With the struggles I've been having with my children, it has been easy to forget about my own well-being. This summer I've been living as a free for all and indulging in fried foods, chips, chocolate, ice cream, whatever. Although it is okay in indulge every now and then, it's been a daily event.
While I was over to get Amy assessed for Aspergers, I had my yearly appointment with my Endocrinologist. My LDL cholesterol = bad has risen from 3.0 last year to 3.3. While these numbers aren't staggering for a normal person, for a person who's had diabetes for 21 years it's the start of a high risk complication. So, either I buck up and stop eating crap or they'll put me on cholesterol medication for the rest of my life. While a normal doctor would've put me on meds right then and there, she's trusting that I'll take care of myself but 3.5 will be the final straw.
So, how do I make myself a priority? I'm trying to figure out what I can do to get active that I'll actually be interested and motivated in doing and worth keeping up. I know I need to change my diet so this morning instead of my two slices of toast with cheese, I had oatmeal and yogurt and it actually kept me satisfied for awhile. Now I'm here on the deck with my kids though, eating a bowl of Doritos, but I have to eat them to get them out of the house! Baby steps I guess. I'll try for my healths sake and for the kids sake so that I'll be around for them in the future because my disease can destroy me little by little if I let it happen.
My family
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Amy has Aspergers!
This is the moment I've been anxiously waiting for all summer long. I sit along side the psychologist waiting for those words I've been waiting to hear to pass through her mouth. "Amy's ADOS score is consistent for a diagnosis of Aspergers" she says looking across at Curtis then at me and continues. I feel a twinge in my chest and struggle to blink back the tears that have welled in my eyes. "Don't cry" I say to myself, "you knew this was coming". So I sit and listen to what tests she did and how Amy responded to them. "Her social interactions are very low and this will be the hardest for her to overcome as she goes into adolescents." I think back and remember how cruel kids in school were to me and think, how can I save my child from that ridicule? She goes on, "plus even though we weren't specifically testing for ADHD", because she was diagnosed with it in Grade two, "I will agree that she does have many ADHD characteristics." That's just great, a double diagnosis I think to myself.
After the results from the ADOS test are reviewed we move onto her learning assessment. We also had her checked for learning disabilities because I know she has them, she can hardly add 10+1. The psychologist tells me what we've known for a year, her math is at a 1.5 grade level. Last summer I had her tested for math privately at Sylvan Learning Center in Charlottetown. They had discovered the same and when I had those results in hand I took them to the school the first week of Grade 3. They themselves had her tested with their own tests, guess my word wasn't good enough, and confirmed the same thing. What did they do for her? Six weeks of Math help and a few adaptations. That was all fine for the six weeks, she did well in the small setting with extra help, but then for the remaining of the year she still struggled, even with a weekly math tutor.
Luckily, Amy has her diagnosis the school will have to give her extra help, I hope. The testing also uncovered that she has a superior level of reading and comprehension, reading at a Grade 8 level when she's only going into grade four. This kind of puzzled me because at the end of Grade three the teacher did up some adaptations for her for language arts because she was starting to struggle with it. Now we know that Amy understands what she's reading but it seems to get lost between her head and her hand when writing it out. Amy struggles to write and uses no grammar. She has limited ability with her hands, she's very weak in my opinion. So now verbal testing might have to be allowed for her, plus she might benefit with the use of a computer, which is highly motivating for her. These are all great things to know. We always knew she was a bright, imaginative girl but in standardized school she fails, this is a girl who needs to be taught in a different way then the standard. I know that if the school continues to fail her, I will do what I need to do to get her the help she needs even if it means homeschooling.
So now my life just got busier and more complicated. I now have two children in my house with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, I guess I always did really. I just pray I have the strength to keep up with these kids and do whats right for them while also keeping my sanity. Pray with me.
After the results from the ADOS test are reviewed we move onto her learning assessment. We also had her checked for learning disabilities because I know she has them, she can hardly add 10+1. The psychologist tells me what we've known for a year, her math is at a 1.5 grade level. Last summer I had her tested for math privately at Sylvan Learning Center in Charlottetown. They had discovered the same and when I had those results in hand I took them to the school the first week of Grade 3. They themselves had her tested with their own tests, guess my word wasn't good enough, and confirmed the same thing. What did they do for her? Six weeks of Math help and a few adaptations. That was all fine for the six weeks, she did well in the small setting with extra help, but then for the remaining of the year she still struggled, even with a weekly math tutor.
Luckily, Amy has her diagnosis the school will have to give her extra help, I hope. The testing also uncovered that she has a superior level of reading and comprehension, reading at a Grade 8 level when she's only going into grade four. This kind of puzzled me because at the end of Grade three the teacher did up some adaptations for her for language arts because she was starting to struggle with it. Now we know that Amy understands what she's reading but it seems to get lost between her head and her hand when writing it out. Amy struggles to write and uses no grammar. She has limited ability with her hands, she's very weak in my opinion. So now verbal testing might have to be allowed for her, plus she might benefit with the use of a computer, which is highly motivating for her. These are all great things to know. We always knew she was a bright, imaginative girl but in standardized school she fails, this is a girl who needs to be taught in a different way then the standard. I know that if the school continues to fail her, I will do what I need to do to get her the help she needs even if it means homeschooling.
So now my life just got busier and more complicated. I now have two children in my house with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, I guess I always did really. I just pray I have the strength to keep up with these kids and do whats right for them while also keeping my sanity. Pray with me.
Friday, August 20, 2010
A Night Without Ian
After my depressing posting yesterday, my sister phoned me up and offered to take Ian for the night and today. Today I agreed to let Curtis go golfing for the first time this year with his good friend that he hardly sees anymore. I was stressing about being left home alone today with all the three kids by myself because Ian himself is a handful and is always trying to escape the house.
There hasn't been very many nights that I've gone without seeing my boy. It's strange coming home and not having to chase him around to get him ready for bed. It's also strange to sleep till 8:30am and not be jotled out of bed by the sound of thumping on Ian's bedroom door as he lays there and kicks it trying to get our attention. It's also very nice to be able to wake up and have breakfast and not have to watch the doors to make sure they are latched so that Ian won't escape during the busy morning hour.
It's a mini break for us to just have two of our children, but even though it is nice now, I still miss him. He's a busy boy but he's so sweet and lets us know in his own way how much he loves us. I'll enjoy this day while it lasts and hope that I get more of these mini breaks in the future.....it's very refreshing!
There hasn't been very many nights that I've gone without seeing my boy. It's strange coming home and not having to chase him around to get him ready for bed. It's also strange to sleep till 8:30am and not be jotled out of bed by the sound of thumping on Ian's bedroom door as he lays there and kicks it trying to get our attention. It's also very nice to be able to wake up and have breakfast and not have to watch the doors to make sure they are latched so that Ian won't escape during the busy morning hour.
It's a mini break for us to just have two of our children, but even though it is nice now, I still miss him. He's a busy boy but he's so sweet and lets us know in his own way how much he loves us. I'll enjoy this day while it lasts and hope that I get more of these mini breaks in the future.....it's very refreshing!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wordless
This summer has taken a lot of things from me. I've seemed to have fallen into a depression that has made me wordless and less productive both at work and at home. I started blogging because I wanted people to see that yes, I have a busy life but I'm okay and life is a gift that's so precious. It seems that my bubble has finally burst and the weight of my problems has come down hard on my shoulders. I now see how truly difficult my life is going to be with my children and that it's going to be a long uphill battle to get the help they need.
My stomach has been in knots just thinking about it. I think I was fine with Ian's diagnosis because we expected it and we just wanted to know what the next step was to get him help. Amy is a different story. All these years I thought she was just bad and defiant and that everything was caused from her ADHD. Even the teachers at her school chaulked it up to her ADHD, demanding that her medication needed to be increased or changed. Now with the question of Aspergers on my brain, I consider all the time we've wasted on medication when all she really needed was one on one therapy. All the times I've been mad at her when she truly couldn't help herself for acting out. We've put all our focus on Ian and then Lyla because of course she's a baby, that we haven't been able to pick up on these other signs that seemed to go unnoticed. Now that I see evidence of Aspergers in Amy everyday, it's like another stone has been added to burdening sack on my back.
It's not fair! Why must my life be such a struggle? I struggled through every part of it. I struggled to breath when I was born and my lung collapsed. I struggled through diabetes when I was diagnosed at 11. I struggled through school and felt stupid because I had learning disabilities and couldn't read, which they finally discovered in Grade 7. I struggled through abuse from my peers in school, being teased and bullied and hated showing my face in class every day. I struggled through my first marriage which failed. All of my pregnancies, and then all of my childrens births, they all struggled to breath even when everything was done to prevent that from happening. I just want something to go smoothly for a change. To have a normal child that doesn't need to see doctors every couple of months, just learns from us and has hardly any struggles. Is that too much to ask for?
I also am upset with my performance at work, or lack thereof. It's like I just have too much to think about at home to even consider trying to think about what to do at work and I've been missing alot of time because I just simply go there and look around in a daze. I know my family is talking about me missing so much work and I feel guilty about it but I know that I'm the only one in our family working right now and I need to continue. The stress of everything is finally making me crack and I just don't think I can handle my life, somethings gotta give.
Lesley
My stomach has been in knots just thinking about it. I think I was fine with Ian's diagnosis because we expected it and we just wanted to know what the next step was to get him help. Amy is a different story. All these years I thought she was just bad and defiant and that everything was caused from her ADHD. Even the teachers at her school chaulked it up to her ADHD, demanding that her medication needed to be increased or changed. Now with the question of Aspergers on my brain, I consider all the time we've wasted on medication when all she really needed was one on one therapy. All the times I've been mad at her when she truly couldn't help herself for acting out. We've put all our focus on Ian and then Lyla because of course she's a baby, that we haven't been able to pick up on these other signs that seemed to go unnoticed. Now that I see evidence of Aspergers in Amy everyday, it's like another stone has been added to burdening sack on my back.
It's not fair! Why must my life be such a struggle? I struggled through every part of it. I struggled to breath when I was born and my lung collapsed. I struggled through diabetes when I was diagnosed at 11. I struggled through school and felt stupid because I had learning disabilities and couldn't read, which they finally discovered in Grade 7. I struggled through abuse from my peers in school, being teased and bullied and hated showing my face in class every day. I struggled through my first marriage which failed. All of my pregnancies, and then all of my childrens births, they all struggled to breath even when everything was done to prevent that from happening. I just want something to go smoothly for a change. To have a normal child that doesn't need to see doctors every couple of months, just learns from us and has hardly any struggles. Is that too much to ask for?
I also am upset with my performance at work, or lack thereof. It's like I just have too much to think about at home to even consider trying to think about what to do at work and I've been missing alot of time because I just simply go there and look around in a daze. I know my family is talking about me missing so much work and I feel guilty about it but I know that I'm the only one in our family working right now and I need to continue. The stress of everything is finally making me crack and I just don't think I can handle my life, somethings gotta give.
Lesley
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Family Business
The nice thing about having a family business is enslaving the younger generation into working for you. Here I am typing away while I watch my 14 year old niece, Samantha, sort through my mountain of papers to be filed. Cheap labour too, only $20 for the day where if I had my own personal secretary I'd have to pay them at least minimum wage.
I hate filing! My brain is so unorganized, how do I keep my house or office organized?
Luckily Samantha is learning at a young age how to file and keep accounts. Maybe next year I'll have to teach her to do payroll. We all need to start somewhere.
I hate filing! My brain is so unorganized, how do I keep my house or office organized?
Luckily Samantha is learning at a young age how to file and keep accounts. Maybe next year I'll have to teach her to do payroll. We all need to start somewhere.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)