February-March 2003 update

Julia's Ears

If Dad can feed Julie -- why can't Julie feed Dad? One day she did! Vegetable salad! With her bare hands! (I stopped her when she tried to pick up my fish!)

One-year-old Julia has been dealing with a very stubborn ear infection for the past six weeks or so. One eardrum broke in late January. She received treatment, and two days after she was given a clean bill of health, the other eardrum broke. After a couple more weeks of treatment, she was again said to be well enough that she didn't need medicine anymore, on March 1. Two days later, both eardums broke.

At this point, we changed doctors.

It's disturbing that the first doctor seemingly couldn't tell that the infection was persisting. The eardrum had closed up, the swelling was "going down", there was no drainage in her sinuses, so he seemed to think that nothing more needed to be done. Perhaps he had too much faith in the medicine, which we're now told was not the right kind for this problem. Or perhaps this is a bug that's resistant to antibiotics?

Julie "kisses" a stuffed seal.

Anyway, the poor kid had her eardrums drained twice the first week of March, and has subsequently been feverish, which we're told is normal. It seems that this fluid would normally have drained out the nose, but in her case it became trapped in there. I wonder if, in the future, she might need to have some kind of tubes put in to help her ears drain properly.

I'm sorry to say that she got this tendency from my side of the family. My brother and I both had numerous earaches as kids, though no broken eardrums that I recall. My dad still gets ear infections as an adult, and has had broken eardrums so often in his life that he's had to have an artificial one put in. Interestingly, our other three kids have had very little trouble with their ears.

Show Me the Money -- PLEASE!

In 2001 I spent seven months employed by a startup company which I left mainly because their income was too low to promptly pay salaries. I got a small portion of what I'm owed in 2002, but the vast majority of that money has still not come.

In early February the company had its bank account seized because it hadn't paid taxes. This told me that the time for quietly waiting to be paid had passed. I've discussed the problem with the Central Labor Office and have gotten the company's promise to sign an agreement to pay me an installment every month until the debt is paid off. At this writing, the labor office is having the agreement translated into Japanese; then they will send it in English to the company to sign, and then I will sign. I hope to see the first installment on April 1.

Tim Young

March 7, 2003

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