A Bloggerless Blogger

Once I was known as “Preacher Teacher”.  Not so sure if it applies.  I haven’t blogged in a year.  Guess I had nothing to say that seemed profound.  I have been retired for 2 years, and I thought my life would have gone on different path.  I imagined so many positive changes that have not occurred.  I have since learned that we are responsible for our own destiny.  At least we are most of the time by the choices we make.  Other times possibilities are given to us and we have no choice.

I chose to retire from the teaching profession 2 years ago.  My time had come to move on.  Sorry for the cliché.  I would have stayed for the kids, but not for some of the parents or the administration.  The administration was starting to look at me as being “out of touch”, a bit “old fashioned”, and oh yes, overpaid. 

I loved my job of being an AIS Math teacher.  That meant that I got all the students who didn’t score well on the NYS Math Assessment.  I was to be a resource for them to get back on the straight and narrow path to righteous math.  I did my job diligently for 6 years with what I saw as a great success.  Not success for me as a teacher, but success for my students as they learned to navigate the math labyrinth.   As Oprah would say, I lived for the “Ah Ha moments” that many of my students had.  One young lady, who forever will be etched in my mind, came running into my room after being with me for about six months.  She announced that it was the first time she had ever received a 100% on a math test.  What an achievement!!!

That’s all in the past now.  I’ve fallen into a new routine.  I exercise in the gym 4 days a week for 6 hours.  Helping out at Green Chimneys once a week in the Equestrian barn is one of my joys.  It’s true when they say the horses know things.  They know when we are upset or sad and they respond in their own way.  The horses I work with are used for therapy with students who have severe learning problems that run the spectrum of alphabet soup from ADHD to PDD to various levels of Autism and onward.  What we all have in common is our love of horses.  I think they are therapy for me too.

The horses are ones that have been rescued from abusive situations or donated by various individuals.  The children learn to identify with the myriad of personalities displayed by the animals and see that they are not so different from us.  They learn to care for the needs of the horses and to also care for their own needs – a symbiotic relationship develops.  What once was looked at as abnormal, now takes on the look of normalcy.  This also extends to the other farm animals housed on the property and the rescued wild animal as well.

My life has taken a turn in the road here.  Think of it as the “road not taken”.  Thank you to Robert Frost.  In a routine physical it was discovered that I was anemic.  This discovery has snowballed into a diagnosis of multiple myeloma or bone marrow cancer.  The dreaded “C” word rears its ugly head.  The thought now is, “How does this fit into my plans.”  I‘ve had to endure several unpleasant procedures, such as, a bone marrow biopsy and a fat pad biopsy (the most egregious of the two).  Now I await the verdict.  How will it change my life?

My wish has been to travel.  We just came back from an amazing trip to Alaska and the Yukon wilderness.  We saw some spectacular scenery and were privileged to see amazing wildlife.  The people we met on our journey will live in our hearts forever along with lessons learned.  We spent time in Curacao and the Sea Aquarium (animals again).  We’ve just come back from the Mayan Riviera and Playa del Carmine.  The life journey continues however short or long is of no consequence.  We simply go on – day by day.

Parenting Our Parents

It's been a while, but I am finally back to share my experiences with you.  I'm still on my new journey.  I have spent the last year helping my eighty-five year old mother cope with the beginnings of demetia.  This is a series of events for which we are ill prepared.  I spent a year trying to convince her doctor that something was wrong.  She wasn't herself.

We tried counseling when she stopped driving and going to church on a regular basis.  The counselor got her to drive again for a short time, but then we had a significant setback and she stopped altogether.  I took her to a neurologist whose initial diagnosis was depression with the beginnings of demetia.  He sent us to a psycologist for testing.  She tested as having the beginning of demetia with a good deal of short term memory loss.  She was also extremely sleep deprived from lack of sufficient sleep.  This sent us back to the neurologist who sent us to a psychiatrist after an initial anti-depressant caused problems.  The psychiatrist did the trick.  She was prescribed a low dose of Prozac and we began weekly counseling wiht a psychologist. Things were progressing well and she was slowly getting better.

During this entire period she was becoming more and more reclusive.  She only left the house to go food shopping with her friend once a week.  She wanted me at the house constantly; finding little things for me to do in order to get me go to the house so she had company.  She would not alow anyone else in the house.  We were going on a trip to Alaska that we had planned the year before.  What to do?  Eventually, we had to hire somone to come and spend 2 hours a day and help with her food since she "forgot" how to cook and then just refused to use the microwave.The calls home were fraught with anger about us not being there.

It became increasing evident that staying in her house was no longer an option.  My sister found a wonderful independent living facility in North Carolina, the Dorchester.  My mother moved there in late October into a two bedroom apartment.  She can go to the dining room for dinner if she doesn't want to cook.  She goes there regularly, and my sister supplements her food.  She leaves cooked meals that can be microwaved.  However, she has to call my mother and "walk her through" the process to reheat the food.  I wish she would get more involved in the community activities, but I suppose all will come in time as she gets used to her surroundings.    She struggles with her sense of time and dates.   This has made her exceedingly anxious so I bought her a "talking clock".  You can ask it for the time and date and it will answer you.    We will see if that helps.  For now at least she is safe if not totally happy.  Maybe in time that too will come.