Just A Couple of Quick Notes

 It's been quite a while, and a lot's been going on, but I can't really do a big catch-up entry right now.

Things are progressing slowly... oh so slowly... and we're still dealing with the ridiculous bills along with both Miriam and I coming down with the flu.  (We're 95% sure I didn't "come down with it" so much as "catch it from my niece" but she's finally stopped apologizing and I really don't care where it came from, just that it leaves.)

The Pipsqueak's finally run into a class that, no matter how hard she kicks it, insists on kicking back even harder: Geometry.  Ask her to rattle off complex quadratic equations, or the history of the American Revolution, or pick up a new tune on her flute or new choreography in dance, and hands down she'll be done before you're done asking.  Ask her to deal with triangles and planes and translations and such... well, she will do her absolute best but somehow she just doesn't grok it the way she usually groks math. (It don't help none that the majority of friends & classmates keep telling her how easy Geometry is for them.)

So... much to my niece's disgust, when report cards came out a few days ago, she "only" has a 3.86 average (on a scale of 4.0 being perfect, for those in other school systems).  Me?  I managed to hang onto a 3.25 in high school by the skin of my teeth, so I've joined the chorus of family members reminding Niecy-poo that as long as she's really trying and doing the best she can, then it's definitely good enough for us.  One of these days she might believe us, but... well we keep trying to convince her.

Anyway, as if to prove our point, guess whose name was announced as Student of the Quarter for 8th grade today?

This kid never ceases to amaze me, or make my heart swell with pride.  She's always giving 110% and still manages to be a loving, empathic, supportive family member & friend.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to hunt down another box of facial tissues... I'll update more soon. Stay healthy out there!

Please Help

 I've been going back & forth with myself and finally decided that I needed to post this here as well as in my other social media (and email, and IRL discussions, and...)

Things are on the brink of becoming very, very bad here, and we can use a little help.

 I kind of glossed over it in my previous post, so here's the back story:

AJ is now a two-time cancer survivor.  The first time was the discovery of breast cancer shortly after bringing Miriam home. She beat that with surgery & chemo & force of will, but will remain on medications for the rest of her life -- medications detrimental to mood & energy levels -- and she's still being followed by her oncologist.

That last fact probably saved her life because early this year her oncologist closed out a regularly scheduled follow-up appointment with the usual, "So, do you have any questions before I go?"  AJ mentioned an odd patch on her tongue that had begun to look different, the oncologist got concerned and took a look, and after a whirlwind of appointments and tests that found a growing Stage I squamous cell carcinoma my sister underwent 8-1/2 hours of continuous surgery to remove roughly one-third of her tongue, take tissue from her arm to rebuild her tongue, and take tissue from her thigh for a graft onto the surgical wounds to her arm. (Oh, and the removal of a lot of lymph nodes from her throat area for testing).

This was followed by a week in the ICU with a tracheostomy tube sticking out of her throat.  Once she was discharged home, she spent weeks able to "eat" only certain liquids. This segued into weeks of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, all while we helped her change a variety of bandages daily.  Finally, after all the dust settled, all the holes in her body had closed, and the swelling of her tongue reduced enough, AJ began seven weeks of radiation treatments to her mouth & tongue, every day, Monday through Friday.

 (Did I mention that she was still in the PT/OT/ST stage when she returned to work full-time?  My sister isn't one for slacking off when there are bills to pay and a young daughter who needs her mom.)

After all was said & done, AJ settled in to a regimen of daily speech exercises (she has no feeling in the reconstructed part of her tongue, so she's had to re-learn some of the basics of speech), a slow readjustment to what she can/cannot eat (the radiation created new, painful lesions in her mouth; until they finish healing, any food or drink that's even vaguely acidic induces a lot of pain), and learning to find pills, small bites of food, etc. that literally get lost in her mouth due to the lack of sensation in her tongue.

Through it all, Miriam has tried her best to be Mommy's rock. She learned how to change the bandages, figured out how to prepare foods AJ could eat, and took over as many tasks in the house as she could. She & I had numerous sessions where I just held her as she cried in fear & frustration, then gathered herself together and set off determined to "help Mommy so she can heal faster."

Oh, yeah -- and while all this was going on, Dad has continued his slow, obscene slide into advanced dementia, with all the associated physical, financial, and emotional costs for the rest of us; the transmission on AJ's van literally fell apart, requiring over $6,000 to replace; and the front end of my car got bingoed one night by someone who muttered "I didn't see you" after she drove through a brightly lit, unobstructed red light that had been red for a while without even slowing down.

You'd think all that was enough, right?  Well, we did, too, until AJ received the bills from the hospital, the therapy group, and the radiology group.

Her out-of-pocket cost is over $70,000 (yes, that's out-of-pocket after insurance has paid its share). The family simply does not have even near that amount of money.  The best "deal" she's been offered to date as a payment plan would leave her with less each month than she owes on her mortgage -- and that's if she didn't spend a single penny on food, utilities, gas, or medical care.

So... I know I don't have a lot of readers here, but I'm asking for help.  A good friend of ours has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise as much of what AJ owes so she doesn't have to worry about losing her house after six-plus months of hell.  If you can't donate, that's alright -- we have a far better understanding of "insufficient funds in the account" than we ever wanted to have.  All I'm asking is that you spread the word and help get the URL for the GoFundMe campaign in front of as many eyes as possible. (Crowdfunding doesn't work without the "crowd" part.)  Here's the information:

Page/Campaign Name: "Please Help A 2-Time Cancer Survivor & Single Mom"
URL 1: https://gofund.me/4e66a550
URL 2: https://gofund.me/fcce9561

Both URLs link to the exact same page (we only have one campaign running); I don't know why but the GoFundMe site gave me the two different links depending upon which of the admin pages I was on when I clicked the "share" button, so I'm including both "just in case."

So there's what's been going on as of late... Any help is very, very appreciated.

Y'all stay healthy out there.

 

 

The Report of My (Blog's) Death Was An Exaggeration

 Um... Hi.

 Remember me?

Yep, it's me -- neither ghost writer nor literal ghost, just plain ol' me.  Tired to the bone, feeling older than my years, experiencing a few more creaks & groans than perhaps absolutely necessary... but me. :-)

I have a couple of incomplete draft posts in this account that I was going to publish but somehow never got around to actually finishing, and in retrospect that's probably A Good Thing because they were far too wordy, far too long, and bored even me nearly to tears.

There has been a LOT -- and I mean a LOT -- going on since my last full post back in December of '21, but I'm going to attempt to not flood everyone with details out the wazoo.  The short version is that, most days, it's been a lot less "twenty twenty-two" and a lot more "twenty-twenty, too."  (Feel free to insert your own dramatic and/or silly sound effect here.) A superduper extremely fast Cliff's Notes version of the last eight (yikes!) months is as follows:

Pipsqueak news:

• Miriam finished 7th grade with basically straight A's for the year; she had a single "B" over the course of the entire school year (in band class, of all things) that left her both laughing and raging but in the end she settled for the the kind of GPA that Yours Truly would've killed for.
  
• There were a couple of episodes late in the year in which my niece read one or another of her schoolmates the riot act over comments made about adoptive families and adoption in general. Nothing major, but some very real "learning episodes" for the kids in question.
• Although quite a bit less pipsqueakish than in previous years, the kid's definitely not going to be a world-famous basketball player, ceiling painter, or top shelf item reacher. She comes from a region in China known for producing some of the shortest people there and her genes ran true to that... much to her anger and disgust. We've stopped joking about putting her on the Rack to stretch her because we're not sure she won't actually ask us to do that... (That's actually a joke, but you get the idea of how she feels.)
• Although she had an absolute killer solo this year (dancing to "All That Jazz"), Miriam's competitive dance season was cut short during a demo performance by the studio at the Olney Days celebration early this year. They had to dance directly on the asphalt of a parking lot so, of course, with all the karate demos & other dancers, it was my niece who encountered a very round pebble in a very bad spot & turned her ankle (complete with hairline fracture).  She was a real trooper about it, but ended up missing the last couple of chances she had to strut her stuff and went to PT for several weeks.
  
• She has a new solo this season (and got to perform the last one in a couple of non-competitive shows & demos) so she's OK with it.
• Much to the shock of many family members, the Pipsqueak is now officially a teenager. (Run for the hills!) I figure that if I keep repeating that often enough I might finally be able to wrap my head around it at some point in the next 10 years.... <8-P
  
• You'll see why under "Familly News" (below) but Miri's been amazing at helping take care of her Mommy no matter how tired, busy, or hormonal she might be feeling when asked for help. (And it's usually not even necessary for AJ to have to ask.)
  
• Through most of last year, one of Miriam's teachers spoke repeatedly about a special science class open only to 8th graders who passed certain tests & maintained a certain average in certain classes... all of which she did, in spades. All summer long she talked about how she was looking forward to this class, the special field trips it would include, and how well it fit into her plans to become a veterinarian.  This year's class schedule came out just 3 days before school started, and lo & behold some dweeb put her into a guitar class instead. After many emails & phone calls, Angry Mama Bear (aka my sister) got some things straightened out but was told in no uncertain terms that there were no openings in that class. We are all royally pissed but equally powerless... but at least the Pipsqueak was transferred into an art class (her 3rd or 4th choice) instead.  >:-(
• 8th grade has so far spanned only one day, but Miriam came home with lots of good news, smiles, and a very positive feeling about her last year of middle school so we have our fingers (and eyes, and toes, and pancreas, and...) crossed that it is indeed A Good Omen.
• Never one to leave things to chance, Miriam has recently been asking what kind of computer she's going to need in college. I think the repeated talks about how it's too early to decide because most computers become obsolete in 2-3 years, along with the repeated requests to at least actually begin high school before worrying about college have had the desired effects, but I can see the gears turning in her head every time she looks at my laptop... <8-}
  

Family news:

• This has NOT been a good year.  AJ is a breast cancer survivor (around the 9-year mark now) and things were looking great... Until a regularly-scheduled oncology check-up when the doctor asked, "You're doing great, any questions before you leave?" and lil' sis mentioned an odd-looking patch on her tongue that had changed in appearance in the previous 2-3 weeks. Long story short, in early April she underwent 8-1/2 hours of surgery to remove a squamous cell carcinoma from her tongue, take tissue from one arm to rebuild the now-missing chunk of tongue, and have a large skin graft taken from her leg to cover the wounds all over her arm. (This was all done in a single unbroken procedure, with two surgeons tag-teaming to get it all done.) She was in the ICU for a week afterwards, and thankfully was discharged home with an excellent prognosis all around.
  
• As if the tongue surgery wasn't enough, after her wounds had healed enough (Did I mention she also had a tracheostomy tube in her throat, too?) AJ underwent seven weeks of directed radiation treatments that left her with almost no sense of taste (the surgery had already permanently removed about 1/3 of her taste buds), intense deep pain in her tongue & mouth, gum lesions, and an amazingly limited list of things she could actually eat. She is now slooooowly regaining her sense of taste and every few days is finding another verboten food that she can once again eat without excessive pain.
• Did I mention that my little sister is an absolute freakin' warrior and that we're all super proud of her?
• Both Mom and Dad came down with COVID-19 early in January. (Happy New Year -- HA! Gotcha!) We were extremely lucky that both their cases were mild enough to be treated at home (hospitalizing Dad would've been an absolute disaster, see below) and by early February both were mostly back to baseline. Amazingly, AJ, Miri and I have all continued to test negative but we all continue to take precautions.
  
• The situation with Dad's dementia is continuing down the expected path... which is a short way of saying things absolutely totally suck in that department, and we're all faced almost daily with finding new ways to deal with both the situation and its emotional fallout. Some complications with billing, finances, paperwork, and an ongoing need to start clearing the house haven't exactly been helpful, either.  We're all leaning on each other for support and keeping an extra eye on Miriam to make sure she has all the emotional support she needs to deal with this... but it is what it is (and what it is ain't good in any way) and that's all I'm saying about that particular issue now.
  

Yours Truly/Blog news:

• I've been having a lot of conversations with myself about whether or not to continue this blog -- the Pipsqueak's a freaking teenager now, fer goshsakes! -- and the answer for the time being is yes, I will continue blogging.
  
• There are a number of adoption, identity, and racial issues (all at varying levels of severity and/or effect) that have come up in the past couple of years that I hope to address here, but I'm going to play it all by ear and make sure I have Miriam's permission to discuss those things that are more directly connected to her as an individual.
• Although I will be continuing this blog, I'm not going to be able to do so on a regular schedule because (short version) I am simply too tired and too pressed for time to do things that way now.  (See "Family News" above for the Cliff's Notes version of why.)
  

Okey-dokey... That's not everything(!) but it's coming up on midnight and I really need to get some shuteye.  I hope there are still at least a few of my original audience still out there to read this (a hearty "HELLO!" to all you who are, and an equally hearty, "Hello and welcome!" to new readers), and I'll see y'all again in a little while.

Stay healthy out there, okay?  Bye!