Found Joy

I convinced my husband that we needed to have a trip away. We were able to get away this weekend, to do this we had to miss a family reunion with my Mom's family, miss a bbq with DH's family, pawn the boy and the dog off on my Mom & Dad who had out of town company for the reunion. I can't explain how very grateful I am that my parent's did that for us.

We had such a wonderful time together. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant we used to go to prior to having the Boy. We talked, we joked, we remembered how much fun we have together. How much we like each other and enjoy having conversations. It was relaxing, wonderful and exactly what we needed.

A lovely adult drink

Mushroom, sheep cheese, arugula, grilled thingy, huge and yummy.

My pretty new dress.

The Beef Tenderloin the waiter suggested my husband get that I ordered.

A different fish than what the waiter suggested I get, the waiter didn't get us. ;)

 It is fun to watch waiters and others try to figure us out when we go out to dinner. Usually they will offer DH a beer if he can't seem to choose a drink, (DH does not drink beer, the kindest thing he has every said about beer involved donkey piss). This waiter also kept calling us studious, we enjoy our silence, actually we relish the silence when we can find it (although The Silence scares me). This weekend, even at dinner we allowed the silence to wash over us. The waiter didn't quite get it, I wonder if he worried that we were fighting, heh.

I was able to release the worries I've been holding onto over the last few months and face this week with DH out of town, again.

Joy, bliss, happiness, peace. These are things that I'm carrying closer to myself again. Ahhhhhh.

I'm trying to find happy, I really am...

Today started sucky and even though nothing monumentally bad has happened I'm just not feeling any happiness.

So here goes trying to purge the shit so I can release it and move on. I have made 17 phone calls/emails to the insurance company's financial 'planning' office, my doctor's office, the hospital when the procedures are going to take place and the pathologist's office who will, maybe, be doing the biopsy analysis after the procedures. I need to get the information in writing because we have been SCREWED in the past by not getting medical estimates in writing. As in I was quoted $1,100 for the surgeon's time and he charged us $10,000. While this time is different because we at least have a max out of pocket we will have to spend, and we are basically going to just get to that point, it still feels perilous.

I am questioning if the procedure is really necessary. Do we really have to pay $4200 to make sure they didn't miss something with the first test. If I'm responding to the meds doesn't that mean it really is the hormonal version and not the cancer version? This sucks.

I'm tired, and worn out about this and I have no idea what to do but wait.

I was thinking that I have recieved a lot of information this week and was waiting for answers but realized while I have answers for the dyslexia, I don't actually have any answers to the medical issues, I'm fighting for information that isn't actuallly informational. What do you call data that doesn't inform and is just to cover your ass? I mean each and every person I talked to and each piece of paper has said that this is an estimate and if the procedure takes longer or there are complications the amount will change. So data but not real data yet. I can't pay anything on it yet, I can't use it to learn anything. Ugh.

All that said, I'm feeling better for having written it up. For putting into words that this feeling of being on a hamster wheel really is being on a hamster wheel with no progress.

Test Results

Friday ended up being crazy, crazy, crazy. Oh and a little bit more crazy on top.

I did a business meeting, kind of, way, way down South.(30 miles south is too, way south) Then drove back north to make the meeting with the tester and hope that the crazy, heavy rain/thunder storm was not at our house where Honey was hanging out in the back yard. It wasn't hadn't rained at all yet at home but then Honey was not in the back yard. The short of a long emotional story is she was back in our yard Saturday morning. Maybe someday I'll write it up but I feel like it stole so much of my energy that I can't do it again right now.

Plus I really want to digest the information Joni, our tester, gave me yesterday. DH couldn't meet with us because he was flying home as we met and then had to go directly into the office upon landing in town. I don't think either Joni or I was in the best shape to be delivering or asking for information. Her mom is in the midst of a serious illness and I sat down with her after spending an hour walking all over our neighborhood talking to people and looking for my dog. Yeah, neither of us at our best but I got the basics of the info and I'll email her for clarification as time goes on.

The tests confirm what I thought was going on he is moderate to severely dyslexic and moderately disgraphic. The Boy has asked that I not discuss the specifics here so I will honor that. It was hard to hear the specifics of the results even though none of it was surprising. To hear that he really is struggling and not just blowing me off is good to know but now I have to figure out how to help him.

To that end I want some help with ideas. I am going to be helping him improve his working memory and want ideas of fun sentences to read to him and have him repeat back to me. I have used an oath of one of the lantern leagues or whatever they are called. A friend suggested Shel Silverstein, any other ideas? I'm looking for 6-15 word sentences. Thanks for any ideas.

I'm also looking at iPad aps that may help. If you know any iPad aps that help with dylexic children, working memory, reading, or fine motor skills let me know.

Thank you all.

Optimism you name is Summer

Now don't get me wrong, I don't love summer for the sun and the warmth, I would still rather have a lovely fall/spring day or even a below freezing winter day than the 90+ degree days that are facing me. That said, I'm back in the lovely imagining of what next school year could be. I'm looking through my 1350+ page Rainbow Resource Center catalog. Talking to the boy about what he would like to study for history, science. I'm excited about the possibilities.

I have to remember that the boy does not actually like doing crafty things very much, but I'm trying to convince myself that the cool sarcophagi set that is punch out and slot & tab construction isn't REALLY crafty and you end up with three sarcophagi that fit into each other. Come on how cool is that?!?

Yea, see optimistic that is me right now. I'm meeting with the tester today to go over the results of the dyslexia testing we had done a month ago. I'm glad we did it. I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say and then seeing how best I can implement it.

The thing I do love about summer is that we are going camping again. We had not really gone camping for years but we have all of our stuff and are going again. It is lovely gets us out of town and I'm really looking forward to August when everyone else around here has gone back to school but we are able to camp still. yippee.

Ok now to clean the dining room so I can have a meeting on it then I'll wake the boy and see what we can do this morning.