I do not get out of the house as often as I would like for a variety of reasons - the weather (too hot/too cold, storming), the massive amount of energy required to get presentable and then wheel around some where (my arms are growing weaker damn it!), not feeling well, and the lack of a real purpose to go somewhere. Last week I was initiated into the true wheelchair user's club when I encountered yet another reason for not leaving the house. I was all prepared to go, had my shopping list programmed into my cell phone (what? I am more likely to lose a piece of paper than my cell phone! especially because I paid for the cell phone!), wrestled shoes on over my contorted feet (no botox this round so everything is tight as tight can be), and even managed to do something with my massive mess of hair (I am growing it out to donate and that is the only reason I have not taken scissors to it yet - it is much to thick and curly and snarly to grow long ever again). Then I sat down in my wheelchair and I was going nowhere fast. Okay, so I tend to go nowhere fast on a regular basis, but this time I had a reason. The left wheel was as flat as could be. It had been a long time since the air was checked and added to the tires and a few weeks since I had last gotten out of the house (I know, I am pathetic!). I think the bumping down the flights of stairs at the GI appointment encouraged some air to escape faster than my normal escapes from curbs and bumps. So I was stuck and like the awesome planner I am, I do not have an air pump/compressor. After some phone calls and cursing of Nessarose (the wheelchair), it was decided that the next day my brother would take my mom and the two wheels to the gas station to get air put in them. Thank God my wheels come on and off of the chair! I can only imagine what it looked like to see two people each holding just a fancy wheel walking out of the apartment complex or standing around the air compressor at the gas station. Someone probably thought that they forgot part of the bike when they stole it! The good news is that I am now back up to full pressures in both tires and it is holding steady (I check daily because I am paranoid). And for my birthday I am going to harass my dad for an air compressor. Cause nothing says loving like the gift of hot air!!

I filled a small bucket with soapy water and plopped in a sponge. I then supervised as Kevin scrubbed away every mark of his graffiti. The problem was he seemed to be having fun cleaning, so I decided that we would extend our grafitti removal project. So with bucket in hand we went to the two other special education classes and did some more cleaning until it was not fun anymore. Each teacher also played along, acting horrified that Kevin would write graffiti on his classroom walls and toys and talking about what a bad choice that was. When we walked back to our classroom, Kevin barely cleared the ground with the bucket he was lugging.
"Kevin, do we do graffiti at school?"
"No ma'am!"
"What happens if you do graffiti?"
" You clean it. And clean more."
"So are you going to draw on my walls again?"
"No Ma'am!"

After that day Kevin turned into a marker monitor, making sure they all had their lids on and that none left the tables. He always reminded me to put them away in the cupboard after we used them. And he never wrote on anything other than paper and appropriate materials again. :)

It has been a while since I have written because my life is rather lacking in the excitement value. Each day seems a lot like the next: lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. There are slight variations - today I am laying on the couch in my blue and pink plaid pajamas, yesterday I laid on the couch in my colorful owl pajamas (I love owls). I may switch up what kind of cereal I have for which meal, and there was the huge moment when I had corn on the cob instead. We lost spring to a month that pretended to be winter and now to a month pretending to be summer. It has been over 90 degrees on multiple days already - I live in the North for a reason! I did my dues in the South! So I have been trying out different ways to start/write this post:

It was a dark and story night... Um, isn't every night dark? And while we have received enough rain for me to call Lowe's and ask if they had Gopher bark in stock, we have been blessed to avoid the storms. Scratch that one.

Once upon a time...  Oh no! This almost always guarantees a prince, and the last prince charming I met was anything but charming in the end. If that was a prince, I am now accepting dates from frogs.

Long, long ago and far far away...Lets see here. This delightful disorder has decided to turn my memory into a very short term process so that kills long, long ago. And far away? I don't think that Target counts as far, far away.

In a galaxy far away... I may have my head in the clouds a lot of the time, but the rest of me resides solidly on Earth. Besides, I would probably get starship sick.


There once was a man from Nantucket...Too predictable.

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...  One, I have accidentally swallowed bugs that have blown into my mouth and it is retched disgusting. Two, there is way too much mean on that list for my stomach to handle and I would be down for the count long before the horse.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm... I have cleaned up enough poop in my life between my niece and my students. We are not adding animals into the mix!

This is the house that Jack built...  Lets see here...this is the stain where I spilled the coffee on the top of the pajamas I wore while lying on the couch that needs rebuilt?

OK, that is all of the "creative" introductions I can think of and not a single one works. So I guess I am out of ideas for today, but I will try again this week. Perhaps I will bring out some of my favorite stories of my children from teaching. "There once was a teacher..."

I feel like I need to apologize for all of the years that I took eating for granted and never appreciated it the way that it should be appreciated. These past two and a half years have taught me many things, including that there is so much more to the process of eating than I had ever appreciated. I have a far greater respect for how much work many of my kids do just to eat.
I had last been to see the GI doctor last May when I was having another fun round with severe dysphagia and serving as a taste tester for infant foods. The muscles finally got their groove back and I figured I was good to go. There was one hitch in the "all is better" though. It turned out that the only foods my stomach would accept without extreme reactions (pain, violent nausea, vomiting) were simple carbohydrates. My meal choices were narrowed down to breakfast cereal, oatmeal, bread, bagels (I occasionally still choke on those), rice, tortilla chips, pancakes, mashed potatoes, and macaroni. Oh, and I can tolerate milk and small amounts of cheese and freeze dried peaches and apples (to make eating them easier). This diet not only got old after a while - cereal for three meals a day is not something I recommend. The other concern is that I am missing huge aspects of a healthy diet like protein, and potassium, and a multitude of other essentials. What is also annoying is that I am eating very little, and have double checked by measuring calories, yet I am consistently gaining weight. Do you know how annoying that is? My third concern is that I get severe pain behind my right ribs at times, after I eat. So it was back to the GI doctor.
The GI doctor and I apparently were not at the same train station at that appointment because he was focused on the occasional difficulty swallowing that has remained after the dysphagia which is not an issue. I was focused on the above issues. The two trains kept passing but never meeting. He even admitted twice to not listening to me as he was writing (doodling?) on a notepad. In the end he insisted I have another swallow study done before we look at anything else and I agreed to prove to him that I was right when I said I can swallow.
So I had the swallow study done yesterday to please the GI doctor. I hate this test because Barium has its own specific definition of disgusting. After a feast of Barium, the surprising results were that I can swallow fine. As I was waiting for the bus I noticed my mouth felt weird, but I attributed that to the fact that I had drank thick barium and eaten barium coated crackers and not been given anything to drink afterwards. I got home and was not feeling good so I took some benedryl for my allergies and laid down. I am so thankful I took benedryl. When I woke up my mouth still felt funny and my throat hurt but I still didn't connect the dots. I had to chug milk anytime I swallowed anything like my meds and I could not eat dinner and laid back down. It was not until evening when I looked in the mirror at my tongue that I discovered that it was swollen and covered in "hives"/raised sores. I had my mom look in my mouth and throat and it was all fire red, swollen and covered in the same "hives". I am betting these go all the way down into my stomach given the pain when swallowing and the stomach pain. Apparently in between the last swallow study and now I have developed an allergy to Barium. Now I know that the ER was probably a decent idea, but I could breathe fine and my ER copay is a great deterrent. I called the doctor today  to see if maybe he could call in a round of steroids but he said to go to the ER. That copay is still a great deterrent and since it was not getting worse I decided to keep taking benedryl every 4 hours and stick it out at home as long as it does not get worse. The upside to this, once my tongue fits neatly back into its allocated spot in my mouth and I can swallow and talk normally again (I currently sound like I have been hitting the bottle hard as everything slurs together), is that I never have to do anything involving Barium again.
So next Tuesday I go back to the GI doctor to go over my results (I already know - normal, duh!) and see what we do from there. I have an idea - lets look at something other than swallowing! I can get the food into my stomach, it is convincing the stomach that it is food that is the problem!

Most mothers give their infants life once, which is a beautiful miracle, but my mother spent a year in her life breathing life back into me and giving me life again and again. I was born an apparently healthy infant, bald as bald could possibly be and full of attitude, and giving no signs of the genetic disease that was already written in every cell of my body. When I was five months old my mother was rocking me to sleep while watching a movie on TV. She did not want to miss the end of the movie, so she laid me on a blanket on the ground rather than taking me upstairs to my nursery. When the movie finished she discovered I was grayish blue, not breathing, and had no detectable heart beat. The monster in my genes had decided to rear its head in the form of relentless apnea. My mother learned infant cpr, I was hooked to a monitor, and no one ever slept through the night. Our address became well known to every fire fighter in our small town and they did not bother to knock on the door if a call came in, they came through the door one way or another. Yet the apnea was vicious. After one particularly prolonged episode at 6 months of age, my parents were taken to the little room no parents ever want to go to and informed that I was profoundly and terminally brain damaged with a life expectancy of less than six months. The recommended course of treatment was to leave me hospitalized or placed in an institution until I died naturally of another episode. My mother refused to give up on me. She informed the doctors that I was a child, not a used car that you return and replace because it is broken. I went home with her that day. The apnea continued up until my first birthday, but my parents persevered and delighted as I met every milestone. When I started to read at two and a half, my mother realized that she was in for a totally different ride than any of the doctors had tried to prepare her for.
My mom has been my biggest supporter. She believes in me even when I am unsure. Without her support I never would have had the courage to apply to Vanderbilt, let alone done well enough on the scholarship weekend to win a full Deans honors scholarship. Without her support I never would have had the courage to apply to Virginia to teach and I would have missed some of the most amazing children that touched my life, and an incredible friendship with a friend unlike any other. Without her support I would have never had the strength to go through the torturous ordeal of relearning to eat in early 2009 when I had lost the ability to swallow, and I would be dependent on some sort of artificial nutrition. Without her I would not be me. I would not have my very keen sense of justice, my heart for others, my willingness to risk getting hurt to love those who need it, my passionate way of living life, my foundation of faith, my wicked sense of humor, and so much more.
So not only has my mother given me life more times that we can count, but she has shaped that life and given me the strength and support to be the person I have become. I an blessed to be her daughter, honored to be her friend.

Spring used to be one of my favorite times of year, but now it is bittersweet. I still love the crisp bite as fall snaps back as it recedes (eventually, someday), I love the sudden explosion of green everywhere, I love the brilliant sunshine that emerges after the rain, I love the endless variety of flowers each as if painted by hand. I love how everything is bright and new and alive again. I love to go out in a fresh spring rain and chase puddles to splash just because I can and to twirl in the raindrops falling down with my arms open wide.
The bitter part comes because this was always a particularly active time as a teacher, with IEPs to write and end of the year excitement to plan and the joy of explorations outside for hands on learning, and the delight of seeing how far my kids had come in one school year. We always went on a Bear Hunt for Easter because everything had to be secular, and the kids followed directions of prepositions like over, under, on, around, through to find stashes of small toys until at last we reached "the bear cave" where they creeped in and found a box of bears to choose a special friend from. In May we hatched our own butterflies and watched them grow from egg to caterpillar to butterflies that we eventually set free. I was always amazed that my not so "gentle hands" never killed a butterfly in their eagerness to see them and get to them. We made special mother's day gifts and cards, and father's day too because that came after school ended and I loved being creative with these. We baked cookies, cut up fruit for fruit salad, made invitations and sent them out, decorated the tables, and set them so we could enjoy a Mother's Day tea made and served by the children (with assistance as needed). We planted flowers and watched them grow, each having a day with the important chore of watering and measuring them. There was always out water day when I asked for the kids to be sent to school in swim suits with a change of clothes and we took the huge water table, buckets, a wading pool, and every water toy ever invented out into the hot sun and just splashed until everyone was content. On the last day of school I set up a carnival in our classroom with a pinata, classroom games like bowling and bouncing frogs and pin the tail on the donkey and matching ducks and face painting and lots of balloons and bubbles with prizes at each game and special snacks. Then each id received their goodbye package from me - a framed photo that I had taken of them during the year, a photo CD of all the pictures I took, a new book chosen just for them, bubbles, and a small toy or stuffed animal.
I miss all of those classroom adventures. I miss the wonder of finding a ladybug and the lessons that came naturally from it. I miss the wide eyed wonder watching a butterfly come out of its cocoon. I miss the laughter, the fun of learning, I miss getting good and messy in the name of education. I miss my kids.