Part of the problem is that I now have a long commute, 45-90 minutes each way. I spend all of my time just surviving now.
The other part of the problem is my Internet connection at home. It took over a month for Verizon to give us a dial tone at home. Then it took me a week or so to call my Internet service provider and inform them of my move. That's when I learned that I can't have DSL at our new house. We can have dial-up or cable.
As I understand it, if we get cable, I would have to change my e-mail address and then maybe I'll be able to import all of my old messages into the new e-mail account. I want to avoid that if I can, so I wanted to give dial-up a chance. So, theoretically, we now have dial-up Internet access.
However, when I tried to use it, it wouldn't work because our phone line had the stutter sound to indicate that we have voice mail. And we couldn't check our voice mail. (Murphy's Law?)
I called Verizon a week ago and solved the voice mail problem, so now we should have dial-up access. I just haven't had time to try it. (I'm posting from work. Again.)
I'm worried that I've lost all of my readers with my long absence, but just in case, here is an update:
- The appointment with the counselor went well, I think. AF still had not read the Starving Brains book, so the counselor suggested that we put off scheduling the next visit until after he has read it. Her reasoning is that once he has started reading some of the things that I've been reading, then we can discuss it more easily. The problem is that I read fast and he seems to think that he has to keep up. AF promises to read the book, a little every night, but I'm not sure whether this is happening.
- We drove up to Rhode Island on Friday 9/7/07. It took over nine hours. JF called it "road trip island" and seemed to enjoy the long ride. We shed some tears at the service for AF's mom. JF played with a boy cousin who is two years older and has only one arm. The boy couldn't understand why JF wouldn't answer his questions or pay attention to him. (How do you explain autism to a six-year-old? I didn't bother to try.) We drove home on Sunday 9/9/07.
- On Monday 9/10/07, we drove down to Virginia Beach, to visit a new DAN doctor. We had been under the mistaken impression that it would be only three hours each way. It was five and a half. Doing this immediately after a long road-trip weekend was traumatic. However, AF actually accepted this DAN doctor enough to go along with his suggestions. We are planning to try a magnesium-B6 supplement, a melatonin supplement, a urine/stool test, and a blood test.
- On Monday 9/17/07, JF started attending a Howard County special education preschool program. (I hate the acronym that they use: RECC.) It's two and a half hours per day, five days a week, so he's getting less time than he did in Montgomery County (3 hrs x 5 days), but I told them I would wait and see how well he does.
- We settled on the new house on 9/21/07.
- JF is off of Lamotrigine (generic Lamictal, the anti-seizure medication). Back in July, the neurologist had said that we should gradually reduce the Lamotrigine. If we saw any seizures (mini or otherwise), we were to go back to the previous week's dose and that would be his dosage henceforth. We've reduced it to nothing and have not seen any seizures. (I'm worried that we're missing something, because he did have an abnormal EEG earlier this year.) We have an appointment with the neurologist sometime this month.
- I asked JF's new teachers to evaluate whether he needs occupational therapy. Wednesday 10/10/07 was the IEP meeting. Both AF and I attended. They decided that he is eligible. Yay! Accomplishment! (But I think they are squeezing the OT time into his existing 2.5 hr schedule.) At this meeting, I asked the teachers what they think of our plans to start giving JF a magnesium-B6 supplement and a melatonin supplement. His new teacher said that she's seen many students benefit from melatonin.
- I haven't had a chance to start job-hunting yet.
- AF bought a new toilet for the new house. Years ago, a guest at our old house had clogged the toilet. Apparently, this had been traumatic for him. So he has spent $200 on a toilet that was advertised as being able to flush an entire bucket of golf balls.
On that note, I think I should sign off. On my way home, I'm stopping at Barnes & Noble to spend a gift card that AF & JF gave me for my birthday. Wee!
