Celebrating Inchstones: My thoughts on Roger Clemens

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

My thoughts on Roger Clemens

I know you all are waiting patiently to find out what I think of this whole situation. After all, I am a leading authority on all things baseball since I do have 2 All Stars! What do you mean Ponytail softball and 10 year old little league aren't the same as professional baseball?! Ok, it's true. I really don't know much about professional baseball. I can only tell you a handful of players and even then I probably know more about their personal lives than professional career!

At any case I'm gonna share my brilliant train of thought that came to me as I took my 10 minute shower. That's where I do all my deep thinking! There's no telling how brilliant I'd be if I took bubble baths!

So I started wondering how we can live in such a double sided society? Why are we wasting precious time and money investigating baseball and steroids? Do we really care if he was taking steroids? I don't think we do. Don't we show up to games hoping to see the big hits? The no hitter games? I mean don't we all remember following the count as Barry Bonds was on his home run quest several years ago? It was a nightly countdown on all the major nightly news! Ticket sales kept increasing as he came closer and closer to the big one. Did anyone care if he was using illegal drugs? Not really they just wanted to see the big hits!

We are a society of results. We pass off all kind of rule bending and plain ole rule crushing. We celebrate celebrities who are drug abusers or those who abuse women. No matter how bad the sin, we still buy the book, go to the movie or upload the newest record to our iPod. Perfect examples of that are Charlie Sheen or Lindsey Lohan. Have you ever seen a more perfect train wreck than the two of them but still they remain on top of the world! How messed up are we!

And then there is the whole fact that Congress is the one investigating! I'm not sure I'll ever understand that. Don't they have better things to work on than a major league baseball player using drugs just to give us what we want?! Didn't we elect these people to go to Washington to work for our benefit? We've already established that it is us who WANTS the players to shock and awe us.

So I think I've come up with the perfect solution! If we legalized steroids for professional players and tax them high, it'll be a win-win-win! We get our big show, the franchises get tons of money from ticket and merchandise sales and our country gets bazillions in tax dollars! Our national debit could be paid off before the 2012 election eliminating a million campaign commercials....HA, another win! And if no one wants to claim the tax money then I'm sure the UMDF would take it to find a cure for mito!

And to think that I came up with this perfect plan in just 10 minutes! Can you tell I'm just a little tired of all the superficial celebrity and athlete worship we do in this country! By the way I'll let you know when I decide if I'm running for President in 2012! I'm still designing the campaign bus! :-)

2 comments:

Rhonda Hooper said...: Girl you are just too funny! LOL I thought there was a baseball commission to take care of mess like this anyway. Plus, he/they (atheletes) are only hurting themselves by choosing to use steroids. I agree that Congress has more pressing issues to worry their little heads about. I will bring you a loofah and some bath scrub. Maybe that will bring more of that brilliance to the surface! P.s.- I'm thinking glitter for the bus. Can I be one of your Aides? ;); July 7, 2011 at 12:23 AM
Robin Brown said...: Girl.....you would be dangerous I yo ever actually took a long, relaxing bath! Lol! Oh the things u could ponder then!:) great entry....again!:); July 7, 2011 at 11:28 PM

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Asa's story

Asa is the 4th and youngest in this family. We thought he'd come into this world and our lives would flow right along as it had the other 3 times we brought babies into this world.

We were wrong! After a normal pregnancy and delivery, Asa had to be sent to the NICU because he wasn't sucking, blood sugar dropping, floppy muscles, exaggerated startle reflex and jaundice.

He stayed 5 days were he learned to suck and eat enough to come home. He began nursing well but would scream in pain 30 minutes after each feeding. He had so much mucus and drooled so much. He had a terrible rash on his face. He wasn't making eye contact and was not hitting any milestones.

I kept taking him to the pediatrician but got nowhere until his 2 month checkup when he had only gained one pound since birth. That earned him an appt with a pediatric GI and a change to Neocate formula. Odd gasping spells and eye rolling got him into a pediatric neurologist before the GI appt. The neurologist (he was actually the head of the pediatric neurology dept) personally walked us over to the GI clinic and sat us in an exam room. That kinda makes you worry! That is when we really got the ball rolling. Asa was 3 months old.

At 4 months he was admitted to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. He stayed 8 days and had a NG tube inserted so we could feed him directly into his stomach. He kept this for 2 months. Also during this time he had an EEG, CT scan, MRI, upper GI endoscopy with biopsy, flex sig, numerous blood tests, a genetics consult, and an ophthalmology consult and many other pokes and prods! So began our relationship with specialist!!

After 2 months on the NG tube, we removed it and tried to get Asa to eat enough to gain weight. He did OK for a little while but by 9 months old, he was fighting each feeding and not gaining weight despite being on Neocate formula at 30cal/oz. The decision was made to have a G-tube put in. The G-tube is a feeding tube that is inserted directly into Asa's belly. He can eat orally but won't so he gets feed into his belly.

Since he was going to have to be sedated for the surgery, it was agreed he should have a muscle biopsy at the same time. By 9 months he had finally began making eye contact. He smiled some but not very social. He was still very hypotonic (floppy) and didn't even have head control. Something was obviously going on with his muscles. All of his brain scans had been normal.

In Nov. 2008, when Asa was 13 months old, we found out the results of the muscle biopsy. Yes, it took 3+ months to get all of the results! He was diagnosed with Mitochondrial Myopathy. He is deficient in Complex IV for all of you medical junkies out there.

What this means is that his cells can't make enough energy to fuel his body....specifically for him, his muscles and GI system, that we know of. If his body has to burn energy to fight off infection, or a stress, then he looses energy in another system. Mito is a progressive disease with no treatment or cure. We try to keep him as healthy and happy as possible. We use the feeding tube to keep him feed so he doesn't have to struggle there. He takes numerous supplements and vitamins in the hope that they will keep him cells healthier. We check his eyes, hearing, heart, kidneys, liver, brain and lots of blood work yearly. Mito can affect any system so it is important to have baseline and watch for changes. He has a GI, neuro, geneticist, optometrist, ophthalmologist, cardiologist, developmental ped, regular ped and a mito specialist.

He gets OT, PT, speech/feeding and a home teacher weekly. He has some sensory issues with touch, sound, taste and texture. This plays into almost all areas of our lives! He is still very hypotonic but gained head control at just over a year (right after we started supplements!). He learned to sit when placed in a sitting position at 18 months. He still can't get into sitting alone. He learned to bottom scoot at just over 2. He does not crawl or walk.

He knows the signs for "moma", "daddy", "more" and "all done". He can show them when prompted but we are still waiting for him to initiate. He waves "bye-bye" and points all the time now. He loves to take a bath and water in general. He has a contagious laugh and can flash the most flirty grin ever!

We learned, with Asa, not take the small things for granted. Each smile, sound, word, bite or even trouble!! You just never know when they might not be so easy to come by or even if you'll have them at all!