Blessed with Strep Throat

Yes. I said blessed. Cursed in many ways, but in other ways blessed.

I am not so sick today that I can't get things done around the house, but I am too contagious to be at work. So.......after starting antibiotics last night, today I got my check, went shopping, cleaned the building, cleaned my apartment, thought about taking a nap but when blood sugar was low sleep eluded me, so I had a cup of coffee instead, and now, here I am writing a blog entry (and the mother of all run-on sentences)!

I am doing the OC New Me !! Challenge. My challenge was weight, and I said I wanted to lose ten lbs. Well, my initial weight was 175 (MOTHER OF GOD!). Ya, I gained more than I thought. But for the last couple of days I have been weighing in at 168. Woot! I can't believe I lost 7 lbs doing basically diet alone. I have run 4 times but that doesn't count for much. I won't qualify for the drawing because I need to mail in the money order, but still, that was pretty groovy eh?

I'm planning on buying a slightly used treadmill with my tax refund. I'm also planning on buying four new tires (nothing too extravagant), a couch (or rather a platform bed for bob and he'll give me his couch), and plane tickets to Denver for my Mum's graduation with a nursing degree (in May!). I filled out my tax stuff today and it is a fairly hefty amount. God knows I'll be needing it with the medical bills I have crawling up my butt since I no longer qualify for secondary medicaid coverage for the kids (seriously, with TWO jobs I made under 25,000 last year, and yet I am supposedly well-to-do enough to cover a few hundred additional dollars a month for medical expenses! I think not!)

I bought Gracie a pair of el-cheapo Walmart boots today. They are fabulous! Only nine bucks, but since she got her orthotics none of her shoes fit but her tennies (which really really need to be washed). Gracie is a shoe-horse. She LOVES shoes unlike anything you'd imagine, and she has been super upset about the limitation to one pair of shoes, when she has several super stylish pairs in the closet just dying to be worn! She spent the day with me as I cleaned and shopped, and now she is napping (tired little peanut).

I talked with Gracie's PT and she thinks that with a few more months of physical therapy, the thera-togs we have on order being used daily under clothes(weird hip brace thingies that pull her legs forward), and her SMOs that she should be walking well and building up strength in her lower body. That is good news! We may be finished with physical therapy in a few more months then! The flip side is that her PT has some serious concerns about Gracie's sensory issues and developments. She asked Gracie's pediatrician for an order for an Occupational Therapy evaluation, so I'm thinking that Gracie's physical therapy may well end up being replaced by occupational therapy.

Gracie starts preschool next year, and she has her early education evaluation in the next few months. I intend to request that the school district perform additional special education evaluations on Gracie at that time. I have a few concerns, mainly her interactions with peers (she is extremely withdrawn although she does have two best friends at daycare!) and her sensory issues. She has a very limited food intake I think because of texture and color issues, hates for me to touch her head, and is extremely sensitive to sounds. Her issues at dance and gymnastics with sound and her anxiety has me worried enough to get it checked out. With Sandis, I think if he had gone to a real preschool rather than just a day care mockup, we would have caught his ASD a heck of a lot sooner. The staff in a true preschool setting are trained to look for developmental delays, where day care staff usually isn't. I think that if Gracie is having issues I'd rather find out sooner rather than later, so I'm making sure she is in preschool next year so we have access to early interventions and early special education services if we need them.

I've gone round and round in my head about this stuff. Am I super sensitive to things like this because of Sandis's diagnosis? Because of that fear I purposefully did not mention anything about Gracie's sensory issues, wondering if I was overreacitng. The fact that the PT told me she has some concerns about Gracie helped me to feel that I wasn't overreacting and some of the things I've been seeing with her others have seen as well. We'll see where we go from here eh?

Gracie's diabetes has been good lately, which is nice. We had two numbers up aroud 215 and 216, and then a 175 and a few mornings in the 150's, but other than that we are still holding steady. She is my peanut, and I love her mightily! I know that when it is time for short-acting that we will do okay. I have so much confidence in myself and peace with my life. It doesn't always feel that way, but it does right now.