safe and sound

The blazing Californian wildfires did reach the Chula Vista region after all. Sylvia’s house was safe, but her daughter had to be evacuated for just one day. Nothing happened. Phew.

stage of separation

Next Wednesday, it will be one hundred days since Mario passed away. In many cultures around the globe, this is a special moment, marking a new stage of separation. We look forward to a special Dia de los Muertos, later this year, to celebrate the life of Mario Dominguez.

the gift

Joost is my father's younger brother. The euphemism says he is mentally challenged. I think he has lived up to much more than just mental challenges.

He has seen his nephews and nieces grow up. And their children. With the benjamin of the family now starting to walk, Joost presented Leon the reading book his father bought him when he was four. It took him twenty years to master it.

leon is back

leon is back, originally uploaded by [sic].

Leon has had surgery on his right (club)foot. It was performed by the renowned doctor Besselaar, who relocated a tendon from the shin to the side of the foot. We haven’t been able to find a picture of the doctor, but he does look like Sam the Eagle from the Muppet Show. As Leon was heading to the OR anyway (and we were facing the standard 10 extra days in hospital for hemophiliacs), the hematologist suggested to have his Broviac-Hickman catheter (basically a rubber tube in the chest) by a Port-a-Cath. A PAC is a metal box with a silicone plug that is implanted under the skin and is safer to use. In the mean time we have to pass another test, because cleaning and operating the PAC is normally restricted to registered nurses. One month later we are very much looking forward to next week, because we are hopeful we will pass the test next week and administer the Factor VII three times a week from home.

broken heart

Just a couple of weeks before he died, my father in law explained the technicalities of the surgical procedure performed in a Belgian hospital. In the end, medical complications and an onset of emphysema sadly caused his untimely demise.

jumping the band wagon

Well, that's what virals are for. It was a very therapeutic session with all the family members contributing.

one minute

Leon, in the backyard. Two days before the operation.

daddy I miss you

Bereavement has many shades of grey.

always with me

Itsumo Nando Demo Yondeiru Mune no Dokoka Okude Itsumo Kokoro Odoru Yume wo Mitai Kanashimi wa Kazoekirenai kedo Sono Mukou de Kitto Anata ni Aeru Kurikaesu Ayamachi no Sonotabi Hito wa Tada Aoi Sora no Aosa wo Shiru Hateshinaku Michi wa Tsuzuite Mieru keredo Kono Ryoute wa Hikari wo Dakeru Sayonara no Toki no Shizukana Mune Zero ni Naru Karada ga Mimi wo Sumaseru Ikiteiru Fushigi Sinde Iku Fusigi Hana mo Kaze mo Machi mo Minna Onaji Yondeiru Mune no Dokoka Oku de Itsumo Nando demo Yume wo Egakou Kanashimi no Kazu wo Iitsukusu yori Onaji Kuchibiru de Sotto Utaou Tojiteiku Omoide no Sono Naka ni Itsumo Wasure takunai Sasayaki wo Kiku Konagona ni Kudakareta Kagami no Ue niño Atarashii Keshiki ga Utsusareru Hajimari no Asa Shizuka na Mado Zero ni Naru Karada Mitasarete Yuke Umi no Kanata niwa Mou Sagasanai Kagayaku Mono wa Itsumo Koko ni Watashi no Naka ni Mitsukerareta Kara

Always with Me A voice is calling deep inside my heart May I always dream, emotional dreams Tears of sadness, uncountable I know I will find you on the other side of them Everytime we fall we look up to blue skies Waking up to it's hue as for the first time The road is long and lonely the end is out of sight With these two arms I can embrace the light As I bid farewell my heart stops, in tenderness I feel My silent empty body listening to what is real The wonder of living, the wonder of dying Wind, town, flowers, we dance in unity A voice is calling deep inside my heart dream your dreams, bever let them part Why speak of sadness or of life's painfull woes Instead let these lips sing a song for you Whispering voices, we will never forget, always there to guide you in each memory A miror broken, it´s pieces scattered Glimpses of new life, reflected all around Window of beginning, stillness, new light of dawn Let my silent, empty body be filled and reborn No need to search outside, nor sail across the sea Cause shining here inside me, it is inside of me I've found a brightness, it will always be with me

the obit

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MARIO I. DOMINGUEZ
July 14, 1944-May 8, 2007

Mario I. Dominguez, 62, of Chula Vista died Tuesday. He was born in Calexico and was an industrial engineer for Ericsson.

Survivors include his wife, Silvia Dominguez; daughters, Luceida Dominguez of Chula Vista and Claudia Vandick of Amsterdam, Netherlands; son, Mario Dominguez Jr. of Tijuana; stepdaughter, Iliana Trujillo of Chula Vista; stepson, Marco Barraza of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; mother, Alicia Dominguez of Mexicali, Mexico; sisters, Carmen Dominguez of San Diego, Rosa Dominguez of Oaxaca, Mexico, Alicia Dominguez of Guadalajara, Mexico, and Alma Dominguez of Rosarito, Mexico; brother, Felipe Dominguez of Mexicali, Mexico; and one grandchild.

Services: 11 a.m. today, Little Chapel of the Roses, Glen Abbey Mortuary, 3838 Bonita Road, Bonita.

Interment: Glen Abbey Memorial Park.

no more

It is with great sorrow we must tell you that Mario Dominguez has passed away after a serious illness today. He will be missed dearly.

The Right Foot of Doom

Leon's new splint is a bright fire truck red contraption, nicknamed The Right Foot of Doom :-)

Claudia & Sicko | bad news

Claudia is weggeroepen wegens familieomstandigheden. Haar vader is ernstig ziek thuis. Ze is nu samen met Leon in San Diego en zorgt voor Mario sr.

Claudia has been asked to come to her father's house because of family matters. Her father is seriously ill and is at home. She is now in San Diego and takes care of Mario sr.

Sunday

Floating sausages

During dinner we were discussing perception experiments and got to do the floating sausage finger thing with the girls. Leon couldn't wait to join.

The charro session

Leon dressed in charro outfit, photographed at the De Anda Studios in Mexicali.

Baptism

With pleasure and pride we announce that Leon will be baptised on Sunday November 5th at the Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception in Mexicali (Mexico). If you happen to be around, feel free to drop by at the after party at Claudia's grandmother's place.

Leon home

Last Wednesday, we took Leon home, finally. He had been admitted to hospital for surgery on his talipes (clubfeet) but what was scheduled to take little more than a week, took little less than a month. On the way complications were abound and the whole story got rather complicated, technical and … unpleasant.

The procedure on the talipes (clubfeet) entailed the splitting and lengthening of Leon ’s Achilles tendons and the insertion of a 6 inch (!) pin in his heel. The operation went down smoothly, but complications arose shortly afterwards. To administer Leon ’s coagulant factor (he has severe Haemophilia A) a peripherally inserted central catheter was used, because his veins were too small to access frequently. Unfortunately a nasty streptococcal infection brought about the risk of sepsis and the thing had to be removed promptly. While on antibiotics, Leon ’s immune system started to make antibodies for the ReFacto (Recombinant Factor VIII, a genetically engineered protein that mimics coagulant factor), rendering the treatment useless. To counter this problem he was entered in a immune therapy regime, with triple to quadruple dosages for the next 9 months. With drugs administered every couple of hours, the doctors figured another catheter was needed and he was wheeled back to the OR for surgically implanted Broviac. Without coagulant factor, however, this would have been impossible, which is why the haematologist used the last resort for haemophiliacs: Novoseven, a very rare and forbiddingly expensive coagulant factor (at least 40 times the costs of ReFacto, you’ll never hear me complain about Dutch health insurance costs). It was at that moment that we called in the help of family and friends. Doing the splits between a seriously ill kid in hospital and three teenagers at home was a little bit too much for me. From that moment on we both stayed in the Ronald McDonald guest house and because Leon was recovering rather well, we managed to sneak of the ward with him and get some fresh air. Some two weeks after the first operation on Leon ’s talipes, the enormous pins were extracted (without anaesthetics) and a new cast was added. After that things started to look better by the day until we heard on Monday, that the antibiotics and the Novosecen would be discontinued and we might look forward to an early release on Wednesday.

We are now in training, to learn how to flush and clean the Broviac and to prepare and administer coagulant factor. As we’ve never had the opportunity to explore the other end of the syringe it was something very new to us but after two demonstrations we had our first complete run together today. Next week, we’ll have three more sessions, supervised by the haemophilia nurse, because absolute precision and sterility are required. We already received a huge box with medical supplies from the local pharmacy and next week Friday we’ll be heading home with a duffel bag filled with coagulant factor. It will be the start of a new routine with a most cheerful, ever-smiling and effervescent little boy that hopefully doesn’t realise yet how terrifying the past few weeks have been to his parents.

Claudia & Sicko

Emma

Emma, originally uploaded by [sic].

Emma kan het bijna niet geloven.

Emma is amazed.

Sicko | Sytze Atahualpa

“Je gaat hem toch niet echt Sytze Atahualpa noemen?” vroeg Robin me vanavond, voordat ze naar bed ging. Net zoals veel aanstaande ouders zitten we te puzzelen op een passende naam. En daar komt aardig wat bij kijken. Ten eerste moet hij makkelijk uit te spreken zijn, in Nederlands, Engels en Spaans.

En liever ook geen rare bijbetekenissen. Hoewel het in de 60er jaren gewoonte was om kinderen te vernoemen naar grootouders had mijn Pake Sipke mijn ouders gevraagd om me toch vooral zijn naam te besparen. Als kind van een gastarbeider werd hij in Duitsland geplaagd omdat zijn naam veel leek op Seppel of Seppelchen, de wat slome maat van Kasper (de Duitse Jan Klaassen). Het werd dus Sicko. Dat dat nu weer de meest populaire condoom in Mexico is en Amerikaans Bargoens voor “zieke, geperverteerde geest” konden mijn ouders toen niet weten. Enfin, het is minder erg dan andere prachtige Friese namen als Wierd (klinkt als “een beetje vreemd”), Baard (klinkt als “verveeld”) en Fokke (klinkt als …).

Wat blijft is de uitdaging om in de beide namen iets eigens uit te drukken van de afkomst van de kleine man, dus waarschijnlijk wordt het iets Mexicaans of Spaans en iets Fries. Maar het moet wel bij elkaar passen. Robin kan gerust zijn, het wordt geen Sytze Atahualpa, wat we ooit voor de grap hebben geroepen. Maar het moet wel iets eigens zijn, iets bijzonders. En dan maar hopen dat het ook door de kleine gewaardeerd wordt.

Mijn neef Arwin en ik hebben als kleine jongens veel samen gespeeld. Hele avonturen hebben we samen beleefd in een fantastische interplanetaire onderwater fantasiewereld. Voordat we onderdoken in dit parallelle universum transformeerden we in onze alter ego’s. En die heetten niet Sicko en Arwin, want dat waren zulke saaie namen. Nee, onze heldennamen waren: Jan en Piet.

Sicko


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“You are seriously not going to name the baby Sytze Atahualpa, are you?” Robin asked me the other night before turning in. Like many parents to be, we are puzzled by the array of names to choose from for the baby. For starters, it has to be easily pronounceable, in Dutch, English and Spanish.

And no strange connotations please. Although in the mid sixties, Dutch kids were commonly named after their grandparents, my grandfather (pake) Sipke explicitly pleaded to my parents to spare me his name. As a foreign labourer’s child in Germany, his name had been the reason for pun because it was so similar to Seppel or Seppelchen, the mentally challenged sidekick of Kasper (the German Punch, you know, the one who is married to Judy). And that is why I got the name Sicko. That my name is also the most popular brand of contraceptives in Mexico and American slang for “deeply disturbed and perverted person” is something my parents could not have known, then. I am glad, though that my parents spared me otherwise true Frisian names such as Weird (’wird), Baard (’bOrt) and Fokke (’f&-k&).

Nevertheless, it would be nice to express something of the Little Man’s roots in his names, so it is probably going to be a combination of something Mexican or Spanish and Frisian. And it should be a logical, natural combination. To put Robin’s fears to rest: it is not going to be Sytze Atahualpa, as mentioned once, in jest. We are trying to find a characteristic and individual name, though. And pray that the receiver may appreciate our gift.

My cousin Arwin and I have shared the most magical part of our childhood. We lived out our own adventure stories in a fantastic underwater fantasy world. Before transforming into interplanetary heroes of our very own parallel universe we would assume an alter ego more fitted for the world of the dangerous and the bizarre. Our avatars were not named Sicko and Arwin (such boring names) but instead: Jan and Piet.

Sicko