Update 29 January 2012

Aside from a couple of rainy days, this has been an extraordinarily pleasant week with blue skies and daytime temperatures around 80 degrees. Despite having grown up in such a climate, I keep finding myself in denial that it’s really January. It has been so nice to have the kids playing outside nearly every day. I’m realizing how much the weather of the day influences the weather in our home.

After a multitude of problems with his passports and travel visas, Kirk left for Europe on Tuesday. He spent Wednesday-Friday in Switzerland, the hub of Medtronic’s international business unit. On Saturday, he travelled to Kazakhstan (not many people can say that!). Apparently, while so many other countries are facing austerity measures and recession, Kazakhstan came into a monetary windfall that it needs to liquidate. (Did you know that governments can’t *save* money from year to year?!) So, Kazakhstan benevolently decided to pay for 800 of its diabetic citizens to receive insulin pumps. Enter Kirk and the Central Asia team, who must now adapt the country’s previous business model (50 pumps total) to the current status (800 new customers). Insulin pumps are an unusual medical device: when you put in a pacemaker or brain stint, the doctor does all the work. Conversely, with insulin pumps, all the work rests upon the patient. While diabetes pumps make life easier and healthier for diabetes patients, they’re still A LOT of work compared to what the rest of us deal with. For example, do you schedule every meal, count every carb, and calculate the insulin needed to digest your food? For the diabetes business unit, this all translates into a lot of housekeeping duties: you have to train doctors, you have to train patients, you have to put reps in the country, and you have to maintain a language-specific call center. In some respects, the company almost takes on a nursing role to the patients. So, Kirk and his colleagues are scrambling to set up these logistics. Complicating issues, about ½ of the doctors who were supposed to attend the conference in Kazahkstan had visa problems like Kirk, only theirs didn’t get resolved in time. Also, Kirk’s colleague and director on this project was just diagnosed with cancer,  and his “right-hand man” (a woman) is having a baby—all at the same time!

Compared to the drama in Kirk’s life, the rest of our happenings seem pretty dull. Carlos caught a cold, which stirred up his asthma. I kept him home on Friday and having been loading him up with Zyrtec, Benadryl, Triaminic, Mucinex, and two nebulizer medicines. He insisted upon playing in his LILA soccer game on Saturday, so I filled him up with medicine and his coach scheduled frequent rest periods for him. Carlos is amazingly talented at soccer and it will be interesting to watch him progress. 

On Tuesday, Arianna participated in a special class and play group for kids who sometimes struggle with social situations. She had a great time, but both our insurance and the state decided that they will not help pay for further therapy.    We are working with her school to raise students’ acceptance and tolerance of peers with “differences.”

On Friday, Arianna and her classmates presented their mission projects to the parents. It was fun to see the many ways that the kids created their mission models. One boy made his completely out of Legos! Later on Friday, Arie made a calendar/message board in art class. She really enjoys art but has decided to switch to a Lego class in February. 

This week, I applied for 13 teaching positions. They are all at “opportunity” schools—the only schools hiring right now.  I am kind of nervous about potentially getting hired by a school full of high-risk students, but, then again, maybe I could actually make a difference at that kind of school. For now, I have to play the waiting game and cross my fingers that someone wants to hire a new teacher.  

I did not some not-so-triumphant sewing this week. I’m sure you’ll get a laugh out of it, but I feel pretty stupid. As you know, Carlos is a short, wide boy. This means that I have to hem all of his pants up 3-4 inches. Well, this week, I hemmed up his suit pants (black and navy). Unfortunately, I was an overachiever and hemmed one leg of the black pants twice.    This is why we do not put Laurens and sewing machines together!

Finally, and this is not really *our* news, but little cousin Asher fractured his ankle this week. I blush to admit that I laughed when I found out because I remember Arianna fracturing her wrist at the same age. There is just something crazy and reckless about two-year-old beasties! I hope, however, that this does not translate into a new family tradition.

We hope that everyone is well, and we look forward to sharing Kirk’s stories with you when he returns later this week.

P.S. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my dad being in the hospital. But I left out a detail that I think is worth mentioning, since it is a funny indicator of our times. When I learned that my dad was in the hospital, I asked my mom if anyone else knew. Specifically, I wanted to let a few people in their ward know so my parents would have a local support network. My mom hadn't contacted anyone, so I offered to make the calls. But I later realized that I didn't have the phone numbers for any of my parents’ ward friends! I also didn’t have their email addresses. So, I went on facebook and messaged a few ward members from there. Within an hour or two, people began to respond and were ultimately able to get in touch with my parents. It’s a random little anecdote, which is why I originally didn't include it in my update, but it continues to make me giggle. What an interesting and quickly changing technological world we live in!