Sunday, April 25, 2021

 Sunday, April 25, 2021

 

            On my walk this morning, I called my friend Carol. We've known each other since the early 80s. She moved next door to Mike and me when we were living in Princeton. We moved around the corner; then they moved to a different part of town; then we moved to Ohio, and finally to Hawaii. We've known each other forever. It's always good to catch up.

            Carol manages community gardens in her small Maryland town. They have a great view of the base of the Susquehanna River as it empties out into the Chesapeake Bay. Her husband, John, also has made significant contributions to the community. He campaigned to get the area cleaned of loose trash. He had the large areas pretty well cleaned up when someone came along and organized the group involved. I say there should be statues of both of them in the town square.

            I also ran into one of my regular walking buddies—Mary Ann, with her two dogs, Razor and Chloe. At one point, I mentioned to her that my husband had died. She told me that hers had died the year before mine. Today, I mentioned the Grief workshop I am participating in through Yoga Farms. Since we already had one class, it wasn't available for regular online sign-up. I emailed the support team and got a prompt response, saying she could still sign up. I forward the support team's email to Mary Ann. I'll find out how it went the next time I see her.

            At 10 am, I had an appointment with my adolescent D. His mother wasn't around when we started out. Somewhere in the middle of the session, she signed on via Zoom. D had made remarkable progress. He read many words more fluently, showing significant improvement in his decoding and blending skills. When he hits a word that stumps him, I can feel him wrestling his brain into order. We were all duly impressed. 

            However, another problem became clear. D. has trouble remembering what he has read. I had seen it before; he would decode or easily read a word in the first sentence and then not recognize it or remember it in a subsequent one.   I read a sentence to him and had him repeat it. He did it just about perfect for a first try. Then I tried a second sentence. He repeated that perfectly, too. Then, I asked him if he remembered anything from the first sentence. I was greeted with silence.

            His auditory working memory was in A1 condition, but he had problems with his long-term memory. Once I had introduced the second sentence as a distractor, he had no memory of the first. The second sentence had pushed the first out of his working-memory, and he could not retrieve the first from his long-term memory. I introduced the method of encoding information into long-term memory.

            "Push the save button." Since I was used to working with younger kids, I started with that and had them  push their noses "and send the information down the hippocampal formation into long-term memory." I make a clockwise movement on the left side of the head just above the ear to indicate the activation of the hippocampal formation. Then move the finger closer to the back of the head, "and into long-term memory." I asked him if it felt weird. He said, "Yes." I said, "Yay!" Weird is a sign there has been a change. Change is good. 

            No, I am not a trained neuroscientist. And no, there is no evidence-based proof that this works. But I have had success with it. Amazing, I know. 

            I  had a session again on Monday with adolescent D before he would be gone for a week to attend a wedding. Because I have noticed he has problems recognizing words on the first sight word list, the words he would have learned first, I will give him some work to do while he is gone. I frequently observe problems with those first-learned words once there is an improvement in reading. My theory is those sight words were stored in the wrong part of the brain. Judy postulates that it could be because they no longer can recognize words as a whole. After all, they are looking at words as individual sounds when decoding. Most of the words adolescent D has trouble with are phonetically regular: she, it, if, and, and they. Her theory may still hold water. Something is causing confusion in the brain.

            There was the Zoom Yoga Farms Ithaca class in Keys for Excellent Living at one pm.

The Key for this week was Relax. Easier said than done. I can feel my throat and chest tighten. I've gotten to a point where I don't burden onlookers with that knowledge. It's a relief for me too.

            I had set up an appointment with my California Step-Up Tutoring client, J, for Sunday. I had missed an appointment during the week. I actually forgot. He asked to work on phonemic awareness in Phase I. I picked up a fourth-grade book I had sitting by my side and started breaking the words down. I asked him if he wanted to give the sounds. He said yes and did a dynamite job. I asked him if his grades were better. He went somewhere to get his report card. Yes, his grades were better. He read the numbers to me, 2, 3, or 4 but not what the grades were in. I will ask him to send me a picture of his report card so I can study it.

            I spoke to Sandor and Meaali'inani as they drove home while I was on my before-dinner walk. They are my optometrists as well as my friends. I wanted to discuss the results of my visit to the ophthalmologist at Kaiser. They told me not to get the pucker surgery. Instead, I should come to their office, and they will monitor it. They strongly recommended eye-droop surgery. They said it made a huge difference for both his parents. It improved their vision. However, Sandor talked about a surgery the Kaiser ophthalmologist had not mentioned- a surgery just to the eyelid. They take out a bit of flesh and sew it back up again. Nothing is done with the brow at all. I will have that done if I do nothing else. 

            A friend had recommended Vit. C facials years ago. I had tried it but had no success. I decided to try again. I order some Vit. C-something online. I took a teaspoon of the product, added some water, and applied it to my face. Again, I felt my face was covered by sand. I finally looked the product up on the internet. Ah, there is a particular product designed for cosmetic use called Vit C. powder. I have been trying to use Vit C crystals. No wonder I had a problem. 

            I'm giving up on Balthazar. All these shows move to edgy and scary. Not interested. This last show had some total psycho kidnapping, torturing, and brutally murdering people. No, no, no. Give me Murder She Wrote every time.