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A continuation of my original blog, "Surviving Motherhood". |
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Welcome to my world of middle school, high school, and motherhood. The life of a mom is never easy, especially as children grow, and especially when you have a special needs child. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I'll be blunt and cut straight to the chase-I haven't been up to feeling much lately. There have been some personal things that have been bringing me down, and as always, I'm having high anxiety with a lot of things, and perceiving people to believe things I don't know they're actually believing or not. My head has been fucking with me for a little while now, and sometimes, the truth is worse than what the fiction in my head is. I'm seeing things apathetically right now, which kinda sucks. I want to change it, but...I dunno. I'm not entirely sure how to. Mental health is a tricky tight rope that you have to walk carefully every day. Some days I can zoom to a better spot. Some days I'm tentative and scared to move a foot, and some days I just don't give a fuck and want to fall off the rope altogether. Can't do that though. Gotta stay on the rope-if not for me, for the kids at least. Sometimes I have to be sure to remind myself that. Every once in awhile, when the shadows sit for a bit, the darkness looks like a friendlier place than the light with all the people and the bullshit. Ugh, I swore I wouldn't come in here like this. I'm mucking it all up. Anywho. To recap-not in the best of places right now, but trying. Physical health is getting better, albeit hindered by extra weight, which I have finally realized how I've gained so quickly. I let me primary care physician know that I was extremely interested in taking another a1c, which she granted me that day. 4 months earlier, I had taken it, and found out that it was really high. it was a 12.8. I've never been that high in my life, and that frightened me. She was scared, I was scared, my body was having issues, and that was when I finally broke down and decided it was time to hit the endocrinologist, because I wasn't going to live like this much longer, if at all. With the last 4 months of insulin therapy and some changes, a few additions to my medicine, we saw a HUGE difference. My labs came in today, and I found that I'm at a 7.5 now. That's a 5.3 difference, which is HUGE. If I was just .8 less, I would be in the non-diabetic range. I'm not going to lie, the work has been really fucking hard. Especially because I hardly ever take my glucose meter with me, and because I don't usually follow my insulin regimen when outside the house. I've learned that both of those are no longer an option though. I take it all with me, glucose meter and necessities, needles, swabs and vials. Sometimes I'm a traveling pharmacy, but it's necessary to make sure I never see 12.8 again. I was lucky that the worst that was happening to me at the time was some abscesses on my skin. My eyes are still good through it all, and other things are still relatively fine. I think that's because I have age on my side right now. I'm sure if I were 20 years older, I wouldn't be in as good a position as I am now. So as you can see, there are some things out there that I'm glad about.  Thanksgiving is upon us tomorrow. I'm not entirely sure the house is ready for it. Not to say that we're expecting guests, as we're not, but I still have dishes that need to be washed for tomorrow's usage, and I also have a couple of large boxes overflowing with cookie materials that need to be put together. I'm not sure if I'm in quite the right mindset right now to be able to pull either of these two feats off, especially by myself. I'm hoping that there will be some grace from everyone tomorrow, and that my shadow walker, Mr. Ryan, will guide me back to the path of the light tomorrow so we can work together to get tomorrow done. I've birthed my own therapist. Crazy. I love this kid though, he sees what the rest don't, and he knows just what to do to get me to the safe side. I'm very lucky to have him. As far as tomorrow goes, I'm very thankful to have what I do at this time. Even when things change. Even when things go south. Life ebbs and flows, and all we can do is hold onto something and let the waves pass and see where we've moved to. |
| You know, I've never properly sat here and written how amazing Ryan's experience with the youth orchestra has been. This is his first full year, but second season playing with them, and I love everything they do. These kids have such amazing talent, and when I say kids, I mean KIDS, like high school kids. Like 7th grade to 12th grade. Never seen anything like it before in my life, and I'm so thrilled that we get to be a part of it. Symphonies have always intrigued me as a kid, so getting to hear a live one for free that's made entirely of kids is just phenomenal. The talent that flows through this county is AMAZING, and that includes my son! When they had the concert last Friday, Ryan got to show off his skills with a solo that got encored by the conductor, he was so impressed with it. Ryan is an amazing kid, that's for sure. I'm so thrilled he gets be a part of these things! Imagine how it's going to look on a college application! I'm so proud of him! He was getting a lot of back pats and congrats from the parents that were in the audience. I was so proud! He made 4th chair for all county this year, which I'm pretty proud of as well! I know next year is tri-county, and I cannot wait to see if he makes it that year too. |
| Today has been a somewhat busy and productive day. We've spent the morning doing some laundry, making breakfast sandwiches, doing some dishes, etc. Today, Grace had her 12th birthday party, and Journey, was of course, invited. I am so thrilled that Journey has such a great friend in Grace. They're wonderful together, and I love that they care about each other so much. I spoke with Melissa about the party, seeing if I should get base clearance to go on base and take Journey, or if it was okay for just Journey to go with them, so I didn't have to get base clearance. In the end, it worked out that Journey went with Grace and family to the bowling alley on base, because I ended up having a meeting with my association cookie manager today to get all the materials I needed and was shorted for cookie season this year. It was a very productive meeting with Laurel, and I'm glad we had it. Lots of questions answered. I'm going to need to write out a structure for our training on December 9th. Laurel surprised me and said she may come. I like that idea. Anyway, back to the milestone! Because I was meeting with Laurel, I asked Melissa if she could please drop Journey off at our house, because I didn't know when I' be back. Melissa agreed to do so, and Journey was off, on her way to celebrate with Grace. Today is the first birthday party Journey's ever been to that I did not attend with her. This has never happened before, in all her 11 years of life, up until this point. It seems natural that it would happen at Grace's party, as we've been family friends for years. Grace was the first sleepover that Journey had. Melissa sent me some pictures of the party, and it looked like everyone was having a good time. I'm so glad that she was able to attend and didn't need me to be there with her! This has been a long time coming. |
| Today we held an IEP meeting that was needed to help Journey with some adjustments to her middle school education. I really do think these supports will help her a lot. I almost teared up being in that meeting with people who care so much about my girl. Her caseworker is AMAZING, she calls me to share information all the time, and has her in a social skills group during lunch, to get her to start initiating making friends more often. Journey is more of a "come to me" friend, which there's nothing wrong with that, but she needs to know that she can go to them as well, it doesn't always have to be someone coming to her. We were all discussing on how well she's adapted to middle school so far, and I was telling them how blown away I was that she's taken so well. Last year was kind of tough, and I worried about her greatly. This year, she seems to be doing fantastic with her supports in place, and I'm so thrilled to hear it. I was so grateful that I could call an IEP meeting if I felt necessary (which I did), and they would oblige. Our special ed experience thus far has been really great, and we're very lucky to be in a school area that has that kind of system in place. I'm very appreciative. Our sweet girl has seemed to have turned a corner when 6th grade has come up, and she's taken to it with a shine. She's got an amazing personality, and she just radiates it. She's making so many friends, and the teachers adore her. She's a hard worker, and she cares a lot. She's an amazing girl, she really is. I couldn't be more proud of her! To hear all these amazing things about her, doing her school work, and being social, and being sweet and kind, it makes my heart burst. I love that other people get to see this about her. It makes my day! Ryan is doing well in his classes so far also, which I'm extremely proud about. There's hardly any time to breathe between one class to the next, and he's taking all his work very seriously. I've witnessed him buckle down and do what needs to be done, and I am so proud of him. He works so hard. So far, the first quarter has been tough, but rewarding. The kids seem to be doing well in their new homes, and I'm so grateful to know that's the case. We've got 3 band concerts coming up this month. He has SMYOC on Friday, then all county honor band next Friday, then high school band the Monday after. Super busy! I hope he's not "band"ed out by the end of the month. We were going to try and go to Florida for Thanksgiving to see Don's aunt, but I don't think it's going to come to fruition. The money just isn't there right now, and you can't make that kind of thing just appear out of nowhere. We're going to try and shoot for new year's instead, and see if we can make it then. I was kind of bummed to find out that I wouldn't be cooking for an audience this time. I've never made Thanksgiving for more than the 4 of us (well, Dixon included....and he's something else! He's a turkey thief!), I was kind of excited to see how I would do with more people. Oh well. |
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