Thursday, January 9th, 2020

    When I woke up, I was still stressed. My face felt tight with tension. I couldn't figure out what was going on.  Oh, yeah. Let's see.

1.    The first anniversary of Mike's illness was coming up. January 24th was the evening I got the call that he had thrown up during the dialysis treatment, and I should come with an extra pair of pants and take him home. From there, it was the emergency room, and we were Medevacked to Oahu.  Five weeks later, he died. 

     It feels like I will have to relive the experience without the benefit of adrenaline and things to do.  I will have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and the knowledge that all his suffering was for naught.  I worry that there was more I could have done to bring him comfort.  I understand that this type of rethinking over 'what could I have done differently' is common after someone dies. 

2.    While I have been planning to make the blog public a few months after Mike died, it still hasn't been done.

3.    Damon proposed coming out February14th through the 17th.  If it's okay with Fr. Lio,  Mike will be interred on Saturday the 15th.

4.    My house looks like a furniture store with everything from the guest room sitting in the living room.

5.    I still haven't found a solution to that sound coming from the guest room floor, haunting Yvette at night.

6.    And, Oh yes, I'm worried about a war.

    When I spoke to Dorothy yesterday, she said she hadn't been this scared about our world blowing up since the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I remember that, and a similar scare in 1956.  I know the year because I was at Jacob's Ladder summer camp that year, and we were all huddled together, wondering if this would be the end of our lives. 

    The yoga helped. At least it calmed me down a little. I stopped off at Home Depot to look at toilets and pick up an Everbilt repair kit for screwing down subflooring through the carpet. When I called the other day, the customer service lady told me there were three kits in aisle 42 bay 1.  When I found the aisle hidden in the back of the carpet department, the kit was evidently not there.  The associate in the carpet aisle called the front desk and was told it was in aisle 22 bay 14.  I went over there and didn't see anything that looked like it could be it.  

    I flagged down an associate.  He checked his computer system: Aisle 42 Bay1. We walked over there.  No, go. We walked back over to aisle 22 bay 15. He found it right away. My patience quota was low. I'm probably not that good about looking through a forest of items because my eyesight is not what it used to be. 

    Off to the toilet section.  I had thought I saw a beige toilet in the store. Guess not. I was directed to the customer service desk. She was the most unpleasant person I have dealt with here on the island.  Of course, she was dealing with my grim face. That's what may have triggered her sour face.  I told her I want a tall beige toilet with an elongated seat. She entered the information into her computer and came up with a Kohler toilet worth $386.  Really?  I asked her if that was the least expensive. She snapped back that she had entered the information I gave her into the computer, and this is what came up. Period, end of sentence. Apparently, the only way I was going to get a beige toilet from Home Depot.  Oh, well. If I'm determined to do this, the one for $286 sounds good.

    When I got home, I was inspired to finish washing the kitchen floor and dust the flat surfaces on the lanai. Ah, that was something I could do to bring order to my life.  The clean floor was a balm.  Then I was inspired to apply the stainless steel cleaner to the front of my frig.  I usually just used water and a bit of scrubbing. This stuff really works; it did a much better job than my attempts without it.  Also, by accident, I sprayed the water dispensing area.  I have tried everything I knew to remove the mineral deposits from that area and from the front of the frig where the water ran down. Bing! This stainless steel cleaner did the trick, even on the plastic parts of the water dispenser.

    Then I showered and headed off to school. I worked with I. first using the beginning Carpenter story, Sassy the Cat. I saw an improvement in his ability to remember words by 'sight,' whatever the neurological activity behind that act is. He was still struggling to remember the word his. I see that word as a bug-a-boo for other children having troubles at this level too. However, he could remember it more frequently or use the strategy I told him for decoding it on his own.  There was at least one occasion where I had to help him. But progress is our most important product. (Anyone else remember that GE slogan?) He read the story faster at any rate, and that was after a two-week hiatus. Indeed, there was no loss over that time. 

    I started the phonemic breakdown process, where he has to write each word, one phoneme at a time, and identify the sound.  I did this with him.  I can't expect him to do it on his own.  He got stuck on the usual words, was, the and of.  He was also stuck on the /th/ sound, wanting to pronounce the t and the h separately.  I pronounced the word using the phonemes he gave me, 

/t-h-e/ rather than /th-e/.  He realized that didn't work.  I told him to watch his mouth and see what it did when he said the word the.  He caught on fairly quickly.  I think he is a bright child who had a memory problem.  Now that we're on the path to fixing that, he should move ahead quickly.  I told him that I thought he could be reading on a first grade level in a month- if he was prepared to work.

    Then he said, "Do we have to meet tomorrow?" I said no, but why didn't he want to meet. He was making good progress working with me. He thought about it.  I said, "Is the work too hard, or are you scared?" He said, "Scared." I asked, "Did teachers yell at you because you couldn't read?" he said, "No." Does your mom yell at you because you can't read?"  "yes." I love it when adults use the time-honored method of abuse to get someone to do something when they really don't know how to do it in the first place. However, I do appreciate the mom's frustration.  Why should she have known what to do if the professionals couldn't help her child? I did the visualization, which I have found to be most effective in dealing with this fear.

    I put my hand over the very front of his forehead, not past the fontanel, and asked him if that part of his brain thought that if he never learned how to read that someone would kill him.  He said no.  He didn't quite look at me as if I was out of my mind for asking that question, but good enough.  Then I asked him if he thought his mom would kill him if he never learned to read. The answer there was also no, thank God.

    Then I led him through the visualization, picturing a little him in the area of the fontanel, turning around and facing the back of his head and telling every cell back there that no one would ever kill him even if he never learned how to read.  The follow-up question is. "Are you more relaxed? "He said yes, my criterion for determining if this was a meaningful exercise.  I may have to do it again with him. We'll see.

    Then I worked with R. in Mrs. D's class.  She was also able to remember many of the words we had covered in the first two stories in the Carpenter series.  After two stories, she asked if we had to read anymore.  I said no, what did she want to do. She said, write. Well, there is no way she can write her own stories, but she can dictate them. We did that.  Little did she know that I will be using her story as a reading text.  I plan to prepare it as a StoryJigSawPuzzle.  I type up the story, make a second copy on card stock, and cut up the story, so each word is on a separate piece of card stock.  I put the individual pieces of paper into snack-sized Ziploc bags, grouping each sentence or each paragraph, depending on the student's ability level. I label the bags Sentence #1 or  Paragraph 1, etc.  I use a piece of cloth, preferably with some texture like felt to lay the words out on.  The student has an intact copy of the story and the mixed up cut up pieces.  They have to locate the words in sequence and lay them out on the cloth.  

    If they know the story well, they will have the sound and the image of the word in mind as they search for the matching word.  It is a way of practicing sight recall. In some cases, it also serves as a practice for sequencing.  I have had students who look for the words in random order. No, no, no.

    Last I worked with N. We are working on comprehension problems.  He came out with a K level book.  I sent him back to get a book at level N.  While he was able to answer the questions reasonably well, he didn't check the words in the text for answers when he didn't remember them. I had to remind him that the answer was on the page.  This is not a behavior that comes easily to him. I have to keep reminding him. I also have to see if there is some reason he doesn't do this easily.  Maybe he has a visual problem.

    When school let out, I headed for the afterschool program where kids wait until someone picks them up.  I wanted to follow up with S. and D., siblings I had worked with two summers ago. S. came running into the room. She went up to the person responsible for her age group.  I walked over.  She told me excitedly that 'grandma' was picking her up today.

    'Grandma' was her foster parent, Bonnie Pond. This woman is amazing.  She must be at least 65. She not only takes on foster kids, but she also loves them. She has adopted many of the children she fostered.  S., D., and two of their younger siblings were returned to their mother last summer. Bonnie went into grief.  Sadly, the mom didn't see Bonnie and her husband as valuable parts of her children's lives and a source of assistance, but rather as someone who would interfere with her.  I called Bonnie after I worked with S. to update her. She was so grateful for the news of the kids.  That she was going to see the kids was great news.  

    I had worked with S. twice this year on comprehension.  She said the teacher says she is doing better. She reported that she reads more in school and at home, and she is answering more comprehension questions correctly.  S. ran out.  

    I grabbed D. for a few minutes. I just had him read some of the Carpenter material I had him read two summers ago.  I wanted to check if there was any progress.  While this material is low, the story contains 60 words, many of the words are nonrepeats.  I could tell by the speed with which he read it he had made a lot of improvement.  However, he is in third grade now.  He reads well enough, so I will work with him on the material he reads for class, if not somewhat above.  

    I had a 3:45 appointment with Sandor and Meaali'inani for an eye exam.  Now I had plenty of time to get there.  I stopped off at Ace Hardware to pick up painter's tape to mark the noisy spots in the guestroom floor so we can drill down the subflooring in that area. The results of that action will let us know if the problem is with the subflooring.  It will either silence the squeaks or move them somewhere else on the floor. 

    My next stop was Memory Lane to drop off clothing and miscellaneous stuff for donation finally. They took everything. God, bless them.

    While the traffic leaving downtown Kona was slow, I made it in plenty of time for my appointment. I had brought my Kindle with me and had some time just to read.  I finished the NY Times and turned to a book I was in the middle of called "Spiritual Bypassing." The book sings to my choir. 

    Meaali'inani was going to do my exam.  Sandor was out front, helping people select glasses.  My first stop was the bathroom.  I couldn't get the door closed. Sandor explained that there had been two earthquakes that shook their building and caused all the doors to misalign.     Their waiting space is right in front of a floor to ceiling atrium window wall.  The sun was setting, and it made it hot to sit there.  I finally moved outside. After a while, Sandor came out to greet me properly and give me a big hug.  We talked about the blog.  He was planning to help me launch it publicly, but life had interfered.  We made an appointment for next Thursday.  It will soon be the first anniversary of the start of Mike's fatal illness. 

    Sandor recently lost his uncle.  Sandor is the one who gets to deal with all the funeral and estate problems.  I can't imagine he is the only off-spring out of four siblings of Cuban descent. I will have to ask. Either way, it seems to fall on his shoulders. He said that having read my blog helped him deal with some of the mechanics of the situations.  He knew he had to do this or that because I had written about it.

    As he was examining my eyes, we talked about my problems with the misalignment of my eyes.  He said I have problems both because my eyes are so narrowly set and because one eye socket is higher than the other. He told me that people who have vertical misalignment learn to tilt their head when they are young. This ties in with the work Heather is doing with me, correcting my head alignment.  So that's why I tilted my head over to the right.  I always thought my neck problems were caused by damage to my neck during the birthing process. Now, I know there is an additional cause.  Sandor said you can tell people who have this problem by watching how they tilt their heads.  A whole new world! 

    On the other hand, Heather is the first person who has pointed out my head misalignment, regardless of cause.  I have seen I don't know how many doctors, chiropractors, bodyworkers, and how many dance instructors I have worked with, no one, and I do mean no one, has ever mentioned this misalignment to me. I'm not saying I would have corrected it immediately. There were corrections made for my feet that would have helped that I ignored. But having the information might have meant that I would have recognized this problem earlier. But, who knows?  Maybe everything in its own time.

    I mentioned to Sandor that I had problems keeping my eyes open. Mike would observe me reading and ask if I was asleep.  I had to force my eyes wide to see clearly.  As I read or type, I find I'm looking through my eyelashes.  It makes it harder to see.  Sandor confirmed that I had a problem with my eyelids, age-related drooping, causing this problem. I had suspected as much.  I knew a woman in Ohio who had this problem and had a small operation to correct it.  It is covered by insurance if it, in fact, interferes with your vision.  Insurance companies don't like to cover it because it is a procedure done routinely by cosmetic surgeons.  I will have to take a test to see if it interferes with my vision.  Sandor said it will make me look ten years younger.  Not my top priority, but I'll take it.

    I stopped off at Annie's Burgers on the way home from Eyeland. I lust after their hamburgers.  I ate half the burger and took the rest home for tomorrow night's dinner. When I got out of the car when I got home, there was my back.  I crabbed walked into the house.  It cleared up well enough for me to take Elsa for her walk later than usual.