No school is perfect but...

The boys are beginning this school year at a new school. I am so excited, it feels as if I am going along with them.
I am fighting my enthusiasm and trying to temper my mood with reminders to be cautiously optimistic.
We didn't change schools because we moved. We changed because after 5 years at our last school, I did not feel my eldest, or our family for that matter, were getting what we needed.
I have listened to the refrain of "no school is perfect" for half his life now.
My teacher sister-in-law often reminded me.  And I get that.
I tried to solve for my misgivings, by joining the PTA to be close to what was going on. I hustled school fundraiser events and booked after school meetings. I volunteered at movie nights and open houses.
The decision to leave was far from knee jerk.
We chose to live in one of the poorest school districts in Massachusetts because it was where my husband and I both grew up.We like our town - all of it. Most of our family is here, a complete and beautiful support system for our children.
It all seemed like a plan until my oldest was ready for Kindergarten.
As a reporter, I covered the public school system's flagging test score results, the woefully high teen pregnancy stats, the classroom crowding. I knew teachers in the system who were and are exceptional, but struggling against a tide with so few resources it's unfathomable.
We answered our concerns with a, "We went to school here." With our combined degrees we did OK, we reasoned.
Still many friends encouraged us to leave to any one of the nearby bedroom communities with high state test scores and in some cases, corresponding lack of diversity.
That wasn't what we wanted.
My friend who teaches in one of the best school systems in the country told me to think hard because I would be giving up one set of challenges for another - the kind heightened by affluence and entitlement.
So I stayed.
And Kindergarten was truly delightful.
What had I feared?
But by first grade angst returned.
His teacher asked him to write with his right hand when he was a leftie. He was teased for paying for his lunch because most of  the other children - given the poverty level- did not pay.
Why do I have to pay? he would ask.
We paid in the office from then on as though there was a secret to hide.
It seemed a little insane. Like I was choosing my social politics over what felt right for my son.
When I questioned his first-grade teacher about the necessity and stress of testing every week.
She said: "This is a college preparatory school."
Really? He's six.
Still we soldiered on.
 In second grade together, with our son's teacher, we discovered his writing was not where it should be. Some occupational therapy would be in order. It took until the end of the school year to get anyone to look at him despite all of our prodding to the administration.
What are we doing? I would say to my husband.
In third grade we had lovely teachers and more questionable school policies.
At 8, he was an old enough upper classman to join movie club. Turns out movie club was showing PG13 movies to third graders - you know the kind with swearing and sexual innuendo or just plain sex like Transformers 2. I found out about movie club after I told my son he could not watch the aforementioned flick because it was inappropriate.
"But mom, I already watched it in school!!"
What?
I sent the principal a list of educational and entertainingly age-appropriate films. I got no response.
The school's solution was to cancel the club with no explanation and offer the movie- club- kids an extra recess.
Naturally, the summer before fourth grade, we debated our return.
He has friends there. 
We loved the majority of his teachers.
 He is interested in learning.
What would it do to him to take him out?
What more could we do?
Was leaving really the answer?
We stayed.
Then one week into school, the Kindergarten teacher's aide told my youngest to "shut-up." The principal told me this was "cultural" and she would speak to the aide.
Despite both boys having bright and attentive teachers, we could not talk to them directly or frequently enough, as was the case with my oldest, to stay on top of any challenges. School policy prevented teachers from writing  notes home or responding to me without going through an administrator.
Test scores from my oldest came back weeks or months after the fact. In full disclosure, he too had things to work on - study habits and accountability can be lacking in 9-year-olds.  But he alone, was not the problem.
I know some will write me off  by saying the move was because the school's curriculum was too challenging, or that I am "Tiger Mom" and expected him to get all A's.
Not true.
 Last year, we had seven teacher/administration conferences. The results were like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Each end of term period became marathon home-schooling sessions every night after work.
I felt insane.
We shelled out thousands to a tutor for the study skills we were promised when we entered the school with visions of college prep in our heads.
I am just plain tired.
So here we are...a new school, a new year, a new chance.
When we visited the new school, a teacher told me I could contact her by e-mail anytime. And homework, papers, and test results?
"Oh those come back within 48 hours at the latest."
I can work with that.
As my mom used to say to me when I was a kid, "We'll see."

Remembering Bird by Bird...A BlogHer perspective

It has been two weeks since I came back from BlogHer'11 in San Diego. There was so much inspiration there, I am finding it hard to write at all.
 It's easy to get overwhelmed. Getting back to work, running around with the boys and killing myself with Jillian Michaels exercise videos is not always conducive to letting the muse flow. My suitcase, like the ideas running around in my head, still sits half unpacked in my room.
So I've decided to take a page from writer Anne Lamott and her awesome instruction manual, "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life."
I don't have to do it all. I just have to lay things out bird by bird.
So let me start with my recap.
The single most important takeaway I have from Blogher'11 is that moms can change the world.
In two days at the conference, I met women and some men who were leading the charge on educating the world on topics like patient rights and the differently-abled .
I attended a mini conference for special needs parents and advocates and learned about and met women from groups like Moms Clean Air Force and Moms Rising that organize and raise their collective voice in an effort to ensure our children live in a healthier world .
There were also "blogHers" who spoke about educating children on saving and managing money so they might not begin their adult lives behind the financial curve.
As Gloria Steinem wrote in an HBO live chat about her "In Her Own Words" documentary recently:
"Mommy blogging is a great community for mutual support, and also for making social change. "
I"ll second that.

Summer vacation

His refusal to eat the blue slushy, was the first sign something was really wrong.

At first I thought my 10 year old's stomach ache was the result of Midwest heat we were experiencing on vacation.

But not long after, he started throwing up.

The lists of ailments raced through my mind.
Stomach bug?
Food poisoning?

He didn't really eat much all day. That's when I first thought appendicitis. My husband was not convinced.

And yet I could not shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong.

At 4 a.m. he woke up and vomited again and told me it hurt to urinate.
The new symptom sent us racing to the ER.

At the hospital my son's eyes seemed to sink into his skull. From the bed he reached for my hand. He had pain on the right side, he told the doctors who pushed and tapped on his belly. They moved his legs, they took his temperature and his blood. They gave him an IV.

His white blood cell count came back high. The ER doctor told us there was an infection and my son's pain was pointing towards appendicitis.

But there was a disclaimer. Appendicitis is a tricky diagnosis.

No one seemed to want to say for sure.

As time ticked by, we went for an ultrasound for some perspective. It showed nothing.

An upbeat resident popped in to say that sometimes the appendix hides behind other
organs so it is not visible. He drew us a picture and told us sometimes a rectal exam helps identify appendicitis.

I thought we were on to something until two other doctors from the surgery team came in and said the whole episode might be viral, an impostor illness called mesenteric adenitis.

I wasn't buying it. My son's eyes and his actions were saying something else. He wouldn't build a Lego figurine I got him. His face was suddenly flushed.

I called the nurse.

He's getting a fever now, I said, when the upbeat resident came back.

He asked my son to jump up and down. His lanky frame doubled over.
The upbeat resident nodded his head knowingly at another appendicitis sign.
But he couldn't make the call on his own.

Like judge and jury, the rest of the surgical team weighed in. They shook their head at the resident's suggestion that the appendix was hiding.

The other doctors pressed on my son's slender belly and asked him how he felt. He said "good." It was a reflexive answer to adults by a 10-year old who was scared and wanted to get back to his vacation. Ten year olds know that telling people what they want to hear can sometimes change things. Was I the only one who knew this?

Tell them where it hurts, I say.

I tick off my own observations: It still hurts him to urinate. He has a fever now.

But the surgeon, head of trauma and all things critical care, has seen people screaming and doubled over in pain.

That's not your son, he said.

Still, the team admits him to see if his condition worsens.

Upstairs on floor ten, I pace.

My son won't look at his iPod touch. He doesn't want to talk.
He sucks in his breath through his teeth when he pees.

On rounds the same chief surgeon and resident entourage enter the room.
He explains why we are waiting again but I can't listen to it anymore.

"Are you telling me there is no possibility that his appendix is inflamed and behind another organ?"

The chief tells me I have three options: I can go with his game plan of watch and wait, or have him perform a possible unnecessary surgery, or expose my son to cat scan radiation that may give him cancer later in life.

I felt cornered, like a gun was to my head to pick an option I don't truly know will save my little boy.

My stupefied silence gives the go ahead for his plan.

My son falls asleep only to awaken screaming in pain, sliding off the side of his bed and into my arms. His eyes close.

"Finn, Finn stay with me Finn," I said tapping his face.

His fever was now 102.9.
I tell the nurse this isn't normal. This isn't a virus, I say.

Please get someone.

Three hours later a new doctor comes by to press on my son's belly. It hurts everywhere now. It's appendicitis. On rounds the next morning five other doctors confirm it, but not officially and not without a cat scan.

The scan shows pus in the abdomen - confirmation that the infection raging through my first-born's body is bacterial.

He needs surgery but the nurse tells us there are no operating rooms open. It's a scheduled operating day. We could wait 10 minutes or hours.

But he has a serious infection, I say.
He needs antibiotics now.

Surgery comes quick after the head surgeon sees the CT films.

In recovery, we are told all went well.

Did we lose 12 hours? The head doctor asks me as i cling to my husband's arm. Then he answers his own question with a: "Probably. It's hard to know. "

I have a flash of irritation but feel my shoulders drop.

He's going to be ok.

But then he wasn't.

Back upstairs a resident on the team looks at me, his face twisted in concern.

So you understand there is a high risk of abscess now?
Panic races through me like an electrical current

My son's appendix was gangrenous. I know the not-so-good meaning of the word. I remember from healthcare reporting the poor outcomes of violent infections in the body.

I am scared.

I demand his records at the nurse's station.

How can I protect my son if you are not telling me how sick he is?

I don't sleep for days.

I memorize his vital signs. I look for traces of blood in his vomit and don't brush my hair.

I trust no one. I go by my gut.

On the fifth day he eats his favorite grilled cheese.

We can finally go home. We're getting better. But we are not the same.