<p>How about this one, via text message from my Marine son:</p>
<p>S: I have a terrible rash
Me: From what?
S: During a field op I somehow fell onto a cactus that turned out to be poisonous.
Me: Oh, great, did you go see the medic?
S: Nah, but sergeant said to soak my skin in bleach (!!!) and that would kill the poison.
Me: Well that seems a little harsh on your skin. Try tea bags, or Gold Bond or even vinegar.</p>
<p>No reply.</p>
<p>Next day, I ask how the rash is. Oh, i went to the doc and the lotion he gave me sucks. But we went swimming in the ocean and the salt water took care of it.</p>
<p>Sigh. tis not enough that he’s deployed. I get to worry about rashes and bleach too…</p>
<p>Came home from a short trip Sunday night to find in the mail an envelope with SUMMONS and XXXX (our) COUNTY stamped across the front addressed to WildChild. My heart stopped, and I couldn’t imagine what it could be, since he hasn’t been here since last August. Turns out it was a jury summons! He had to fax them his Colorado driver’s license to show that he doesn’t live here.</p>
<p>“Mom, what blood type are you?”
“Uh…O positive.”
“What blood type is Dad?”
“B positive. Why?”
Sob, sob, sob…“That’s what I thought. I told the nurse, and he looked perplexed and told me I was A negative. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you…tell you what? You ARE our daughter!”
After reassuring her and telling her there must be a mix up because I knew she was O positive, I started to have an anxiety attack of massive proportions thinking our D was somehow switched at the hospital. She called back and said there was a mix up and the lab report said she was indeed O positive."</p>
<p>Gee, no one in this house has had need of knowing for sure what their blood type is–not sure what mine is or anyone else in our home! Sorry you had such a nasty scare but am sure glad they didn’t try to give anyone the wrong bloodtype based on that error! That would have been QUITE nasty!</p>
<p>You should always know your blood type (and your relatives should also)–so that you can stop any transfusion of wrong blood should you be in the hospital. The consequences of transfusing the wrong type of blood are enormous and mistakes do happen.</p>
<p>That’s what I thought, too, ellemenope. Then my doc told me that no doc will order a blood type for a patient based on what the patient says. In an emergency, O-neg will be given until the hospital can do its own typing. A patient’s word is not sufficient. (According my doc.)</p>
<p>ETA - I understand your point about stopping a wrong transfusion, and I agree.</p>
<p>Your hospital will also not likely give blood without rechecking the blood typing with reults from the past on the chart, it may not even be the physician’s choice these days- many safeguards in place to avoid human error…</p>
<p>It is also likely that if you’re in the hospital & needing blood, you may be in no condition to be coherent, much less correctly know & communicate your blood type. Checking your long-term chart and re-checking your blood type BEFORE giving you something that may harm you would be the most prudent course.</p>
<p>When you get a unit of blood in a hospital, each unit is individually crossmatched to you. It’s not like you are tested, found to be A positive, and 4units of Apositive blood are taken off the shelf and given to you without any further testing. ABO groups are only one bunch of antigens that can cause troubles.</p>
<p>a missed call and a pitiful voice mail from Ireland… “Momma I want to come home…” dont have international on my cell so had to have my mother call her-ask her to call home. No call all night… skype next day, all was well. Just jet lag and sunday blues…Crap I’d forgotten how you worry about them, then when you finally connect, they have bounced back and moved on. Took a day for the knot in my stomach to go away.</p>
<p>I called D last night at midnight on her cell knowing she had a long drive back to her summer camp job (where there is no cell service) after a late night concert in Berkeley CA.</p>
<p>ME “How was the concert?”
HER " Great- except I got lost a while ago in XXX city"- side note… XXX is not a city you want to be lost in at midnight if you catch my drift.
ME “How did you end up in XXX city?!!!”
HER " I don’t know, but it is okay, the police at the DUI checkpoint told me how to get to the right freeway after they questioned me about drinking and wondering if that was why I was lost. I told them I had not been drinking, I was just the regular kind of lost."</p>
<p>Most any call that starts with a sweet sounding mom is usually not a promising indicator.
Or “don’t get mad”</p>
<p>This isn’t phone based but how about finding out your 16 year old drove to Niagara Falls by seeing a picture on Facebook of her standing in front of Niagara Falls giving a thumbs up??</p>
<p>^ yup, I’d say that’s kinda bad. It gets exponentially worse depending on how far you are from Niagra Falls, but for me the point would be “without permission” one mile or a hundred. Go big or go home? :o</p>
<p>Blueiguana, Niagara falls is a 5 hour drive from our house, a good 270 miles I think. No permission. Told me she was Christmas shopping in Cleveland with her boyfriend. Texted me throughout the day. she is an interesting character… I wonder as parents how many potential crazy phone calls there are in our kids lives. Probably more than we will ever want or will know about. And she is a “good” girl, never gets in trouble at school, etc…</p>
<p>When I was 14, my 21 year old brother wanted to go to San Francisco- about 450 miles from our home. My mom sent me with him because he was notorious for getting lost and confused and she wanted to make sure he would get home. He never lived in the real world… oh yeah. we went on his motorcycle- a Yamaha Midnight Special 750cc (?).</p>
<p>The next year we went to the Grand Canyon (about 500 miles away). </p>
<p>When I told my teachers what “I did that summer” they thought I was lying. I had to show them the pictures of us, his bike, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Grand Canyon. Then they thought my parents were crazy… We became known as one of “those” families at school- the kind with “wild” children. </p>
<p>When I think about my 15 year old daughter doing the same thing today… I wonder what in the hell my parents were thinking. But I guess 1977 and 1978 were different. :)</p>
she is an interesting character… I wonder as parents how many potential crazy phone calls there are in our kids lives. Probably more than we will ever want or will know about. And she is a “good” girl, never gets in trouble at school, etc…</p>
But I guess 1977 and 1978 were different. :)</p>