It has been a little bit since I have written. I had this long post ready to publish and I decided not to; I am just going to talk, I think.
The post that I had originally written was about how much I don’t like Christmas and how stressed out I am about the money I am expected to spend over the holidays. I actually really like the Christmas season. I think that I just don’t like all of the extras that go along with it. I love all of the lights and beautiful displays. I love Poinsettias and Christmas cacti. I love tradition, food, and the feeling of warmth. I love Christmas cartoons and the nostalgia of it all. I love seeing old friends, and get-togethers, and New Years. I love that, in my husband’s culture, my birthday is the eve of the last day of Christmas, “Three Kings Day,” and it is the day to give children gifts (I totally wish that my own children would adopt this).
That being said, as someone who has trouble reading people, it is really confusing when others are nice once a year. My oldest two children are as, or more, awkward than I am and they need an example, so I am going to play it off with a smile.
I still feel sick over money but this is just a rough patch, in a rough time of the year to have one. I feel guilty about having to have surgery because I have to pay a significant amount, more than I would ever spend on Christmas, prior to it. I just have to remember that everything passes and harder times can feel, well harder, around the holidays. I’ve requested that Christmas gifts be donations towards my surgery; gifts of reduced stress. I just need to work it out that surgery is covered, necessities are in stock, and the kids are covered for a smaller Christmas, with knowledge that I will make it up…I started working full-time, last week, and my husband has recovered from his surgery, so we will catch up, but not before the holidays are over. as long as my pathology report, taking place during my surgery, is good and I will not have to stop working for cancer treatment.
Maybe my prayer is to be graceful, over the next month. Is it bad that I don’t want to be less prideful? I have had to have so much help, before, as a single parent, with cars, with my children while I was in graduate school, and in the flood where I lost so many things that I valued, that I just can’t ask one more thing of one more person. I need the serenity to accept the things I can’t change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
I am worried about going back to work too soon, because I know myself; sometimes, I spend half of my sessions lifting kids up because that extra sensory info and very physical play can work wonders, for example, I had a boy today, who is mostly non-verbal, pointing up and saying “up go!” when I lifted him by his feet. Those kind of things are what makes me tick, even if I get beat up in the process.
I have been very contemplative, since I received a pretty good beating from a 13-year-old, as big as me, last week. My sessions with this client involve giving her a means of communication, so that she can really interact with others in a non-aggressive manner. figuratively, she knocked me off of my high horse and I had to decide what I am willing to take. My first thought was that I was finished with her but that only lasted for a minute. Everyone else has thrown their hands up or they have been afraid. I am trained to fight, probably, should have blocked, and I think that I can take it; that is just where I feel I am being led. I have had five sessions, in which this client has communicated with me, using various forms of alternative communication and she navigated an appropriate system, on a speech generating device, beautifully, for me and her mother, when I had a representative bring one in. Number six was rough but I gradually moved towards her with the AAC and she communicated with me and we had a language session for 45 minutes, after a pretty aggressive episode. I couldn’t leave it there; not where this client may have had the opportunity to equate hitting me, herself, or others, to leaving I therapy. I really want this to work because this could change this family’s life, if she is able to communicate with them, the way that I have personally witnessed. At the end of my “WWE” session, this client looked at a stimulus page that I have that says, “I feel” in two separate symbols; she took the “bad” symbol off of my board (mine are Velcro, to access for demonstration), and she lined it up perfectly and pointed to each word. On her communication board, she pointed to “feel” and “bad”, I think I would take another hit over the head to see that again. I am so worried about leaving this one, when I have surgery. Another clinician will be filling in and I am the only person that she has seen, at my clinic. I am praying that she will communicate and not hurt anyone; I have really kind of invested myself. It is kind of funny that I am also afraid of returning; a well placed hit or kick might not be so safe. If you are reading this and have ever judged parents by the way that their kids act, please remember that some children are born with disorders that require outside help, and they may have the sweetest, and most isolated, and judged parents, anyone has ever seen
Like I said before, my surgery is on Wednesday and I literally have no idea which surgery I will have, or how I will wake up, or what news I will wake up to. “Jesus take the wheel.”
** Updated segment** I thought that two bills with similar amounts were the same (maybe one was updated with adjusted insurance final totals).. they were two separate bills. As my debit card was being processed, at my pre-op appointment, I found out that one was the hospital bill and the other was the doctor bill. I am kind of at a loss… I got paid and had *an amount* in my account; the amount that I have to have before Monday + my the amount that I paid the hospital is more than I have and my personal bills, Christmas, and living expenses are not accounted for.
I am up late worrying and I know that worrying does not help anything. I feel a little bit defeated because I worked so hard to make sure that I would have what turned out to be half of what I need and our medical bills feel out of control with my son’s emergency appendectomy, in July; my husband having surgery and having to be off work and my recent accumulation.. and my student loans have to start being paid next month and I am going to be able to pay my personal bills three months late, it looks like. Can Christmas just wait for me to catch up?
So She Did... 