Geek Habitat

Erika & Jay’s baby, Samson, is out of surgery. Read more over on SnazzyKat.com. And to think us average folk ever think we have things rough! An infant with 6+ hour surgery, followed by several days of leaving his chest cavity open, and an extended stay in the hospital? Nevertheless, these are wonderful things because they give Sammy a very good chance at life, but how easy that is to say when it isn’t your little one on a ventilator with wires and IV’s full of impossibly difficult to pronounce meds flowing through his little bloodstream.

It’s a good thing Dr. “Bones” McCoy isn’t around. “How barbaric!” he’d probably say. And in his era, it is, but today’s cutting edge still sadly involves cutting sometimes. Maybe someday we’ll have medical tricorders and the curing of all manner of injuries and diseases without ever having to resort to blood, cuts, sutures or titanium screws!

All the best to the Snazzy family, and really everyone raising a youngster with any condition that most of us have to be educated on before we have any words, and even then, frequently not the right ones. (Rob, Dana & Schuyler, that’s for you.)

I didn’t realize I could be such an effective “force for change”!

Granted, my powers seem limited to getting a “CyberDudes” section added to GameWallpapers.com. Apparently, I was either compelling enough in my reasoning, or annoying enough in my persistance and blogging on the topic.

So, if you’re a GameWallpapers.com subscriber, or haven’t been because you couldn’t find hunky male characters amid all the “CyberBabes,” they’ve now at least made a new “CyberDudes” section using their existing collection. Even the webmaster was a bit surprised — their ratio is 14 pages of CyberBabes to 2 pages of CyberDudes.

Anyway, members can find it via a link at the top of the “Cyberbabes” section; the URL is, appropriately, CyberDudes. Enjoy!

For those of you who read my earlier posts about Baby Sammy and his family, Erika has posted the first photos of Samson on her Flickr site. Sammy has not yet had surgery but is scheduled for it sometime early next week.

We three geeks joined up for a little questing in Lakeshire this afternoon:

• Tanman, level 20 Night Elf hunter (our 11-year-old nephew)
• Cirrusfel, level 53 human shadow priestess (me)
• Ravencroft, level 51 human warlock (Justin)

– World of Warcraft, Argent Dawn server, February 25, 2006

PS: Not surprisingly, WoW rocks on my new PC!

A streaker temporarily disrupted an Olympic men’s curling match today. Best part? The male streaker was nude except for a “strategically placed rubber chicken.” Cock-a-doodle-doo?

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Sorry, I really haven’t had any blog inspiration since my last entry. Speaking of which, I have no updates other than to link to Erika’s Flickr photos and Erika’s blog. Due to Baby Sammy’s congenital heart defect, even under the best of circumstances Erika and Jay didn’t anticipate they’d get much time with Sammy before he went into surgery shortly after birth.

So, keep those prayers and good vibes flowing — I’m sure the new family would appreciate it!

Addendum: “Samson Daniel was born at 7:05am this morning (February 24, 2006). He weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces and was 19 inches long.” Congrats, to the “Snazzy family”!

The last time I did this, it was pre-blog and my now 11-year-old nephew was in NICU due to being born blue (oxygen-deprived) and with a host of other issues, and his mom was trying to recover from a severely high fever and pre-eclampsia (including seizures/convulsions). Through the family’s church, prayers were solicited far and wide and, despite my rather amorphous spiritual beliefs, I prayed every day and night.

Why now, again?

Erika, aka “SnazzyKat,” is a blogger I’ve been following for quite awhile, but only recently linked. I enjoy her fun-loving personality, her obvious love of teaching at-risk youth, and her love for her husband, Jay. When I found out she was pregnant, I started following her blog more closely, and most of the news was good — it’s a boy! he’s a big boy! His name is Samson Daniel! However, there’s also a bit of not-so-good news — Baby Samson has HLHS, a congenital heart defect that requires immediate open-heart surgery, as well as additional procedures and monitoring as he matures.

Baby Samson’s due date is February 24th, but Erika is scheduled for an induction Wednesday (22nd) morning, if Sammy doesn’t decide to come before then. We’ve all had a virtual betting pool going on, and Sammy seems to really like it in there, so the 22nd looks quite likely at this point.

With the approaching birth of Baby Samson, it’s time to send some prayers, good vibes, positive energies and supportive comments to Mom Erika, Daddy Jay, and Baby Samson on the start of their journey. They have all the usual new baby excitement, stress and uncertainty, coupled with the inescapable realities of a newborn with a life-threatening congenital heart defect and immediate, life-saving surgery.

Erika and Jay have a good support system of family, friends (virtual as well as RL) and a few couples who also have HLHS kids. Sadly, one such HLHS family in their support network lost their baby girl, Grace, last week. She was only 5 weeks old, and had undergone ground-breaking HLHS surgery in-utero. So prayers and good vibes are necesary for the family of Baby Grace, as well.

You know I don’t do this prayer chain stuff lightly. Whatever your “flavor” of belief, please take a moment to send something positive into the cosmos for Erika, Jay & Baby Samson, and their friends who are dealing with the loss of their baby daughter. I cannot imagine what either family is going through right now…

- Shannon

The preceding thoughts follow in the footsteps of Magnolia Mom and A Mom’s Life, among others sending out their love and prayers to SnazzyKat and her family.