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hollybomo
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Name: Holly
Country: United States
State: Missouri
Birthday: 7/15/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: My Husband,My House, Harry Potter, cadavers, King of the Hill, that's all
Message: message me
Member Since:
8/26/2005
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| Well its been awhile. I guess I decided to come back because I have things on my mind that I might feel better about once I write them down. I don't know if I'm really back, just for now. I just don't have enough to say to write on here very often. We have decided to stay in Bolivar. I've been working for three weeks now and I love it. I have a temporary license, and take the boards in the middle of July. If I fail, I drop to 10 dollars an hour and work as a tech until I pass. At least they won't fire me, but tech will not be fun after working as a full fledged physical therapist for a month. So I hope I pass. I've been studying, and feel okay about it, but I'm scared to death to actually take this test. Also, if I fail, I have to pay 415 dollars each time I retake it. I'm really hoping it all goes well the first time. We've been looking at houses online just for fun for years. A few months ago, we narrowed it down to one house that we really like. We weren't ready to buy until now, now that I'm working. So we were just waiting and praying that the house didn't sell. It hasn't sold, and we have talked to the owner and he agreed to our offer, but we didn't put it under contract yet. He called us tonight and said he is declaring bankruptcy, and his attorney says that if we buy it now, the bank could very well try to tie us up in court saying we have somehow done something suspicious; buying his house right when he goes bankrupt. He is a landowner and has a lot of rental properties and I guess the money problems come from his money being all tied up in property that isn't selling or renting well right now around here. He is going to get us in touch with the bank and make sure they know we want the house, so they don't sell it to someone else. He said we could even probably get it for cheaper since it will be a repo, but now we are set back on the move in date by a couple months because we have to wait until all the bankruptcy process is complete and the bank is ready to sell it. It hasn't been hard to wait until now, but two months from now!!! I don't feel like I can wait anymore. The window unit is not cutting it. I want a house!!! And furniture that I like!!! And central heat and air... Anyone that knows me knows I am ready to move on when I am ready. I have had to have tremendous will power to not already have half the house packed up. So, I need a little patience. There is a little boy in my life that I am in love with. He is the son of one of our best friends here and will be two at the end of this month. He is my best buddy. He has also started in the last three months to show a lot of signs that worry me, signs that point to possible autism. Writing that is so scary to me. I have always been so okay with kids with disabilities. Something in me draws me to them, but for some reason it is so different now. I am not so okay with this. I used to really like this analogy that I read once that compared being pregnant to planning a trip to Paris, and having a kid with special needs was like getting on the wrong plane and ending up in holland. The story talked about how you buy all these books and maps of Paris, you plan to see all the sights, and then you get on the plane and they say "Welcome to Holland". At first you are devastated and feel lost. You have no maps, no guides, no hotels lined up. Holland is slower paced and not as glamorous, but then you stay there awhile and start to realize that Holland is beautiful, and has windmills, and all that stuff. Your whole life people will be talking about their trips to Paris, and you'll say, "yes, that is where I was supposed to go", but you start to appreciate where you ended up and see the beauty and potential. I used to love that story, but now, I understand how one lady felt when she said, Autism is no Holland. It is another planet, and you'll never even learn the language. The whole thing is frustrating. I think it might be different if something was evident from birth. But for a child to seem so normal, and so smart, and at the same time, start to require such odd rituals, start to withdraw, never transition from babbling to talking. I ache for him. I think about his future and just pray that he overcomes this. I want him to have friends and a normal social life, and normal opportunities. I also feel very awkward. His mom and I have only breached this subject a few times. She definitely notices the speech delay, but the sensory issues are a little harder to pick up on, and I am afraid to say anything that might hurt or offend. They have looked into therapy, but haven't pursued it, and I know he would benefit so much from it. I feel like there is no time to spare, start working on this right away! But I don't feel like its my place to push the issue. I don't know... I guess I'm learning patience in a lot of areas right now. | | |
| In college I got a job working as an aide for a girl with autism, and lately I've been thinking about her a lot. We spent a little over a year together, and it really changed the way I think about so many things. I loved that little girl. I've been wanting to write about her on here, but haven't been able to formulate anything that flows in any kind of logical way. I just have a bunch of random memories and I can't put what they mean to me into words. Spring did a list of 100 things a few days ago, and that's how I decided that I am going to write about Alie. A list of things with Alie that I have fond memories of, things that have shaped who I am now, and the sporadic bursts of insight that she gave me into her world. Because I think that is what life with an autistic person comes down to: random and momentary bursts of connection when you think you understand them and are amazed at how insightful they can be when 85% of the time you don't get them and they don't get the world. I have no idea yet how long this list will be or if I'll even finish it today but I just wish I had done it sooner because I feel I am forgetting and I don't want to forget anything she taught me.
1. Alie is a twin.
2. Alie was 10 years old when we met. She turned 12 three months after I moved away.
3. Alie is highly verbal compared to most people with autism. Some days she didn't say much, and I wouldn't say that she could carry on a normal conversation, but she did ask and answer questions.
4. One of Alie's perseverations was holidays. We spent countless afternoons on the bench swing in her backyard planning holiday parties. The planning for the next upcoming holiday started the day after the previous holiday.
5. "Planning" meant Alie wanted me to ask her questions about the party, like, "What kind of decorations should we get?" and then she would answer. She would also draw pictures of the party.
6. Alie drew the same picture over and over and over.
7. She refused to use the back of a piece of paper.
8. Alie never had a party; not even for her birthday. Her mom didn't think she could handle the commotion.
9. Alie loved Walmart, which coincidentally also perseverates on holidays.
10. If you don't know, perseverating is a term used to describe the way autistic people become fixated on one object or topic. It can increase in response to stress or life changes, and sometimes can get so bad that it interferes with all parts of life.
11. I learned this word after I started working with Alie.
12. Alie's mom gave me books about autism when I first started working.
13. The best way to describe Alie's mom is inconsistent. Sometimes she was in tune with Alie's needs, sometimes she caused the melt downs. Sometimes she came home happy and sometimes she came home yelling. The rules were always changing.
14. Alie's caregivers could fill a list of their own.
15. The number one need of autistic kids is consistency. They need to know what to expect and what is expected of them and how you are going to react every time.
16. Sometimes I thought I would do a good job raising Alie.
17. When she asked me if she could live with me, it was hard for me to say no.
18. Alie loved Barbies and princesses.
19. We played Barbies every day.
20. I can't finish this list now, but 20 is a good stopping place until next time.
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| I hate statistics. I hate the fact that I can't just look at data and decide using my own logic what it means and how it is related and if it is significant. I know that part of my hate is because I don't understand it, but I'm pretty sure that I would still hate it if I understood. I never really believed people who said reading certain subjects was like reading a different language until I tried to read about statistics. There are just so many words I don't know and when I look them up the definitions are filled with words I don't know. Maybe it is because my stats teacher in college made me cry. She didn't really teach us anything anyway. She taught us how to use excel, but not what we were doing when we did a t-test or whatever. She didn't tell us what the results meant or why to do it or when, and plus she made me cry. So now the boards are going to have stats questions, which I might be able to handle because I've always gotten by with pure memorization of these definitions that I do not understand, but I don't know. It scares me. Plus, my research is nearing that part when I have to do some analysis of the data. I like research. I like coming up with questions and figuring out how to test them, but I hate coming up with the results. That is the reason I don't think I'll ever be in research. We have to submit our stuff for publishing, which means I have to run all kinds of statistical tests and actually understand the numbers that are spit back to me. I like math, but this is not math. These numbers mean something, and I don't know what. I'm so frustrated. I am going to a stat review class, but they want us to bring questions, which I am embarrassed to bring because I only have one question: "What the hell?" | | |
| There is a church on my street, about three blocks from us, that consistently has odd sayings on its sign. I always notice and really wish I had been writing them down since we moved here because some of them made absolutely no sense. The one this week was disturbing, and prompted me to come back to old xanga and try to list as many of them as I can remember for your enjoyment, whoever you are.
This week's was, "Staying in bed and shouting Oh God does not constitute going to church." I have to assume that they were making a sexual reference to try to attract people who think sexual references are funny into their church? I think I have a pretty good sense of humor, but I just can't figure out what is funny about this sentence. Maybe it would have been a little more clever to say "a religious experience" instead of "going to church". That makes a little more sense to me, but it still isn't very funny. I imagine the deacons, or whoever writes those messages, sitting around a table in the church office when they were coming up with this slogan. "How can we put something about sex on our sign so people will think we aren't prudes and will want to come to our church?" It's just distasteful to me.
Another week the sign said, "The best giver is the one who lends an ear." I can see what they are trying to say, but isn't that a weird way to phrase it? "best giver"?
More:
"Don't cut what can be untied." I guess it means not to be rash, but isn't the end result the same?
"Beware the man who only owns one book." That sounds familiar to me, but I don't get what it has to do with church.
"Drivers, make God your copilot." First, drivers don't have copilots, and second, doesn't God want to be the pilot?
The new sign this week: "Your biggest problem could have been solved when it was small." Thanks for the encouragement. | | |
| I have recently become afraid that one day I will have conjoined twins. One in 200,000 births are conjoined twins, and that is actually a lot.
Our healthcare system is messed up, but universal healthcare is not the answer. Someone needs to start thinking outside the box to come up with a new plan. As an example of how our government runs healthcare, I think of the Native American hospitals. Native Americans get free healthcare provided by the government, but they do everything they can to cut costs. They give the cheapest treatments instead of the best. I was talking to a guy who was a PT in Oklahoma and did not work at a Native American hospital, but did treat a lot of Native Americans who chose to come to his clinic instead because it was better treatment, even though they had to pay for it. He told me of a guy who got a diabetic ulcer on his heel. Diabetic sores sometimes lead to amputation because diabetics have poor circulation, so they tend to get infections easily. But we do wound care and there are a lot of treatments that can heal the sores and prevent amputation. So anyway, the guy came to him for his wound care and the wound was healing, but then over a holiday weekend when the clinic was closed, he told him to go to the hospital for his dressing change. He went to the hospital and came back amputated! This is just one story, but apparently this is their first line of treatment for diabetic sores. It is cheaper for them to amputate legs than it is to treat the wound, so that is what they do! He also said that among the Native Americans, anyone who can afford to go to a different hospital does because the Native American hospital is where you go to die. So, that is what the government does when it runs a hospital. | | |
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