We've been home from camp for a week now. The verdict is in: I liked camp better. IIt was so nice to not have to think about what to have for dinner or where the kids are or whether the laundry is done. But, now we're back to real life.
My disability insurance company is paying benefits right now under "reservation of rights", but they want more information before they make a final determination. They asked me to keep a headache diary for 2 weeks. They sent me a form to fill out. It is 2 pages - one page for each week. Each day gets one line - requesting information about that day's headache. They still don't get it. I don't have one headache a day. I wake up almost every day with a headache which usually gets worse, depending on my activity, the weather, etc. I started the diary yesterday and used an entire page for one day. Yesterday, unfortunately, was one of the really awful headache days. I woke up at 5:30 with a bad headache that was up to a 9/10 by the time I got downstairs to get my meds. I stayed on the sofa until about 1pm. Anyway, I made 12 copies of the headache diary, so I can use one page for each day. Maybe we can come to a meeting of the minds.
On Thursday, my kids decided to become inventors in the basement. The good news is that I have already taken all the give-away stuff to Goodwill, so they weren't mixing give-away stuff with keep stuff. Between the miscellaneous stuff in the basement and their imaginations, they became very well attired spies. There were devices to allow them to climb buildings and see things. C was quite interested in blowing things up. The good news is that L was very interested in force fields, so that the house didn't blow up (nor did the cats!). The kids were showing their inventions to a friend later in the afternoon when the funniest thing happened. C was doing all the steps to ignite one of his inventions when all of the sudden, he said, "Uh oh." and looked up to the ceiling very seriously. I said, in all seriousness, "Did you put a hole in my house?" He kept looking at the ceiling and deadpanned, "Uh, yeah." Those kids are the funniest things. Of course, my basement is fine, except for being messy.
It has been hot as h*ll here, and I am being literal! The highs have been in the mid to upper 90s. It is forecast to be 100 tomorrow and 98 on Tuesday. Talk about living in the Great White North! We are fortunate to have central air conditioning, but it really only works downstairs. We have one air conditioning vent upstairs and one old fashioned grate. Early in the week, we had the kids start sleeping in the basement (thankfully, they didn't meet any bugs, because we have our fair share), P sleeping in the guest/craft room (which is a disaster), and me sleeping on the sofa (which is fine because I've had headaches). Finally, P decided it was time to get a room AC for upstairs. The plan was to put it in L's room and leave all the bedroom doors open to share the cool air (although it would also have to cool the landing and stairwell). I was concerned that they wouldn't have any more ACs in the city. But, Home Depot had just gotten a shipment. The AC to cool the entire upstairs was going to be $500, but 3 small room ACs were $130 each (and wouldn't cool the landing/stairwell). So, we got the 3 room ACs. P has 2 of them set up and running now, but the third one, Cs room, has to wait because we don't have the wiring to run 3 ACs. The upstairs still has old wiring, but we have a friend who can help P redo it this fall to bring it into the 21st century. In the meantime, Cs room is quite comfortable with running Ls AC and keeping the closet doors between their rooms open and running a fan over the grate moving the warm air out. Sounds complicated, but it works.
The house is still something of a wreck. The headaches have been really bad this week, but the fatigue has been even worse. I have some friends who have volunteered to help. I have a natural aversion to getting help. I think it's not helped by the years in medical school and medicine where we worked through anything. But, I'm going to have to take some help or I'm just not going to get stuff done some weeks.
I have been trying to avoid thinking about schooling. How am I going to get that done with the stuff I can't even handle now? Last night, though, I did come up with an idea on how to at least start a plan. I need to get the house somewhat organized - at least find the schoolbooks! - and not be trying to empty boxes while starting schooling. Then, I need to make a plan that organizes things based on importance. It looks like some weeks we may just scrape through. Other weeks, we may be able to get a lot of stuff done. I need to have a plan going into this about what is most important for the children to learn (not what is important to check off - my real issue - I like to see things checked off!). The kids are also able to help around the house more than they have been, but it needs to be done in a routine, not capriciously. C did dishes for me yesterday and L did other cleaning (we had small group last night). I am also learning to lower my standards.
I am hoping that a friend of mine may be able to come over soon and evaluate Chris for dyslexia. The more I watch him try to read, the more concerned I am. He really is not putting things together like he should. I read a book about dyslexia that was wonderful in helping me understand the problem, but told me nothing about teaching him to read as a parent. It was clearly written for parents of children in school - it told parents how to make sure that the school was using a good program. I need better info, but I'm hoping my friend can help me. I would prefer to wait for her input instead of trying more internet searches and looking through more books. Can you tell I'm getting frustrated?
Well, more later. I'm home from church with another headache. I'm going to go vegetate on the sofa for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment