (thanks for babysitting, Grandma!) and checked out Evil Dead: The Musical playing at the Diesel Playhouse (formerly the Second City theatre).
I am not a horror movie fan, and the clips I’ve seen of the three Evil Dead movies have left me fairly unmoved, but I like musicals, and camp, and it’s gotten great reviews, so off we went. It was as enjoyably silly as I thought it would be—lots of catchy music and clever lyrics (when you could hear them over the unbalanced sound system, that is), interesting staging (just about every object in the cabin set moves) and fine performances all around. Unfortunately Ryan Ward, who originated the role of Ash in Toronto and Off-Broadway, was not there that night, but his replacement Kristian Bruun was excellent (as was Tim Porter, who understudies Bruun’s usual role of Scott. It’s quite the game of musical chairs when someone’s off in that play!). We were not in the famous “splatter zone”, the two rows closest to the stage who get soaked with whatever blood is spraying around the vicinity, but it was pretty hilarious to see the actors simply dump Dixie cups of fake blood right on top of the patrons at stage right. We wondered if the actors knew those people; the local theatre critic got drenched by the bucketful when he dared to brave the splatter zone.
Even though I wasn’t too impressed with the movie clips, I was glad I saw them prior to the show—quite a few of the play’s funnier lines were lifted straight from the films, most memorably Ash’s speech about his “boomstick”. You don’t really have to have seen the movies to appreciate the play; it just adds to the enjoyment to get the in-jokes.
It was interesting to see the play’s audience: Much younger than, say, your average Mirvish theatre-goer—some people our age (the ones who might have seen the movies when they first came out); the rest younger. It was especially telling when we told our mothers (both avid theatre buffs) what play we were going to; they looked at us like we had just announced we were going to a Def Leppard concert.
Young Me Now Me
Our old pal Ze Frank is at it again, this time with a contest called YOUNGME – NOWME. Basically, you post a pic of yourself from childhood, and try to replicate the shot, as best you can.
Sorry to be so late with the info, but contest closes on Sunday (April 20), so you still have time! In the meantime, here’s the gallery of entrants so far. And do let us know if you do it…as we will you.
Fracture follow-up
This morning I went to the Hand Program at Toronto Western Hospital. Finally managed to have a peek at my chart so I could see exactly what the radiologist noted about the x-ray:
Indication: injury
Lucent line at the dorsal base of the distal phalanx with the bony fragment displaced by a distance of 2—3 mm.Interpretation
Minimally displaced intraarticular avulsion fracture at the dorsal and ulnar base of the left fourth distal phalanx.
Definitions
Lucent line: Decreased opacity—classic sign of fracture
Dorsal: back
Distal: The far end of whatever you’re looking at
Phalanx (pl. phalanges) finger or toe bones
Intraarticular: crossing the surface of a joint
Avulsion fracture: fragment of bone tears away from the main mass of bone
Ulnar: on the side of the ulna bone (one of the two forearm bones)
Evidently this rather alarming-sounding (to me) medicalese was not serious enough for the doctor to be too concerned. He briefly looked at the radiologist’s note, barely looked at the x-ray (and didn’t even bother to look at the side-view picture featured in my previous post), slapped a splint on my fingertip and said see you in two weeks. So it doesn’t look like it’s much to be concerned about.
Although if it ends up being something to be concerned about I’m going to be seriously ticked off at him.
My teeny-tiny, oh-so-high-tech finger splint.
Fracture 2
On the evening of April 1st I was spotting while Jon was doing his physio. He was cruising along the kitchen counter when he made a grab for the video remote, lost his balance and toppled over…
(The title of this post, by the way, doesn’t have anything to do with Jon this time. Whew, you say. Back to the story…)
I made an instinctive grab for Jon as he fell, but missed. My left ring fingertip caught on his shirt as he went plop (very nicely on his bum, I might add. He’s always been surprisingly good at breaking his falls.) It was only a couple of minutes later that I noticed that my finger hurt. Over the evening it swelled up, went splotchy purple along one side, and still hurt. I guessed that it was a sprain and decided to splint it and wait to see how it felt, rather than cool my heels in emerg all night.
A day later the last joint of the finger looked puffy and purple, so with horrific visions of mallet finger dancing in my head I decided to go to the walk-in clinic and get it checked out.
“Just a bad sprain,” the doctor said soothingly. “Rest, ice, elevation; splint only if you want to. I’ll give you a requisition for x-rays if it starts feeling worse.”
Fast-forward two weeks and about 100 Advil later. I’m not sure the finger’s feeling worse, but it’s definitely not getting any better, so I get x-rays taken and go to my regular doctor.
“I can’t be sure until I get the x-rays,” she says, “but it’s most likely a sprain.”
X-rays come in the next day. Guess what! (Well, you’ve read the title, so you should know already.) Now I’ve exhausted the resources of family practice and have to haul my sorry finger to the orthopedic doctors at a hand clinic. However, apparently it’s extremely hard for a patient from a family doctor to get appointments at a hand clinic within a month (and by then your broken finger might be an orthopedic wreck). She was getting ready to call me to tell me to go to a hospital emergency room—that way I’d probably only have to wait a week to get to a clinic. Luckily the nurse doggedly called every hospital hand clinic she could think of until she lucked into an appointment for tomorrow morning (thank goodness for cancellations!)
So tomorrow I find out what I get done to this poor finger. The alternatives seem to be A) splint; and B) surgery. Neither sounds fun, but one sounds a lot less fun than the other.
The Orthodontist
[Jon doesn’t always pay attention to gender. Sorry, Dr. Dagys!]
April 16/08
On Monday my mom and dad drove me to the orthodontist. I was waiting for the doctor for a long time. I listened to the iPod at the orthodontist. Then when he came to the office he put me in a dentist chair. I was there for a while. I had a great time. We went back in the car to go home.
Gearing Up for the Season
We’ve been looking at a lot of new gear for Jon in recent days. Some good, some—well, in the end it will be good.
Most exciting is the fact that Jon is being prescribed a walker! This video features a demo model of the Nurmi Neo by Otto Bock. We tried another walker that was heavier and more restrictive, but this one was better, and so the byzantine process to get one has begun. 🙂
[Editor’s Note: As of July 2012, I’ve found a second video from the same session!]
Jon should be getting his new AFO’s in the next few days. We don’t talk about these much, but they’re the custom braces that keep him from pointing his toes and losing range in his ankles and achilles tendons. Jon’s isn’t especially bad in this department, but they’re standard issue for kids with high tone in their legs, and he wears them daily at school.
We’ve started looking at new trikes. Lots to choose from, lots of vendors too. And the theraputic trike prices have come way down from the $2500 for his first therapeutic trike 5 years ago, so that’s nice. More comparison shopping to go.
And last up was the orthodontist, where we chatted with her about the xrays (Jon isn’t missing any permanent teeth like Laura) and did up the game plan. Step #1: All of Jon’s baby eye teeth have to go, to make room for his front teeth for the short term. And in 9 months or so the hardware starts.
And I didn’t even mention the fact that he’s growing so fast, we’re in preliminaries for a new wheelchair!