Monday, February 1, 2021

 Monday, February 1, 2021

            I slept beautifully. I managed to get close to 4,000 steps on the morning walk before my leg started to complain- nothing serious. I stopped before it became that point. I used a walking stick in case. My leg does feel weak. However, it was feeling somewhat that way before the stem cell transplant. We'll see. I hope this works. 

            I called the credit card company first thing to find out if the payment I made on the 25th had been posted. I was getting frantic. I called the master card company every day, but not the visa card company; I put charges on both cards. Visa told me I had already paid off the charges I put on the card on the 25th on the 28th. Really??? When I checked the Master card, I got the same information. Were the charges I had placed on the card on the 25th paid off on the 28th? Zero recall. I am finding that I am having trouble keeping my schedule straight. I wake up every morning wondering if it's Saturday or Sunday.

            I called the solar company to pay the next installment. The clerk said no, it was not on their schedule of payments. I told her my schedule was getting everything paid for before the market crashed. She put it through.        

            This is scary. Am I really sinking into dementia? I'm intellectually alert, but it's the daily things that I miss. I remember being crystal clear about my schedule when I was in my forties and fifties. Now, if I don't mark everything carefully on my calendar and then set an alarm to remind me to get ready, I will just float in some other direction. I seem to be doing okay during the sessions, but this feels weird.

            On the other hand, this is complicated by grief. Before Saturday, I thought the ordination would just be another mass. I did not expect to be sobbing through it. I hadn't been feeling well in the days before. I thought it might be the stress about the stem cell therapy, scheduled for Saturday as well. My unconscious mind knew better. It knew that I was being crushed by grief. So far, I have grieved the loss of the pleasure he took in the things he was involved with here in Hawaii, the local church, doing mass, meetings, the diaconate, and Habitat for Humanity. I loved his joy. It was so straightforward. It wasn't ego any more than a young child expresses ego when they experience the joy of accomplishment. There have been a few moments when I dissolved in tears sobbing on someone's shoulder because of accumulated frustration. I had to carry all the decisions alone and not even have someone to comfort and encourage me when I got home. But now, I'm in a new phase. I feel my grief over my loss of his wonderful companionship and his joy. I miss him. I just miss his smile.   

            Today, the tree guy that Scott came across and recommended gave me an estimate. A sweet thirty-year-old arrived with his soon-to-be six-year-old daughter. They were both gorgeous. Trent said his dad has been doing this work for thirty years, and he has been doing it for fifteen. He is the only child of his mother, who left his dad when he was young and moved back to Cincinnati, Ohio. Trent spent his summers here in Hawaii working alongside his dad. He seems to be one of those amazing people who knew who he was and wanted to be at a young age, and then everything fell in place for him. When making life decisions at 18, Trent rejected the higher education route. He moved on to the farm of a Japanese artist and took classes with her. There was a lovely young woman raised on Oahu who also lived on the farm. The rest is history. They have four children aged 2 to 9. Besides the tree work, he is into farming dwarf coconut trees. They're making it work.

            I had a session with H. at 2:15. He wanted to play a game. He directed me to a website. He thought the goal was playing the game and learning something from it. I thought the goal was to clearly communicate with me as he gave me directions to find the Internet site he was interested in. He started on something and then switched. We never got to play a game.

            Then I sent a new client a Zoom invite, only to be told that our appointment was for Tuesday at 3. In my defense, I have two new clients this week, but this confusion came on top of my confusion about the credit card. This is upsetting- scary. We'll see. I either am sinking into dementia, or I'm not.

            I had a break after H and then a session with J, my sixth-grader in LA. Last Friday, I showed him what I had learned in the math workshop, the problem-solving approach to learning math. He said yes, his teacher used this approach. I asked him how he felt about it. He said okay. What did he like about it and not like about it? He liked the math part; he didn't like copying the problem. He said the teacher didn't give them enough time. So that's what we worked on.

            I had downloaded 5th-grade math word problems before we got started. My work with H. revealed how much material is accessible on the Internet. Who knew? I used those problems to practice copying. I showed him how to collect a whole sentence, or a whole clause if it was a very long sentence, in his mind, and then write it from memory. This was an application of what we already worked on in repeating sentences we read to each other.   When it was clear the teacher didn't read what he wrote, I told him he didn't have to write it perfectly. By the third sentence, he made an excellent adaptation. There were two unfamiliar names used in the problem. He substituted Girl #1 and Girl #2 for the names. Excellent. However, it became clear that he didn't really understand how to use the four-part problem-solving strategy. I don't know if I did it correctly. I modeled a lot of the work. 

            There was a problem that required him to multiple 504 by 83. He knew he needed to multiple the problem but didn't know how. He said he was confused by the alignment of the answers. I showed him how to multiply 504 X 80 and then 504x3 separately and then add them together. Did that help? Not really. I showed him how a multiplicand with zeros works. I multiplied 504 by 80, and by 800, then by 8000, and then by 80,000. He said that helped. I then changed the problem slightly, multiplying 505 by 80. The change meant that there would be an 'extra' zero in the answer. I remembered finding that confusing at first.

            After he 'copied' several problems, he asked if he could get help with his homework. Absolutely! He had an exercise with percentages on Khan Academy. That was an easy fix. The most challenging problem was the first; it showed a grid with 100 squares filled and a second grid of a hundred with only 73 filled. The rest were a piece of cake. He zoomed through them.

He didn't understand that percentage is a form of fractions. I drew my pyramid, with fractions at the bottom, decimals in the middle, and percentages at the top in the smallest space. Fractions can have any number possible in the denominator; decimals can only have 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, etc., in the denominator's place; percentage can only have 100 in the denominator. Ah! Well, at least he said it helped.  

            I loved working with this kid. I get to cover so many skills, and he responds well. He enjoys the sessions as much as I do. My relationship with him is one of the most satisfying and enjoyable. 

            In the middle of my session with him, the phone rang. Someone else saw my ad on Craig's list and wanted help. I have gone months with no responses. I will have to think about when I will have to say no. I only have so much energy.   

            This man has two young girls, 8 and 11. They lost their mother a year and a half ago. Yikes! The oldest was in a high-end private school for children who can prove their Hawaiian descent. I believe it is tuition-free. The youngest was applying. She needs help learning to write an essay to help her get into the school. The 'test' is in two weeks. I have to practice writing the essay with her in anticipation of this event. So far, my co-writing approach has been very successful. Hopefully, it will work with this child too.

            Today I didn't need a nap. I was full of energy. I think my exhaustion last week was caused by the burden of my anticipation of Saturday's events. I also completed over 8,000 steps by 5 pm. But because of only completing 8,500 steps yesterday, I broke my streak. I had walked 10,000 steps each day for 112 days. Okay, we're starting from scratch. 

            Ben Cardon, the director of the Stem Cell Institute of Hawaii, called today to check on me. That was comforting. I told him I was distressed that no one had followed up to call me on Sunday even though I had called, saying I was in a bad way. He said he tries not to work on Sunday. Well, then don't do clinics on Saturdays. He also told me that a small percentage of people have my response, getting sciatica. He also told me the guy's last name who performed the procedure. Steve Cox. I looked up his name under orthopedic Surgeon. I found someone listed under that came from Florida. There's a picture of the doctor. I can't remember his face well enough to compare it to the picture. Maybe Yvette will recognize him or recognize that it is not him. Either way, I no longer feel I've fallen down a QAnon hole. I have names. People are taking responsibility for what they say and do. Ah!!! 

            I asked Ben what the chances of my experiencing improvement were. He said they have an 80% success rate. If someone experiences no difference after nine months, they do a booster. He wasn't clear if that was free or I had to pay more. Either way, I found the information comforting.