It’s been a long time

I know it’s been a long time since I posted on my blog. Although I was already a pretty irregular blogger, it was on my list of things to get better at in 2012. But 2012 was a crazy year for me. SO much has happened.

I spent the better part of the year away from my family. Given the school issues my son was going through and a bunch of other stuff, we decided to give the UK schools a try. I started blogging about this in a 3 part series on American Schools, and I promise I will eventually post that 3rd part, eventually.

As life would have it, the school situation improved more then we could have ever dreamed. Both kids were thriving in the UK system and so we decided to make the biggest life change a family could make – we decided to move to another country.

In July we closed down our business, sold all of our belongings and moved. I was once again reunited with my family in August, after a long year apart.

We left behind my side of the family, a lot of friends and great neighbours. We also left behind some people that were not too happy about our decision to sell our business. It hurts my heart that there are people out there that are mad at me and wish my family ill, but given the choice, we would do it again.

It’s because of these unhappy people that I have essentially gone off the social media grid. I’ve privatised all my social networking outlets. I stopped blogging (on purpose, not just because I’ve been busy, which was usually my excuse). I’m now selective about who I tell things to, who can know where I am, what I’m doing, etc.

For anyone that knows me, this is a very hard thing for me as I’ve always been an open book. Some say I talk too much! (Come on, we all know THAT is true!) But for now, I have been silenced. It sucks. But, that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing what I want to do. I’ll still be tweeting, Facebooking and sharing my mobilephotography – I’ll just be doing it with people I know I can trust.

Hopefully, after making this declaration (to no one in particular since probably no one reads this blog anyway), I will start blogging again. Writing is supposed to be an outlet and I do intend to continue.

Phoneography

My most recent addiction is using Instagr.am on my iPhone. It’s a photo sharing app (recently acquired by Facebook, jury is still out on how I feel about that). Since I started using it, I find myself looking at my surroundings in a completely new way. Looking for shadows I wouldn’t otherwise have noticed. Seeing how clouds change in shape and color in ways I hadn’t thought to capture with a camera before.

Instagram also includes a lot of filters and editing features that has encouraged me to try even more photography apps. Giving me the ability to tweak the photos I’ve taken with my phone. I can’t even use my Canon the same anymore (not that I have given up on using it!).

And viewing the work of other phoneographers has encouraged me to look at photography in a whole new way. It’s made me want to be better at taking photos (whether it’s phoneography or photography).

If you don’t use Instagram but want to see my photos, you can view them via a third-party site, the one I use is Web.stagram (there are others). And recently, I opened up a gallery on Instacanv.as where you can actually purchase canvas’d photos as art! And if you do see something you like and purchase one, I get paid, how cool is that? Not all of my photos are on Instacanv.as, just the ones I consider frame-worthy.

If you use Instagram (it’s now available for Android as well as the iPhone), please let me know as I’m always looking for new phoneographers to check out! And you can find me by searching for username shellyblake.

Call Me Back (not)

Anyone that knows me KNOWS that I am not really a phone person. Texting, yes. Email, yes. Twitter, yes. Facebook, yes. But phone calls, not so much.

Not to say I can’t talk on the phone for any length of time. But by and large, I’d rather read what you have to say. Chalk it up to bad memory – if it’s in writing I can refer back to it later. I really don’t think it’s an anti-social thing. Well, it could be. But I’m not completely convinced it is. I just really like to see things in writing.

So this is one of my big pet peeves. I’ll email someone and they’ll call me instead of replying. I know that sometimes it is better to discuss things on the phone. Just last night Ian & I were texting back & forth and then I called him because it was going to take too long to type out an answer.

My peeve is about a return call that is not necessary. Like to just say “yes, I agree”. Really? You had to interrupt my day with a phone call for that?!

Or worse yet, when I’m trying to get someone to confirm something in writing. We get off the phone (after having a lengthy discussion) and I send an email detailing everything we just discussed. I ask them to please reply to the email to confirm I got all of the details correct. And what do they do? They call me on the phone to tell me! Then I have to very politely explain that I NEED them to reply to the email so I have it in writing.

Just yesterday I filled out a contact form on a website. I purposely left my phone number out because I wanted an email response. Guess what the response was? “Call me”. Really? Did you not get that I didn’t want to call you? If I had wanted to call you I would’ve picked up the phone in the first place!! The whole reason for the email was because I was asking for details that I will want to remember later. Therefore, I need it in writing!

I’ve learned my lesson. If I take notes while on the phone, they will get lost. But if I have it in an email then it’s exactly where I can find it. I have truly looked for conversations that had taken place YEARS in the past and found them in archived email inbox. I’m not kidding here. I AM that kind of pack rat. But if I had tried to find a handwritten note in that same way, it would’ve taken WAY longer and most likely, I wouldn’t have ever found it.

So what do you think. Am I just anti-social? Or have I just found a way to deal with my own disorganized chaos and forgetfulness that some people can’t relate to? And by “some people” I mean people that prefer the phone over the written word. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not me.

Learning Disabilities & the American School System, Part 2

This post is a continuation from “part 1“, so please read it first…otherwise it sounds like I don’t know how to structure my writing with a beginning, middle & end ;o)

A fundamental difference (IMHO) between a psychologist/therapist and psychiatrist is the latter can prescribe drugs. So by going to this new doctor it also meant someone else would be monitoring my son’s drug options/dosage.

The first thing the new doctor did was put my boy on a scale & weigh him. He told us he was being overdosed. He didn’t weigh enough for the med dosage he was on. We explained that the appetite suppression side-effect has always made it hard for him (and he’s little skinny guy anyway and a very picky eater).

The new doc explained some of the different med choices we had (we didn’t really know we had choices, we just took whatever the pediatrician gave us). A different medication that had to be gradually increased would actually have the opposite effect than all the other meds we had tried. Everything we were using before were stimulants.

Stimulants are like an adrenaline boost the brain. It makes things spark faster which makes it easier for kids to concentrate. The problem is it can have an adverse effect that you “crash” when you come off of them. Most of the behavior problems we were experiencing were from when the drug was wearing off. Add to that the appetite suppression side-effect and my poor kid’s body was starving but he couldn’t feel it. Ever get irritable when you’re hungry? Now you know how he felt (all the time).

The opposite of the stimulant was the med he was recommending we consider (notice: recommending we consider – not dictating we change to). This med worked in the reverse, if you’ve ever taken yoga then you know how it feels to find calmness and peace…which can make it easier to think. Another example if everything is loud and chaotic, you go into a room where it is quiet. That’s how this med works. And there’s no “crash” because it lasts 24 hours a day. And one of the side effects is it makes you hungry! Talk about a plus plus!

So we started on this med right away (he was recommending we wait until spring break but there was no way we’d wait that long, we needed change now). Because it’s more of a depressant than a stimulant you have to start with a low dose and slowly increase. So it took about two weeks to really see a difference. By 3 or 4 weeks he was on the full dose and already we were seeing great improvements.

During our discussions the doctor said he does not like to diagnosis or label kids until after he’s had a chance to get to know them. This irritated me at first because by this point I was desperate for a diagnosis. Just tell us what is wrong so we can work to “fix” it! He recommended I read Explosive Child by Dr. Ross Greene. My first thought was “great, reading recommendations, just want the pyschologist made us do” but I went out and got the book anyway. I didn’t start reading it until a few months later.

By this point we already had an appointment set to meet with all of the school officials (principal, teacher, social worker, reading teacher, etc) to discuss a 504 plan. We had hoped it would be everything we needed to make sure the school would be more accommodating to my boy’s needs. In their interpretation they were already being very accommodating, but writing a 504 plan means they’d be required to do a lot of things to help him succeed in school.

My Aunt came with us to the meeting (she used to be a principal and is now a university professor). She really acted as our advocate because we had no idea what questions to ask or know what we were doing. We were SO relieved she came with us because we thought we’d just be meeting with a couple of people and it ended up being a roomful. As parents we were overwhelmed, but my Aunt knew exactly what to do and what questions to ask. She’s was a rock star.

In the meeting she asked about getting my son an IEP as well (it would actually replace a 504 plan). The school agreed to do more testing to see if an IEP would serve him better.

We didn’t really see a whole lot of change in how my boy felt about school or how well he did in class after completing the 504 plan. I’m not saying it’s not a good document to have, just saying it didn’t really make a whole lot of difference.

After doing testing it was decided that an IEP would be beneficial. We all met again (with a few more school officials & my aunt) to write the IEP. Some of the new services would include working with an aide that would help him with writing (he gets distracted and then can’t transcribe his thoughts to paper), more work with keyboarding (many ADD kids do much better with writing when they can type instead of handwrite their work) and she would also continue to check him in & out each day to make sure he was on track with everything.

I really think the best thing all of these meetings and plan writing did was to make his school more aware of his plight and to give him extra attention. All of that was a great help, of course, but it still wasn’t enough to get him motivated to want to do well. Not every kid likes school and most probably would rather do something else, but most can be motivated. But not my kid. They tried praise. They tried prizes. They tried special privileges. Nothing seems to light his fire.

Also during this time we tried adding some additional meds to help with his attention issues. After experiencing a bad result (more anger/agression) his doctor had us give him Abilify. This med is typically used to treat bi-polar disorder and anxiety. But we’re not diagnosing him here! Remember, his doctor does not like labels.

We finally found a medication that worked! He was doing so well on it that we started talking about weaning him off his ADD meds. Maybe he wouldn’t need them next year.

Finally, the end of 5th grade arrived.

That’s also when I got a call that my daughter, a first grader, was showing signs of ADHD. We rushed to do some testing before the end of school. The school determined that they would need to keep an eye on her for next year (sigh).

So going into summer we ended the ADD meds but kept my son on Abilify and hoped that this would be a good summer. No structure and “boring” camp can be tough on him. But we had a plan and was ready to take action.

Meanwhile, I started reading the Explosive Child book (awesome!) and discovered a father/son team called Celebrate Calm. These two resources have literally changed my life (I am NOT exaggerating here!).

I’ll continue this in part three.

From an email: A New Holiday Tradition

This is such a fabulous idea for Chanukah and Christmas 2011 — Birth of a new tradition.

As the holidays approach, the giant foreign factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods, merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor.

This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands. Yes there is!

It’s time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in foreign produced wrapping paper? Everyone — yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local American hair salon or barber?

Gym membership? It’s appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some
health improvement.

Who wouldn’t appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned
detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a
book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plonking down the Benjamines on a foreign made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants — all offering gift
certificates.

And, if your intended isn’t the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen
breakfasts at the local breakfast joint. Remember, folks this isn’t about
big National chains — this is about supporting your home town Americans
with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.

How many people couldn’t use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a
local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin
their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave
your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at
your hometown theater.

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand lights for
the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that
other countries can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about
caring about US, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams. And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we
couldn’t imagine.

THIS is the new American Christmas tradition!

Learning Disabilities & the American School System, Part 1

I am not an educator, but I am a parent of an ADD kid. So my experiences may vary from yours, but if your LD kid is in a regular public American school, I’m betting your experience may be similar (and depending on where you live, might even be worse).

This will be a long story, I’m realizing now that it will need to be more than one post. This first post is the history of my son’s first six & half years of school in the public education system (kindergarten through mid-fifth grade).

My son suffered from depression (unbeknownst to us) for quite a few years. We blame his allergy meds. When he started kindergarten he was younger than most (turned 5 at the end of August). I know a lot of people in the education field and after having conversations with my son they all told me he was very bright and shouldn’t have problems in kindergarten, but socially he was immature so be on the watch for issues in that area. They weren’t wrong. But there was NO holding back my kid. He was so eager to start school, I didn’t have the heart to hold him back a year.

Kindergarten went pretty good, but I inquired anyway if he was too immature. His teacher said maybe, but that he was doing well.

First grade was harder. I inquired to the teacher about his social skills or if maybe he could be ADHD or something. She was in her first or second year of teaching and didn’t have a lot of experience with ADHD, but said she didn’t think so. He did start seeing the social worker because he did seem sad or didn’t seem to care about stuff (hello, depression anyone?). They also created a “behavior plan” the second half of the year to help him focus better (hello, focus issues?).

His second grade teacher was very experienced and even worked with special education kids in her past. So I was happy that if he “did” have issues, surely she would see it. But nope, she didn’t think he was having attention issues. He’s just having problems with behavior.

I took the kids to a Halloween event with my Aunt (an educator). My boy had one of his fits (he never had terrible twos, but terrible 6, 7 & 8, you bet!). She was floored – he’d always behaved in her presence before. She told me to have him evaluated for ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder). Pediatrician didn’t think he had issues. We took him to a psychologist and she wouldn’t diagnosis him anything until we did a lot of tests first. That meant drawing blood to see if he had a thyroid condition (like me), he didn’t. She also wanted to get a scan done to see if his tonsils/adenoids were too big (meaning he wasn’t getting good sleep), but we couldn’t afford that (insurance wouldn’t cover it). So therapy was all we could do.

Enter another behavior plan created mid-year. By the end of his second grade year we figured out that his allergy meds were “probably” causing depression (a lot of negative self talk, hated school, not many friends, behavior issues at home and school, etc.). His pediatrician didn’t think allergy meds could cause depression, but he didn’t push it because we (his parents) felt so strongly about it. Sure enough, 2 or 3 weeks later he was a different kid. He still didn’t like school, but the end of year/summer vacation was soon so he was pretty happy there too. No more negative self-talk, no more wishing he was dead, he was happy. Genuinely happy. We were astounded. Thank goodness for the Internet, this is where we read stories from other parents about allergy meds causing depression. I don’t care what doctors say, you can’t dispute the change it had in him!

The therapy continued, but still no diagnosis.

Third grade started with detention in the first week. Already he hated school. Kids were mean (accidents that harmed him were always done to him on purpose), everything was always someone else’s fault, he never took responsibility for anything. More detention within the first month. We requested the social worker to start a behavior plan now, at the beginning of the school year instead of mid-year (why exactly did they always wait until mid-year anyway?).

By the end of the first month of school we’d had it with his therapist. We were getting no where (and insurance was running out). And my boy knows the drill, he knows how to talk to the therapist to tell her what she wants to hear (don’t forget, very clever boy, been in psuedo-therapy since first grade with the school social worker).

We took him to The Bridge at the urgency of a friend whose kids did well under their guidance. It took them all of one week to diagnosis him ADD (not really ADHD because he’s not hyper). Everyone (teachers, social worker, school officials, pediatrician, etc.) did the proverbial hand-to-forehead head smack. Of course! He’s ADD! How come we didn’t pick up on that earlier! Seriously? I’ve been asking about this since first grade, people!

Sidebar: Palatine School District 15 sucks when it comes to learning disabilities. A fellow SD15 parent told me that the school doesn’t even acknowledge dyslexia as a learning disorder! Really? Hello, dyslexia been around for.ev.er. How could they not acknowledge it? (This may have changed as she was told this when her boys were in 2nd grade & they’re the same age as my boy.)

So now we have a diagnosis (yeah!) so the school continues adjusting his behavior plan in hopes that it will help him succeed. His teacher was great. Now knowing his limitations she was more patient with him and gave him a lot of encouragement. We also started experimenting with medications. Some parents don’t like using medication, but with my thyroid disorder I learned early on what a blessing the right meds (and right dosage) can do for your mental well-being. For the first time in his life he was (kinda) enjoying school.

Fourth grade meant a new teacher. This guy was fairly new to teaching (2nd career, came from non-school background), and had no experience with special education kids. No biggie, we got him up to speed right away and although he struggled with my boy, the year went relatively well and still using behavior charts. I really think his teacher didn’t believe in the ADD diagnosis, he just thought my boy didn’t know how to behave (whatever, bad parenting, insert eye roll here).

We had to try many different meds this year, finally succeeded with the Daytrana patch because we could put it on him a half hour before he woke up and he didn’t have to swallow any pills.

We took him off meds for the summer. Experimented with Magnesium supplements (Kid’s Calm) which worked great for both kids. But the school and his therapist thought it best to go back on his meds for school. One thing we didn’t consider is we started him on the same dose he left off, we should’ve gone with a low dose and worked our way up as needed.

Within days he was a different kid. We didn’t realize he was over dosing on his ADD meds. He was angry, irritable, even violent. After a couple of months of the crazy behavior (that only happened at home when he was coming down from the drugs) we stopped the meds. He had pulled a knife on us, destroyed property, threatened to hurt us, his sister and himself. We had him evaluated at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital, they weren’t completely helpful. Their recommendation: continue with weekly therapy (at The Bridge) and try new meds. They gave him a good “talking to” about the threats and we had to remove all the knives from plain view.

But at this point he had lost all the good that the years of therapy had given him. He was angry, out of control, and running the house. We were all walking on egg shells. We hit new heights the first week of December. He refused to go to school. The social worker had us call the police to escort him there (ultimately he went with his dad while I was on the phone with the 911 operator). Apparently “school refusal” is a common thing that you call 911 for.

I called his pediatrician and got a referral for a psychiatrist. We needed to find out if this was more than just ADD. The referral was for a polar disorder (he didn’t want to use the word “bi-polar“). Unfortunately we couldn’t get him in anywhere until after the first of the year. We actually contemplated not driving to Texas for Christmas for fear of him having an episode (as we now called them). We did go and he did have one, but we weathered the storm and our family got to witness what we’d been living through.

Appointment with the psychiatrist is set for January 3rd. Bring on 2011.

(end of part 1)

Miss, Mrs, or Ms?

Before today I had never really had a conversation about my “title”. I’ve always used Mrs since I got married and had never really given it much thought. Well, I’d given thought to how annoying it was when old widows used their husband’s full name (with the Mrs title), for example Mrs John Smith (Hello?, you’ve just traded your ENTIRE identity here!).

Whilst writing a professional document with a colleague, he used Ms for my name. During editing I changed it to Mrs. He thought the software had changed it automatically (LOL). I explained that I had changed it. He was quite surprised that I preferred that title over Ms.

I guess given my age, liberal attitude or whatever, he thought I would’ve insisted on the Ms title because it (according to him) is the more commonly used title as it is considered the feminine version of Mr. Whereas Miss or Mrs was frowned upon by liberal women in the 60s. Really? Why is this the first I’ve heard this? He said that’s why the magazine was called Ms. (I never read that magazine).

I do recall when I got married that many of my women friends that were well-educated, professional and older than me were shocked that I wasn’t planning to keep my maiden name. Hello? I was totally looking forward to a nice, easy-to-spell last name! I couldn’t wait to change it (no offense to my Welsh roots). I considered it a trade-up in last names (I was going from G to B). Granted, had my husband-to-be had a weird or hard to spell last name, I might have stayed put with my name, but that wasn’t the case here.

At any rate, I was proud to change my “title” from Miss to Mrs. I always felt weird being a Miss once I got past 20 years of age. I think I may have even used Ms a few times. But it never occurred to me to use Ms after I was married. I always considered that the divorced or still single title – of which I was not either.

Now I’m wondering, am I using an out-dated title? I did a little research on Wikipedia about the title and it really hasn’t made me change my mind. I still prefer Mrs over Ms. Am I the only one? What do other women in their 40s (or 50s, 60s or even 20s or 30) use?