My littlest DD has had allergy testing before (basic, nothing elaborate) and has no allergies. She loves eating seeds, mostly sunflower seeds and I bought pumpkin seeds for her at the store (just the seeds, no shell). She was eating them yesterday when she complained about her tongue hurting. I asked her if it was the salt on them and she said no, her tongue felt funny and hurt. I told her to quit eating the pumpkin seeds and after a couple of hours she felt better. Tonight, she was eating them again and said her lips felt tingly and hurt. She had only eaten a few so I told her to quit eating them again. After about 30 minutes she felt better. (I've told her to quit eating them completely by the way). Could it be pumpkin seeds or maybe something else? Does this sound like an allergy? The only ingredients are pumpkin seeds and salt.

I wasn't sure if your husband did computer work, but if so, he might be able to do maintenance and computer repair on the karate studio's website in exchange for your daughter going. (I consider karate to be very important). Sorry, that was my only suggestion. Good luck, I think others here have made good suggestions. :)

I wanted a sandwich, a soda and a nap after the girls were born. :) On a side note, my grandfather once stayed in a VERY nice section of the hospital (they were short of beds so he stayed in a VIP area). We loved it. There was a separate bedroom for him and a living area for guests (fridge/microwave included). His meals included things like shrimp cocktail and filet mignon. lol Loved it. :)

I think this is one of those situations where one has to step aside and say, "It's not the way I would do it". Perhaps people who drink more than I do can explain it better since I don't understand it myself. This is a person who starts mixing drinks by 10 am and continues until bedtime. I couldn't function like that, but this person can (and does). They cook, garden, socialize, shop, etc under the constant influence of alcohol. Not staggering, but I don't know that I would consider them sober either. Currently, they are taking "breaks" to run home and drink enough to keep them going until the next "break". They have recently moved to sneaking alcohol into the hospital. Honestly, their typical steady alcohol "diet" is going to work better than over-drinking. I know it sounds horrible and I'm sure that people will think I'm a bit nuts for thinking that it's "okay". I don't agree with it but there isn't a better solution at the moment. I am trying to work on some alternate solutions to "take the edge off" in other ways. In a crisis, I believe this person could still contact nurses. Again, not ideal, but the other option is for nobody to be in the room. Neither of them want this, they want to be together.

Since I couldn't find anything about alcohol in hospitals online, I called my sister who is a floor/charge (not sure?) nurse at a hospital. She told me that typically hospitals expect people to do the right thing and not bring it in, but she has only had a problem with it one time when someone became belligerent. She said that typically they look the other way. My sister also doesn't drink so we were both a bit surprised that people would take alcohol to a hospital. Although I don't drink a lot, I feel comfortable in my belief that the person I referred to in my original post is an alcoholic and not likely to change, ever. My advice to them was that the nurses would probably look the other way but to be very discreet and make sure to have someone else driving. If anyone finds a definitive answer, I'd love to hear it. After reading some of the posts, I've revised my original opinion and I think that a guest visiting might comfortably imbibe some alcohol (equivalent to having a drink at a restaurant) if they were staying overnight. I know some people who like to drink a glass of wine before bed.

I'm glad you were able to get everything resolved. :) Just as a FYI, we had to stop payment on a check years ago. I was furious when I saw it in my cleared check items online. When I called the bank they told me not to worry, sometimes checks would be deposited and show as cleared but they would always reverse within a day or two (and it did). You may want to keep an eye on it and make sure that the reverse on the hold went through and it doesn't accidentally become a stop payment.

I agree with this and sadly have seen times where weirdos pretended to be little kids to strike up a friendship. If I were in your shoes, I'd pretend to be dd and get OG's telephone number and give it a ring. If it's an old man, call the police. If it's a young kid, at least you will know and you can talk to her mother.

I'm glad he's getting that looked into and hoping/praying for the best. :)

Just as a warning to others, I googled the terms and went to wikipedia. They show FULL pictures of the piercings so don't open with little kids around. :D Or big kids either. I choked on my sweet tea. :tongue_smilie: Nance, blast him next time. Seriously. Just because a kid can use grown up terms regarding piercings and tattoos doesn't mean that a grown up can use grown up topics when talking to kids. That was completely inappropriate and creepy to boot. I'm sorry it happened. :(

My opinion is that yes, this person is an alcoholic. Not a stumbling, slurring drunk, but needing a drink to "take the edge off" on a daily basis.

Assume that it's being smuggled in so it's not blatantly obvious other than the smell of alcohol on a person's breath. (For the record, I agree with you, but interestingly I can't find anything on google to clarify).

My middle daughter took the OLSAT at the end of 3rd grade. She did well on it, scoring in the upper 90's. She didn't test this year (4th grade). We have officially pulled her out of school and will be home schooling her next year. I know I shouldn't worry, but I'm a worrier by nature. :) Should I expect her OLSAT scores to stay about the same or shift around? My best friend told me that other kids would catch up which would naturally bring her down some and not to worry if it shifts. I was wondering if anyone here knew whether there was a big variance in test scores of this type as kids get older or if it basically stayed the same? Our home school cover group requires testing each year so I'm curious. Thanks :)

Can a visitor, who is staying for several hours or overnight with a patient, take alcohol (wine) to a hospital for their own consumption (not the patients)? Editing to add - This is not for my benefit but for someone else. ;) I do engage in an occasional drink, but it's only about 2 or 3 times a year.

I soaked in bleach water for a few days and then i set them out in the sun for about a week.

Thank you. i'm going to call and see if they have any helpful information. :)

:grouphug: praying

My Step FIL is still in the hospital. He has been there since last Tuesday. He was finally diagnosed with a UTI and meningitis. They have had difficulty treating him but are rotating three different antibiotics which seem to be helping. He still has several days before being released and currently, he is unable to even stand unassisted. (There are plans for him going to a rehab center once he is released). My MIL is literally a nervous wreck. I would like to hire a caretaker to go sit with him overnight (and perhaps some during the day) but I'm not sure how to go about doing this. Does anyone have any suggestions? And any idea how much it would cost? DH has left work and is going down for the rest of the day and I'm going to try to go for the day tomorrow (my oldest is almost finished with recovery from her tonsillectomy).

My husband is on a tear about health insurance and I'm trying to look into it for our family. We currently have health insurance through his company. They pay part of it and we pay part of it. He wants to try to negotiate with his company and have them increase his pay and for him to opt out of company health insurance. (For the record, I don't think this will fly but he'll be upset if I don't look into it - so please assume that they will agree to do this.) We must have health insurance. My oldest has autism and our other two kids have various things. Mostly, it's our oldest that I worry about. Our current health insurance doesn't cover several things for her, no psychiatrist visits, no voice output device, and other small things that have come up over the years. My husband wants us to switch to a better policy that would cover these things and wouldn't take up so much of our outside cash. I am trying to figure out the pros/cons of dental and eye insurance as well. Has anyone done this before? How hard is it to get insurance on your own? Our best option is Blue Cross/Blue Shield, but I'm at a loss on how to get started. I would love other opinions and suggestions. Thanks :)

My husband loses his glasses and has to call someone to find them for him, so I sympathize. :) In the laundry that he cleared off, underneath the bed or behind it when they fell or in the couch.

Thanks for all the good thoughts and wishes. :) MIL called and said that they believe they have the right antibiotics for him now. It was definitely a UTI but they were worried because he wasn't responding like they thought he should. They now think he might possibly have meningitis as well but they said if he did, it was not the "bad" kind and he would be okay. He seemed to come to today and recognized people and stood up twice with some help. He still can't eat. MIL is looking for a place where he can go where he can be watched for a few weeks before he comes home. Thanks so much. :) Kalanamak - thanks for the gift suggestion. I'll definitely check it out for them. They are both so good with SFIL and (being male) are able to help him when he gets stuck in the tub, etc. They are wonderful, wonderful neighbors.

Part of the frustration is that MIL is not medical-minded in the slightest. I am very thankful that a nurse walked in on her crying at 3 am and realized that she didn't understand the simplest of medical terms. She sat down and explained what cultures were and answered MIL's questions. I think she must have noted that somewhere because MIL said that people are talking slower and she understands them better now. I don't know what tests they have run except that MIL said they ran many tests. They were doing lots of cultures. At this point, he has been in the hospital for nearly 4 full days and they are still baffled. They did a CT and a MRI (and probably other things that MIL couldn't remember). MIL said the doctor thinks that SFIL has a brain infection of some sort. She said that he told her that if so, it would be like having the flu, they couldn't do much but make SFIL comfortable until the infection was gone and then SFIL would be okay again. We won't know anything more until tomorrow. If oldest dd hadn't just had surgery (tonsils, adenoids, ear tubes), we would already be there. I'm hopeful that oldest dd will be much better by Sunday or Monday and I can drive down and help MIL. Her neighbors across the street have been so wonderful. If they hadn't insisted that MIL call an ambulance, SFIL would probably be dead by now. They are taking care of her pets (including chickens) and looking over her two houses. I'm not sure how to tell them how much DH and I appreciate it. I'll have to put some thought into that one. Oh, and the foaming at the mouth made me think seizure. At the time, they only had a thermometer for under the tongue and it apparently registered above 104. Maybe it was part of a seizure brought on by fever?

No recent dental work that I know of...they are now saying that perhaps it isn't a UTI since the cultures aren't showing anything. They thought it was based on his symptoms. They had a doctor go over all he had been doing for the past few days. Unfortunately, they are into a lot of alternative/holistic medicines (no slams please from either side) and it's difficult to figure out if he was trying something new. (For example, someone had told him that mild shocks were good for a person's system so he would take small batteries and hook them up so he would small shocks. I know it sounds weird....). At this point, we're just waiting until tomorrow for more news... :(

My mother had a stroke and decided to change her name. She went from her full first name to a trendy set of initials (JJ actually). Along the way she divorced my dad, ran off with her married neighbor (who had recently finished a prison sentence) and lived on a sailboat for three years as well as cutting off contact with all of us because she was "tired of being a mom". I hope your neighbor is a bit more sane than my Mom. :) (My mom, btw, eventually moved into a regular house and regained most of her brain!)

I wanted to update just in case anyone had any other thoughts. I modified my original post. Basically SFIL is getting worse. All of the cultures were supposed to come back today but they apparently aren't showing much information. They did a spinal tap and think that perhaps he has some type of meningitis. He seems to be in a stupor and when he wakes up occasionally still does not recognize anyone. They have called in a specialist from infectious diseases. My poor MIL is devastated. :(

Wow, that's amazing that it could do so much. He will get better, won't he?