Well, not really but blogging just hasn't been a priority to me for the past several months. My last posting was back in September 2009 and at the beginning of October, we had to pull Katie out of school for almost 3 weeks. We had experienced nothing but problems after she transferred schools last March and it ranged from her not getting her medicine or not getting the correct dosage on at least 15 different occasions to her getting slapped repeatedly by an aggressive student... and finally the last straw was her coming home with a black eye. We hired an attorney,
not to sue the school system, but to help us know what Katie's rights are because of her multiple special needs and complex situation. It took 3 weeks to have her placed at a new school and she's now at Rocky Hill Elementary and things are back to normal. It was difficult because Katie has been in the Knox County School system since she was 3. She went to Ft. Sanders for 2 1/2 years before going to Kindergarten (through mid-year 3rd grade) at Cedar Bluff Elementary. For all that time... preschool through half-way through the 3rd grade we NEVER had one complaint. She had the BEST teachers, the best staff working with her and her school experiences were wonderful. And seemingly, that is how it is again. We still miss Cedar Bluff but Rocky Hill is a good fit. Now we have 1 1/2 year to dread middle school.
Also in October, we had to move Gran into Reflections, which is the Alzheimer's unit at Victorian Square. That was very hard to do. She made the move very well but until the past couple of visits, it was hard on us. We have to enter and exit the unit strategically because there are residents who try to escape. It just makes visits harder sometimes because the other residents are much more "involved" than they were when she was upstairs. There have been visits in the past months where she didn't recognize me at first and she doesn't know my name anymore... or Katie's or Don's. She remembers Dad's usually... but her memory from the 30's - 50's is usually pretty sharp. She's been in and out of the hospital numerous times for pneumonia, pancreatitis, hallucinations, etc. I guess that is just how it will be for the rest of her life now. Thank goodness she gets such good care at Victorian Square and thank goodness for VA Benefits that help us to afford her living there.
Don has been very busy!! I think after 2 years, I've finally learned to share the office. That was an adjustment. I couldn't imagine having been through the past several months without him. He's such a rock!!! It is nice to see him so happy and LOVE what he does. He's made a lot of great friends and he loves working from home except when he's filming an event. He's gotten so good at it. He continues to donate time for STAR and he's also going to donate some time this Spring to The Wellness Community... which is a cancer survivor organization. He's also started doing legal video depositions. He stays really busy and I've been helping him with editing some.
My dad has been here numerous times with Marilyn. Mainly because of Gran. He has now had 3 PET scans that have come back clear. He's had numerous growths and suspicious places removed that have come back benign. He has truly been given a gift of time. The odds that he would have survived 1 year when he got his diagnosis of Stage IV Metastatic Melanoma in March 2008 were less than 5%. Even his oncologist tells him every visit that he needs to never take one day for granted!!
We really hit a rough spell in December with Katie. She had a huge growth spurt and her meds got completely out of whack. She is now 4'6" and weighs 104 pounds. She wears a ladies size 7 1/2-8 shoe (we can share now) and she wears a juniors size 7. I had to take her shopping last weekend for a training bra! SHE'S 10 YEARS OLD, y'all!! Crazy! But, we took her off the Adderall ADHD medicine because of the stimulant in it... she had been on it for several years and it finally got to the point where it was causing her to have violent, long lasting rage episodes. She's now on a new ADHD medication, Intuniv and she's been on it since December 17 and I feel like we have Katie back!! The change over was hard... her sleep, or lack there of, became worse than ever... but in the past week, she has finally been sleeping almost through the night. Fingers crossed... mood is stable and sleep is better so hopefully we are almost there.
I continue to love spending time with my precious Lakota. The horrible weather the past couple of months has limited that time. I went to go see him this past Saturday. The sun came out, it was 37 degrees and I thought I'd at least get to spend more than an hour with him. What I didn't check before heading out to the farm was the wind chill... I didn't get to stay very long. He's so smart and such a good horse. He's fully grown now and about 16.3. That's big!! I never would have gotten him had I known he was going to get that big... so I'm glad I didn't know. Belle was only 14.2... so it's a huge difference.
Last week was the year anniversary of me loosing Belle. I don't think I really realized how much of an impact loosing her had on me until last week. I love Lakota and he's been great... and is great! But, he's not Belle. Lakota is a "mud lover"... he's a gelding and he's strong and self-assured. He rolls in the mud and gets filthy. Belle was a "foofy horse"... I think because she was skittish and always low horse on the totem pole... she never rolled or laid on the ground so she never was filthy. I guess I will always miss her. I had such a connection with her. But, I have also developed quite a connection with Lakota. I can do ground work with him and he totally responds to my body language and energy. It's an amazing feeling to control a 1200 pound animal... or at least direct him and him respond. He's a horse... I never have complete control over him.
That's about it I guess. At least, it's enough for this catch up. Oh, except I've really gotten into Digital Scrapbooking. I've take a few online classes at
Little Light Studio and
Jessica Sprague and that coupled with the Photoshop CS classes I've taken at UT, I really have gotten into it. The cool thing about it is, I can do it anywhere. I can sit and watch a movie with Katie and do two pages. I had resisted it for so long because of the fact that I'm always on my computer for work and scrapbooking with "real" supplies got me off my computer... but it had gotten to where I wasn't scrapbooking hardly ever. I'm going to upload some pages that I'm fixing to send to a printer. We will see when I get the pages back and they are all flat and not three dimensional with embellishments if I like it as much!
More later... and hopefully it wont be 4 months. Oh, and in my next posting, I'll talk about Boomer!
