Friday, June 2, 2023

 Friday, June 2, 2023

I didn't get my 10,000 steps in yesterday because of the rain.

 

I was down to 145.5 again despite my healthy(?) appetite for Hersey's milk chocolate nuggets with almonds. I had twenty yesterday.

        

I had Mama K's crew at 8:15. She was home and got the kids set up promptly. I had Twin A first. We continued to work on a third-grade passage. We still only got through the first paragraph. Decoding is her problem. I use a six-step procedure for decoding multi-syllable words. I didn't teach her the procedure explicitly; I didn't write a list of steps. I just told her what to do next. She was able to identify the vowel letters with 100% accuracy. She was also good at remembering what sounds are attached to letters. We moved on to the second when she read the words in the first paragraph perfectly. I didn't know if she read those words accurately because she remembered them or decoded them. It wasn't relevant. As I moved to the next paragraph, I checked whether her decoding skills had improved. Hopefully, at the point she can read the whole passage, she can read other material at this level. 

 

I had Twin E next. She had finally progressed to the first-grade level. However, she still struggled with decoding and automatic recall at the most basic level. She didn't recognize the word here. She tried to decode it. Oh, boy. I tried to get her to use her memory. Nothing came up. I asked her if she expected to hear what her mind told her the word in her ears. Yes. I asked her her mother's name. That came up quickly. Did she hear it in her ear? How am I going to get this girl's memory to work?  

 

I had fourth grade K last. His reading isn't 100% accurate, but then neither is mine. Small mistakes that don't change the meaning slip in. His comprehension is much better. I needed to prepare more material for him. Today, we finished the last 4th-grade passage I had prepared. On Monday, I planned to start on fifth-grade material. I hoped to get him through the fifth grade and up to sixth-grade material.  

 

Shelly, my therapist/life coach, called at nine am. I worked on grief. Important relationships are not going well.  

 

My friend Melissa came over, as planned. She brought fresh flowers, freshly picked St. John's wort, and a new sealed box of tea. I served her some tea the last time she was here, and the bag fell apart. Our teas maybe fifteen to twenty years old. Mike and I weren't hoarders; we just didn't get around to throwing away things we didn't use. We talked about medicine, she's a doctor, and religion and told funny stories. We enjoy each other's company. Lovely! 

 

Paulette called. She would be coming home on Sunday. They found an abscess, which was the cause of her borderline sepsis. Since they drained it, her white count had dropped percipiticiouly, from 30,000 to 13,000. She told me that under 10,000 is normal. The hospital will only discharge her once they know the type of bacteria causing the infection so they can target it specifically with antibiotics.  

 

I found a second suspicious bump on Elsa's skin this morning. It was four days since I bathed her last. I was going to wash her at three while listening to Fresh Air. I forgot. I got it done shortly before five pm. I can see her skin clearly when she's wet. I could see patches of redness that were not there when I washed her every other day. I may have to wash her tomorrow, too. 

I watched Call Me Kate, a documentary about Katherine Hepburn's life. Holy cow! Her life had its idyllic moments, and others were sustained agony. She coped magnificently.