Visions of Aestia

Always put your dice away after a game if you have little children.

If you don’t, you’ll have to miss a day of work because the little one has been taken down to ER.

Cecily stood for several minutes at a time today. I was busy preparing her dinner and she was standing next to her little scooter beeping the horn. She was clearly balancing herself - as opposed to leaning on the scooter - but it didn;t really register.

That is, until she clapped. She has an endearing habit of applauding when she does something she is proud of or is especially excited. The fact that she did so without a second thought and without any special effort to keep her balance drove home just how close she is to actually walking on her own.

Any day now…

Here is the first screenshot from the character generator. This is the screen for rolling and assigning ability scores.

This is currently set to the standard 4d6, drop 1 method of rolling. The dropped die is shown here grayed out. The combo boxes can be used to quickly swap scores around.

The plan is that you hit “Roll” until you have some nice scores, then use the combo boxes to put scores where you like. One or two swaps should be fine for most people.

Of course, the DM will be able to restrict the rolling methods, number of rolls, and range of scores. By range, I mean that the DM will be able to set minimum and maximum point buy equivalents so that players will not get excessively high or low combinations.

Okay so its stupid to complain about a free system, but here I am adding my complaint. I was taken on by Maternal Mental Health soon after my third trimester, then discharged once Cecily hit 6 months because I seemed to be stable. Then I had to self-refer myself around the time Cec turned 7 months because I was falling apart and having my darling husband come home roughly once a week before I fell apart. The psychiatrist I was assigned was HORRIBLE…. I’ll leave out the stupid questions I was asked, but in the end I had to TELL him what meds I needed, because he was quite content to play with the dosage of the medication that clearly was not working (I know because i was on the damn things for nearly 9 months and was getting worse). I was on a great mix of meds back in America and they had just come out in this country the month before, so I begged to be put on them.
I was soon to find out that they cost $200 for the lot a month… not subsidised. The pharmacist assured me all I needed was a small signature from my psychiatrist, quite simple don’t worry honey, saying that I needed this medication and I could get it for the usual $30 or less.
Nothing doing, oohhh no.
After a half hour on the phone trying to remind the assigned psychiatrist who I was, including repeating my name no less than 10 times (he does not appear to speak english very well? And i had just seem him the day before!), I was promptly told he had no clue what I was talking about and would call me back once he figured it out. I waited two days for him to call back to tell me no he can not give me the signature, he’s not even sure what it is for (um isn’t this your job?) but I cannot sign that you need these meds. (Note to sceptical reader: I tried to assure him many many many times that I could get a very detailed history from previous psychiatrists of all the medications i tried until I reached a very successful stability under the ones I begged him for)

In the end I complained to my assigned community nurse , saying I would like a new psychiatist assigned… and was politely but firmly informed that I was being silly and should give him another chance, that they really didn’t have the resources to bother with minor complaints and if he says he can’t help me then thats that. I won’t go into what I read into the rest of her attitude because its heresey, but I assure you it isn’t complimentary.
Grr. Its, oh, three months? later and when my community nurse saw me today, I assured her I am quite happy and stable and thanks for the help I can do it on my own. Lots of smiles, have a good day
I didn’t even bother telling her that I’m going to go pay for some bloody help because I’m tired of being treated like just another bit of paper work. I’m far more stable than I have been since I had Cecily thanks to these meds, but I’m under a great deal of stress and need a lot more fine tuning, and it took me 2… TWO… months to get the damn psychiatrist to up my meds to what I know is my stable dosage…

ah bugger it. Cecily is wanting to play and I’m done ranting. Signing off

So about mid-day today, out pops … you got it, one of daddy’s D8’s. The whole D&D group is horrible about dropping dice on the floor and I’m constantly telling them to pick it up right away so its not forgotten, but I guess I missed one. Not even a complaint, surprisingly enough, when she passed it, but then again Cecily rarely complains. I have no idea how long that dice stayed in her throat before she finally choked, but we’re really lucky the paramedics didn’t have to fish it out when they got here (given that she managed to swallow it soon after she turned blue!) or she would have one heck of a sore throat today.

tired of retyping this, so here’s a cut from the mums group I manage:

I’m still a wreck, and we’ve been home from ER for just over an hour. Cecily choked (as in not breathing at all and turned purple) this morning, and an ambulance and several hours at the ER (and several xrays) later we’re home. I’m still near crying, that had to have been the worst, scariest experience of my life.
A friend was over for coffee and I sat on the floor to start feeding cecily her morning yogurt, first bite and she started coughing and gasping… I immediately did the infant choking maneovour but it was no good… she could cry between gasps but thats it and it was obvious she was straining to breathe. I knew something was wrong - she’s choked before but never like this - and told my friend to call 111. Friend then ran out to direct the ambulance since our house is hard to find, and thats when Cecily stopped breathing all together and turned purple… I managed to stick my finger in her mouth and dig out some cellutape but she didn’t stop choking. It felt like forever but it must have only been 30 seconds. I ran outside to save time and she started gasping/choking and stopped going funny colors just as the ambulance pulled up, then started breathing right again.
In the end we went to ER anyway, even though she finally started breathing normally and was happy as the paramedics were examining her….. Hubby is home now and we went through what happened, and we now figure she must have had paper or something stuck there under the tape (the xray shows something odd in her tummy but nothing dangerous) and had just enough airway to breathe, but when i went to feed her it clogged up completely. Near the end she must have swallowed it just after I got the tape out and freed up her airways. Time will tell what the culprit was I suppose!

Anyway sorry if that was a bit messed up, not sure if I got it out in the right order…. but I had to share it, otherwise I’ll spend the rest of the evening crying and shaking!