Just Another Day

I'm doing much better now, thanks!  I've had time to research things and ask more questions and I feel that we are doing the right thing in removing "the thing" even though my motherly instincts automatically object to someone slicing my into daughter's skull with a knife! I didn't even tell you that the day after we met with the surgeon and scheduled the surgery, my daughter fell from her tree swing and needed four staples in her head.  I was at lunch with a friend when I get a frantic call from my son asking if I am on the way home.  I am not.  So my husband grabs the phone and says, meet me at the ER, she cut her head badly. Oh the blood!  I know that head wounds bleed profusely, but there really is nothing to prepare you for seeing your child's clothing almost completely soaked in blood, as well as most of her hair.  Poor baby, luckily the staff saw all the blood and let us in immediately, without doing all that check-in routine.  All I ...

So what started out as a simple lesion has turned into what will be a CT scan under general anesthetic, and then surgery, of course, under general anesthetic. Lovely. If I thought I was stressed out before, apparently I had no idea how bad it could get. And even though there are many parents out there with much tougher challenges, I am going to throw myself a brief pity party on this here blog.  You see, being mine, it makes it ever so much easier to whine. The hospital is calling it a lesion, but upon further study of the actual definition of a lesion, I am unsure.  There seem to be many different types of lesions, and this one, I think, falls under the umbrella of "tumor" although I think they absolutely do not want to use that term.  I am not saying that is it cancer or anything, because tumor does not always equal cancer.  Well, I guess that still qualifies as a lesion, although I was given to understand that a lesion occurs with an injury of some kind, a...

You know, there are some days where you just look at yourself and think, "Parental failure, right here." Tonight is one of those nights. My son, who is not necessarily the nicest person in the world to other children, got in a fight with a girl down the street.  Who allegedly pushed him off his bike and scraped his leg pretty good.  He was practically spitting with fury when he came inside, and I asked him why it was always him who was fighting with everyone.  Which of course, made him even more angry. He has this sense of the world that is so black and white, so "us" versus "them" and I don't know how to shake him out of that mentality. He is coming up on 11, which is supposed to be the age of reason, but it's also the age of raging hormones, so we'll see how that goes.  He also has a superiority complex, and goes around infuriating and humiliating other children by using words they don't know.  Which, you know, good way to make frie...

- One of the things I feared has come to pass.  My daughter has somehow been traumatized by school and I, due to her disability, cannot for the life of me figure out why.  And yes, I know that three year olds aren't exactly known for their monologues about their emotions, but I think we truly have a disadvantage here.  She doesn't want to go to school at all, tells me in the morning "No school!" and then when she gets there, bursts into tears when they are ready to line up.  The teacher reports that she will suddenly become teary in the middle of class for no apparent reason.  I've spoken with the teacher and she cannot pinpoint an incident or reason as to why she is doing this. I know attention-seeking behavior (especially from her) and this is not it.  This is genuine distress.  All I can get out of her is that school makes her sad.  Ugh.  This SUCKS and was exactly what I was anxious about.  I want to rip my hair out because I alr...