Update covering the last two months

The toy fund season is over. We were able to give nearly 8000 needy kids toys this year, so it was a rewarding, but crazy holiday season. We had so many new applicants because of heating oil prices being sky high, it was a choice between oil and toys for very many families. I didn't get my house 100% decorated. I didn't get my collection of Santas out until Christmas eve. I still haven't sent out my Christmas cards and this year is the first year I have done real Christmas cards rather then Holiday Peace cards. I wonder how late is too late to send them out?

Other things that happened during these two months is November 1st I was hurt by a student at my school job. My shoulder has been in constant pain until two weeks ago. Since it was a Worker's Comp case the school sent me to this Dr. that deals injuries that are school workers comp stuff. I ended up hating the Doctor. He never took X-rays. He didn't take my depression seriously. Because of him being that way I never told him about my PTSD acting up because of being restrained in the way the student restrained me. He would give me medication without telling me why he was doing it. Because of my history of attempted drug overdoses I steer clear of drugs unless I know 100% why I am taking them. He had this view of that was his job and I shouldn't be bothered with it. At my last appointment with him he told me that he "knew my personality" and that I must work harder to get better and he said that I would need 3 PT appointments a week. Well I went to the PT appointment and the physical therapist thought he was crazy since she didn't know of a person working harder to get better then I was.

Well the worker's comp people called me and asked me how things were going. I let the flood gates out and told her everything and how awful the Doctor was and how I felt he was trying to pad his bill. (The physical therapist I was going to was on his staff.) So the workers comp person checked with the school to see if it was ok for me to switch Doctors. I got into a new place. She spent 3 hours with me at my first appointment talking about my depression and PTSD. She took X-rays. We talked about the options. What drugs might be good for me. We decided to go with a cortisone shot right then and there. I feeling my normal self within a day or so and a week and a half later I am cleared as all better.

So this makes me even more angry about the first Doctor. He drags out my treatment for nearly two months...I am in pain 24 hours a day. I can't swim and I need to swim to make sure I don't start getting depressed. The pain was making me feel awful. So a good part of these last two months I have been feeling depressed between the pain and not being able to swim. But I couldn't let the depression get to me too much because I needed to get toys to the kids who need them. I ended up calling Fly Guy in tears a few times because I wanted to crawl up in a ball and hide from the world and from the toy fund. Once I was no longer in pain things turned around fairly quickly.

Other stuff that is going on. Horse Girl is reading more and more. The Scottish Rite Dyslexia Learning Center has been doing an amazing job. She has been able to read some subtitles on movies and things like that. She has come a long a lot faster then we ever dreamed possible. So there is a lot of excitement in this house because of that. She is also showing how good she is with math. She just loves school and her teacher is one of the top teachers I have met in my lifetime. The scary thing this is her first year teaching....what will she be like when she get more experience. She is going to be much more then amazing.....I don't think that there is a word for how good she will be.

History Girl is doing well. She has close friends which she didn't have last year. Moving to a bigger school helped with that a lot. She is finding school very boring and isn't working hard at all. We have decided to bribe her with money for grade. I am never quite sure about that, but Fly Guy said that it is what worked for him and he and History Girl are a lot a like when it comes to school. He says in the real world people get paid for performance so History Girl should be paid for performance. I figured it can't hurt. History Girl and I go head to head often about her schooling, because she is so gifted and she doesn't use it....so more or less I have decided to let Fly Guy handle History Girl and I will deal with Horse Girl since she is more like me and I understand her needs and figuring out her needs sometimes frustrate Fly Guy. So it is divide and conquer.

I have to say History Girl is very person to know and I have to say I am pleased that she is my kid. She figured out the Santa Claus myth and rather come to us and talk to us about it. She created a word puzzle telling us she knew and left it by her stocking. Fly Guy figured out the word puzzle and then we invited her down and told her she could now join the elf club. We talked about things we did to make the myth even more real for her. She seemed to appreciate the effort we put into it and she also seemed happy to be on the other end of things this year and help be an elf for her sister. We talked about how Santa is in people's hearts and stuff like that and how she should protect the people who still believe. She was willing to take up all those responsibilities.

Also on a Christmas note....having seen my grandmother two days in a row. I would like same rights we give pets and if life is just sucking please just put me out of my misery. My grandmother is just a shell of the person she was. Physically she is healthy for the most part, but she doesn't know who any of her family is. She didn't know what Christmas was, she vaguely knew some Christmas songs. If she can't remember songs 100% then she is truly gone. My grandmother has sung all her life at her church and with Sweet Adelines...singing was the biggest thing in her life and the fact she couldn't remember the words to songs she has sung her whole life, to me means that she is really gone and is just a shell of who she was.

I am sure I am missing things that happened the last two months, but that was the over view of it all.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and will have a great New Year. I am glad to be back even though my house is still a mess, but I will get around to that sooner or later. ;-)