Long Time Gone

So, finally, a real update. I have just not been motivated to sit down and write anything lately. I might start something & then give up on it. Sad, huh?? Cuz I know I get mad when I go to people’s blogs and they haven’t updated in WEEKS. I’ve become one of THOSE people.

Anywho.. here we go.

JOB: I still love it and the idea of it. There have been problems lately with supervisor’s visions of what our job actually is and how to do it. Not as bad as TCH but sometimes ridiculous just the same. I’ve got some reallllly tough kids on my case load, that need a lot of attention and support. One of them needs to be in a psychiatric hospital so he can be stabilized on meds.. but we’re having trouble getting him there. Right now he’s on a good behavior cycle. For the past month or so he’d been on a crazy behavior cycle. I swear this kid has bi-polar.. or some other mood disorder. He rages and screams and slobbers and drools and kicks, hits, bites, etc. Watching him, you’d say “Why isn’t this kid in a lockdown padded cell?” That’s what I say too.. let’s not get into that right now though. We did finally take him to the hospital on Friday.. they looked at him for less than a min (psychiatrist) and said “oh you’re calm, see ya”. BASTARDS!!!! And, his mom said she won’t send him to any residential place, even though I had talked to her about that a few weeks ago.. don’t know if she didn’t understand residential or what. But, there are no other placements, and he takes up 4-5 staff when he escalated for hours at a time, so we’ve got no choice but to send him out. He can go back to a BED classroom, for half days and go from there. If he keeps this up, he will get hospital home bound instruction, which is like 2 hrs a week! So sad that there aren’t more places for the little ones. But, also so sad that there needs to be!!

Then, I have another kid that is an attention seeker who knows how to get attention in many negative ways. Some staff are worried about him needing hospitalization, but I actually don’t agree with that. He just needs a lot of one on one attention at various points throughout the day. That’s one of his new interventions now, he earns one on one adult time mid way through the day. Most of the time I’m the one doing it with him, which has in itself become problematic in that if I’m not in the building at the designated time, he’ll flip out. So, we’ve got to come up with a list of people for him to work his way through to choose from. I’m getting places with him.. his family needs a lot of work too. His older sister (11th grade, I think) just got out of the hospital for suicidal actions or thoughts, after running away from home a few times. So, drama everywhere there. But, I love this kid & his family, so it’s going to be fun, and REAL work. I’ve got 3 or 4 kids transitioning back to their original schools. Some because they’ve been successful, others because they’ve been with us for too long and have made no progress or their families won’t follow through. Nice, huh?

Parent group is almost over, and has been VERY successful. The parents don’t want it to end. But, it is draining to all the staff involved, running us 12 hour days on Thursdays. Not fun. We’re hoping to continue it next semester, and maybe even see if the parents would want to continue it themselves for the next few Thursdays until Christmas.. we’ll see though. We did finally get 2 whole days off for all our time given.. and flex time too for the other 16 hours. It’s a pain in the ass to use flex time, but at least we have it.

Um, it seems that my life IS work. I don’t know what else to talk about. :-P This past Wed-Fri I babysat for my 3 girls while their parents were in Toronto! That was an adventure. Not because of them, but because I had to be up at 6 freakin’ am!! Holy poo. McKenzie left for school and it was still pitch black outside. Yukky. We had fun though. Got to go out to eat both nights though!

Jacki (another therapist) and I have been getting into “trouble” together on the weekends she doesn’t have her kids. We’ve been out to downtown Greensboro and W-S. Greensboro is a lot more fun than I realized.. it reminded me of Nashville.. with people wandering around everywhere. W-S isn’t too bad either, in certain areas. She’s a trip to go out with, so that helps. We’ve had a few fun weekends drinking and such. And, the best part of it, we went with various guys that bought our drinks for us! Rock on!! Colleen and Alice have come once or twice too, it’s been fun. Haven’t found any hot, available guys though! What’s up with that?!

Onex had a bad spell a month or so ago. She started having spasms in her back. She never yelped or acted like it hurt, but it looked sketchy. So, I took her into Banfield (PetSmart vet) and they did xrays and tests and such. Found out she’s got degenerative disc disease in her spine, she’s lost 1 or 2 discs in her back, and a few more are very close to gone. And, she’s got more arthritis in her pelvis. Poor thing! So, they said I could go to the doggie neurologist and pay out the wazoo, or they could try giving her steroid shots to ease the pain and spasms. Supposedly successful with dachshunds. So, we did that, and now 3 or 4 shots later, she acts like nothing is wrong!! We’ve tapered off to one shot a month instead of one a week, which is good for the budget!! That ordeal was close to $200!

Then, Indigo had to have her day at the vet. She had this bald spot on her back that kept growing & looking like a patch of dry skin.. but vitamin E and Neosporin didn’t really seem to help. So, I took her in with Onex and had her checked out. She’s got “The Mange”!! OY! So, she’s got antibiotics and some other liquid med to take for a while. There goes another $125!! It looks better, not as dry & flaky, but still bald. Thank goodness it’s not contagious!!

Now, you’d think that’s enough doggie adventure.. but NO!! Last night I was sitting at my desk and noticed Onex was nosing around a pill bottle. It was her arthritis pill bottle, with about 5 pills left in it, and a bunch of teeth/chew marks!! There were originally 30 pills in it, Onex takes ½ of one a day.. I’ve had the bottle for a few weeks maybe. So, someone consumed a large number of these tasty pills! (They should not make pills taste good to dogs!!) A number of years ago (like back in MTH days), one of mom’s dogs at a whole candy bar and we called the ER vet and they told us to give them hydrogen peroxide to make they vomit. So, I called them again, to make sure the correct amount to give (1 tsp in case you ever need to know), locked the dogs in the kitchen, and poured hydrogen peroxide down their throats, and waited for the vomiting to begin. Melody & Indigo both vomited a large amount, and I gagged as I tried to tell if the pills were in it.. Onex never did though, and they all acted fine the rest of the night. Indigo & Mel each had one more puke left in them later in the night, but that was it. Pain in the butt animals. I think the bottle got on the floor thanks to Zoey who is back at my house because mom is sick of her bringing in birds & chipmunks! Oh boy.

I need to call my landlord.. my lease runs out this month, and I haven’t heard form him yet! I want to see if he’d consider selling the house, or doing the lease to purchase thing that he originally advertised… I want my money to be going somewhere, and I LOVE my house.

I think that’s it for now.. this is long enough. I promise to try to keep up from now on. I have a random 4 day weekend coming up in November, any one want a visitor??