The Colonel T Show

Elizabeth: “I would like to dedicate this dinner to Heath Ledger.”

Me: “I would like to dedicate Forest Whitaker to Heath Ledger.”

I was going to write a post titled “My Daughters are Impossible to Photograph” but then I managed to shoot these little gems. From our morning play session:

That last picture is my Magna-Doodle rendition of “Elmo” as drawn in my new graphic novel, Sesame Street Neo – Chapter Zero: Prologue Gaiden / Z.

After three straight days of daughter-watching, Daddy needed a break. At 8:00 p.m. Monday night, I took in a showing of Cloverfield at the magnificent Charlestown Mall. I won’t spoil the picture for you, or give you my opinion of it, but I will say this: if you are my father, you will hate Cloverfield. Mom, please let Dad know he can skip it, would you?

I knew going in that the Star Trek XI teaser trailer would be unveiled (you can now watch it here, if you want). It made me a little giddy, as Leonard Nimoy does a fresh reading of “Space, the Final Frontier” that’s timed perfectly with the reveal of the new Enterprise. Well, old Enterprise, I suppose, as it doesn’t look much different from the original movie era NCC-1701. That’s a good thing — it’s the finest starship design ever.

I’m still on the fence about this movie, although Mr. J.J. Abrams is certainly doing everything he can to appease the old school fans…Nimoy, the classic Enterprise, the old Starfleet insignia, the original transporter sound effects… but at the end of the day a 29-year-old actor is playing Captain Kirk and I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE OLDER THAN CAPTAIN KIRK.

Hey, quick tangent: this year will mark the return of many actors returning to their classic roles:

Leonard Nimoy as Spock
Sylvester Stallone as Rambo
David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones

My god, it’s like 1984 exploded all over Hollywood. Awesome.

If Abrams could only figure out a way to bring back Shatner as Kirk…and somehow manage to keep it all a secret…oh what a happy day that would be.

If you were to list three statements that you, as a parent, never want to hear, surely two of them would be:

“Your daughter is in Trauma One.”

and

“We need to transfer your daughter to another hospital. She should be in an ICU.”

If I never hear either of those again, it’ll be too soon.

The third statement, for those of you wondering, was uttered by my daughter Molly who, after four days alone with grandparents asked me:

“Molly watch Teletubbies?”

Brutal.

I’d like to thank everyone for your e-mails wishing Madeline a speedy recovery. I read them all to her, and I truly believe they helped in the healing process. The internet is powerful, indeed! In fact, just a few hours after I set up the Twitter site, she asked for apple sauce, the first of many rapid signs of improvement that led to her release just over 24 hours later.

Also, a special thanks to our friends at Evening with Sabs who posted a Maddy tribute.

I’d also like to thank my mom and my mother-in-law, who tirelessly sterilized every surface and object in my house over the course of the four-day hospital stay. I could smell how clean the house was from the outside. It’s so clean, in fact, that Intel is renting out the dining room to manufacture semiconductors.

Finally, no one deserves more props than the mighty ladyfriend herself, Ms. Elizabeth, who didn’t leave Madeline’s side for four days (I actually got to sleep at home one night). The ICU is not designed with adult comfort in mind, and frankly I don’t know how she managed to sleep there every night (the reality is, she may have gotten five hours of sleep the entire time). Maddy needed her mommy, and that’s all that mattered to Elizabeth. Truly she’s a champion and I’m endlessly proud of her.

I think I’ve taken Maddy and Molly’s health for granted — for two years they barely had the sniffles…and then all of a sudden…. Certainly this was the ultimate reality check, although I’m not sure how we could have prevented it. I’ll be implementing a few new policies at the house though, for example, if you’ve ever been sick in your entire life, you are no longer welcome here. We can visit in the driveway if you insist on coming over. Bring a mask.

Some random things from the last week:

–> Certainly the worst part of this experience was watching the nurses try to put an IV into Maddy’s hand. She was so dehydrated that her veins were thin and hard to penetrate. It took about 20 minutes — 20 minutes of watching my daughter effectively be tortured. Take a needle, jam it into the back of your hand, and twist it around for 20 minutes. I’ll never forget the sounds of her screaming. The worst part was during the ambulance ride to the ICU, the transport techs crimped the IV line, so the ICU nurses had to put a new line in — again, 20 more minutes of torture.

–> Maddy was hooked up to a monitor which displayed her heart rate as green number above her oxygen level, which was a blue number. I told Elizabeth “this must be her health and mana levels.” Elizabeth didn’t even bother telling me to shut up.

–> Molly (AKA Miss Molly Marie Burrito Munchkin Girl) spent four days with her grandmother, and really got a kick out of being a only child. Teletubbies aside, she actually did come back with a remarkably improved vocabulary. Off the top of my head, some quick examples:

“Molly fall down!”
“Elmo fall down”
“Molly go boom!”
“Here you go Daddy!”
“Tea party!”
“Daddy help me?”
“Go upstairs/downstairs?”
“Real cool!”
“More juice please?”
“Beard all gone!”
“Pentagon!” (in response to seeing a pentagon shape)
“Stop Sign!” (in response to seeing a stop sign)
“Regis!” (in response to seeing Regis Philbin, and I’m totally not kidding)

And so, life continues, with two healthy, beautiful children asleep upstairs. Tomorrow, I’ll wake them up, and they’ll smile and shout “Hi!” and “Daddy!” and “Waffles!” and I’ll be reassured that all is right with the world. Love you, ladies — good to have all of you back and better than ever.

Maddy in the ICU:

Healthy Maddy Posing:

Molly, Just Being Molly:

Let me be clear: Madeline is going to be just fine.

In the meantime, however…

After two misdiagnoses (a “cold” on Thursday and “bacterial pneumonia” on Saturday), on Sunday a blood test revealed Maddy has contracted RSV, or Respiratory Syncytial Virus. It’s essentially a viral pneumonia, which means there’s no magic pill. Antibiotics are useless against a virus. Only time and professional care will treat this.

A night in the pediatrics ward of one Chicago hospital resulted in no positive progress, and the following morning our doctor recommended we transfer to the Intensive Care Unit of another hospital, where the three of us have been living since Monday morning. Maddy’s twin sister Molly is staying with grandparents, and thankfully, shows no signs of the illness.

Maddy’s on oxygen (two little tubes just inside her nostrils), an IV, and has been receiving nebulizer treatments. She’s having a little trouble breathing, specifically processing pure oxygen. Getting her off the oxygen tubes is the first step in getting her out of the ICU.

She showed some progress today — for the first time she asked for food (apple sauce) and she laughed at some of my hilarious comedy. She’s got a long way to go (recovery from RSV can take as long as two weeks) but seeing her smile again has brought us new energy.

I’ve set up a Twitter site if you’re interested in following her recovery. Her mother and I are updating it regularly. I won’t be updating this site for a while (surprised?) so make sure you bookmark that one.

Thanks for all of your thoughts, prayer, cards, and letters.

Maddy’s Twitter Site: http://twitter.com/maddyrose

Information about RSV: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/respiratory/rsvfeat.htm