Friday, February 12, 2021

 Friday, February 12, 2021

 

            Ow! When I curled up to sleep, I discovered a sleeping-preventing shoulder pain.  I knew this was a sign of a torn rotator cuff since I had one.  I knew what unleashed the current pain; it was a shoulder raise I did in yoga this morning.  If something as minor as a raised shoulder could retear a surgically repaired rotator cuff, I was in trouble. The more likely case was that the shoulder lift stretched muscles that haven't been moved in eight years since I had the surgery.   Besides the shoulder pain, I had a reoccurrence of a terrible pain at the bottom of my left rib cage.  I had that pain full-blown many years ago. Assuming Yvette would someday be in a position to make medical decisions for me, I told her to make sure no one ever left me lying on my left side. I would die of the pain.  It was bad. Fortunately, it resolved. This was a reprieve. I spent the night rolling around on a tennis ball all night, dozing when I could.

            When the rib pain started years ago, I assumed it had something to do with an accident I had when I was ten when I tripped and landed on top of one of those old fashioned wooden tent stakes.  But last night, I realized that the problems I was having with my shoulder, neck, and rib cage were all a result of an accident I had when I was 35. I fell down a flight of stairs headfirst- and what fall it was.

            I was in a building in NYC built in the early 1900s, the original building for Hunter College in midtown Manhattan.  The ceilings must be between 15 and 20 feet high.  I was coming down one of the staircases when this adorable young boy greeted this equally adorable young girl. I had to turn to look.  I was wearing slacks and sandals; my left big toe got caught in my right pant leg. I couldn't get it free. As I struggled, I pitched forward. When I got to a 30-degree angle. I blacked out. I woke up at the bottom of a 20 to 25 foot fall up against the marble wall at the far end of the 8' to 10' landing. The adorable young man was standing above me. He said, "Are you okay?" I felt fine and told him so. He warily said, "Try and move." I knew he thought I must be paralyzed. I got up and went to my class. I had a small bruise on my left knee, which I treated with Vit. E oil that night before I went to bed. The next morning as I showered, I discovered I couldn't raise my left arm high enough to wash my hair. I had a torn rotator cuff.

            I reconstructed what I must have done when I fell.  I was probably the least traumatized by the event.  Since my legs were bound together. I couldn't step forward.  If things had followed due course, I would have pivoted, hit the steps immediately below me with my full body, and then tumbled head of heels the rest of the way. There is no way I could have survived that.  So what happened? The only thing that makes sense is that I dove for the wall at the bottom of the staircase. Yes, dove. How else could I have made it all the way there without hitting the intervening steps?  I pushed off with my feet, held my body rigidly, as a diver would, with my left arm outstretched, and rolled on to my right fat pad as I came down. Dance training!! God bless my dance training.  I had been taught how to fall to the ground without hurting myself.  Admittedly, this was no dance fall. What I pulled off rivaled a fall a highly trained stuntwoman might have had trouble with.  As you can imagine, the whole left side of my body was impacted by that fall. It wasn't just my rotator cuff that was damaged. Now, I'm being given an opportunity to heal from those wounds.

            I got up and felt ragged. Lack of sleep and pain were part of it, but grief about Mike is hitting full bore.  It is making me less tolerant of everything. I have been feeling irritated with my students, impatient.  For me to respond that way is a clear indication that something is wrong. It's like me not wanting chocolate indicates something is wrong with me physically.

            I walked with plans of speaking to no one. Few people can send love to me in a way I can receive it.  Interestingly, Jean, my hanai sister and Mike's ex, is one of them. I called her, reporting my distress.  I asked her to call me each day just briefly to say she loves me.  I know others might be willing to do it, but my ability to receive it is in a narrow frequency.  Jean happens to function on the one I can receive. Thank God I have someone. 

            I had a lesson with D. this morning. Again, he couldn't remember what 9x4= was, not a clue. We have worked on the same multiplication fact twice a week for at least six months. I have tried everything in my wheelhouse to help him fix his memory problems. Nothing I did has worked. Nothing. I'm pushing to have him classified. I don't think the special ed teachers can do anything; I just want to buy him protection from the school's academic demands. I have told him repeatedly that he will be fine as an adult.  He will be a good worker, a good husband, and a good father.  He is a sweet, decent human being. 

            The problem now is getting the application forms into the school and then getting the school to evaluate him. I'm concerned they will ignore my feedback and say that he has to study more if he doesn't know his multiplication facts. After all, who am I?  The other problem is with his mother.  While she wants him to receive a classification, it is hard to get her to do anything. She sounds overwhelmed? Depressed? I'm trying to figure out how to help her without making her feel put down.

            The other day, I did a single step second grade word problem with D. He did well with it. He figured out what he had to do quickly. He asked for more of this. Today, I picked a multiple-step 3rd-grade problem involving division.  He was engaged. He thought it was fun. He didn't want to stop even though we had gone well over our usual half an hour.  He also didn't get a lot of it. He is functioning well on a second-grade level, but he is in fourth grade. While he had fun, what he couldn't do was impressive.  The 'correct' algorithm for the problem was division. He approached it by figuring out the addends if you know the answer.  What number can you add together five times to get 50?  I can't begin to tell you how off he was. I think he couldn't keep in mind that he was working on an addition problem. To his credit, it was a complicated problem. I'll pick something it little less complex in the future.

            I's mother called asking if we could have the session earlier than planned. Sure.  Today, I had her determine the sounds in the words. I wrote the word, she read it, and then she figured out how many syllables were in the word, where to divide it, and then what the sounds in the word were and which letters represented those sounds.  She had trouble with the sounds.  She sometimes gave me the wrong sound, and, more seriously, she couldn't remember a sound even after she had correctly identified it even though she had just heard it and said it a few minutes ago in another word. She has a pretty serious auditory processing problem. However, she did say she saw some improvement in her reading just from our one session. We'll see.

            I spoke to mom afterward. I told her to play the audio files I have on bandcamp for her at night as she goes to sleep.  Mom does acknowledge there is a bad problem here. She also read me the school report. I. is reading on grade level. This means that her visual recall is off the charts.  She would have done well in China learning all the ideograms. Mom told me that I. had several ear infections and had other ear problems.  This means we will have to focus heavily on mouth formation to determine the sounds rather than hearing. 

            K's father, D, called to tell me there had been a change in the writing prompt for the entrance exam for the private school she was trying to get into. I was surprised myself when D told me he knew what the prompt was before the test. I assumed the school had sent it out. It didn't make sense to me, but her dad was so sure about what it would be. Now, he found out that the prompt would just be a picture. He had K sit down to write in response to two pictures. After just four sessions, she correctly used the structure I gave her. Introduction Paragraph #1, #2 and #3 and conclusion. She actually labeled each paragraph. She was also able to stick to the same topic in each paragraph. Not bad for two hours of work. She was easy, and yes, I'm the best. I told dad she had done a great job. Yes, there were errors in spelling and grammar, but from what I've seen from third grade writing rubrics, that's still to be expected at her grade level. Her biggest limitation is her vocabulary. It's kind of ordinary, with no luscious adjectives, no metaphors, or even similes. She didn't seem ready for that leap.  I told dad to make sure he told her he loved her regardless of the exam outcome. 

            

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Musings:

 

Wherever there is a choice, selfishness is involved as well as sacrifice.  Is it possible to have no choice? In terms of behavior, yes. One's life choices can be limited by enslavement.  Even in such circumstances, there is a choice, limited but present. Some of the choices require greater sacrifices than others. 

            When selecting an ice cream and being of two minds, our choice is dictated by self-interest, and we  sacrifice one. Can we have both? Yes, but only half as much of each. If we choose the full quantity of both, then we are making a different sacrifice- our health, our weight.

            Then there are the sacrifices we make for those we love, our children. But there too, it's a choice. Would a parent choose to have their child suffer in some way? Choosing that would be a sacrifice for most parents.  Of course, there's always the lucky child who has a sociopath for a parent who really is indifferent to their child's pain.

            If making a choice puts our lives at risk in a situation, those choices are harrowing ones. We may have to choose to follow our hearts and suffer the punishment of those who oppress us or may choose to take a path of least resistance for our own safety and make a different sacrifice- our very souls.