Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Tuesday, January 7, 2025 

   I slept well. I find my sleep is better with the Seroquel, even at the reduced dosage of 12.5 mg instead of the 25 mg prescribed. The doctor said it’s not a medication I have to take daily; I can take it as needed. My sleep is much better on this medication. My uninterrupted sleep is longer, I wake up feeling rested, and I have more energy during the day. I require fewer naps, and those two—to three-hour naps are gone. 

   I like the impact of the Seroquel on my quality of life. However, having read the side effects, I would like to take less of it instead of more.   On the 25 mg dose, I slept nine hours straight through.  On the 12. 5 mg,  I wake up once to pee. I check the time. If it is still early, I go back to sleep and sleep well until it’s time to get up. I’m going to try an even smaller dose. I’m hoping my nervous system will learn a new pattern from the drug. I would like to reduce it to a homeopathic dose.  With trauma, once bitten by a snake, every coil rope looks threatening.  Why not the opposite?  Once you’ve had a positive response to a situation, why wouldn’t the body respond to an even smaller dose of the stimulus?  It’s worth a try.

   I wrote that I thought this would be a great drug for the elderly with their sleeping problems.  Poor sleep hygiene is a problem at any age. Getting good sleep improves the quality of life for all of us.  However, when I checked the side effects, I discovered this is a drug that can be misused.  I’m not concerned about my misusing it.  If I didn’t feel Dilaudid was the best thing since sliced bread, I don’t think I’m vulnerable to opiates or anything like it.

   It rained all night. Lovely. We needed the relief. We hadn’t had rain in I don’t know how many days.  The plants were suffering. I went to check on the 42 newly planted shrubs. I didn’t have to water them, but I had to check how much damage the wild chickens had done. They like the loose dirt around the plants. It makes it easy for them to create a depression where they can dirt bathe. They expose the roots. I check each plant and kick dirt back into place to cover the roots.

   I had an 11:30 appointment with the dentist to fill a cavity. Coincidentally, another filling fell off a lower front tooth a few days ago.  The dentist easily did both since I required no Novocain. One tooth had a root canal, and the other one only needed some surface drilling.

   I went to Ulu Wini today for the first time since Christmas. The kids were on vacation, and only a few attended the program. I arrived with a bucket of slime. Holy cow!  

    I started with 2nd grade NV. She inspired me to buy the slime  I planned to use for a multisensory exercise. I had her spell the words she was learning using the slime. She was still struggling with the first 25 words of the fry sight word list. 

   Then I worked with 1st grade PY, NV’s sister. The girls have the same memory problem. I did BrainManagementSkills with her.  Her visual working memory was in her sensory motor strip.  Sounds good, but it’s not.  In my experience, envisioning a screen behind the forehead works best.  She could use the correct part of the brain for effective auditory processing. However, she couldn’t pull up information from her long-term memory.  It got stuck just behind her left ear. I asked her what the color of the block was.  Green, a pretty green. Could she ask the green block to let the information through?  The first answer was no. I told her the green block was protecting her.  Did she think it was dangerous to remember words? She thought about it and decided it would be okay.  I told her to talk to the green block and tell it she thought it would be okay to remember words. In my experience, children solve the problem in their sleep once I’ve introduced the possibility of change. We’ll see.

   Next, I worked with third-grade PL. She is a wiggly girl with a perpetually runny nose.  I brought hand sanitizer so the kids could clean their hands before they dove into the slime.  While NV used the slime to form words, PY and PL just played with it. Holy cow! The impact is substantial; it’s calming.  I decided to check PL on the Fry Sight Word List. She struggled with the first 25 words.  These memory problems are daunting.  I introduced BMS to her.  Her working memory was functional, but not her long-term memory. She decoded every word. I showed her how to use her automatic processing.  She did much better on the first twenty-five words. Then she read not as ont.  She revealed that her mind scrambled the letters.  The spin was from the outer rim toward the center in a clockwise direction.  It slowed down as she worked.  Whenever the spin is inward, the spin always slows down. I have never had it otherwise. If the spin is outward, the spin speeds up.

   I asked her to sit with the spin and observe it. She stopped periodically. I encouraged her to continue. It finally occurred to me to ask her if she found the exercise frightening.  I usually tell students not to do the exercise if they feel frightened.  It’s not that it’s dangerous. It’s just that they are not going to allow anything to happen if they are frightened. She was afraid it would make her reading worse. I told her to stop and check if she was okay. If she was, she could continue. I had her look at the word list. Were the letters stable or shifting?  They were stable.  I instructed her to imprint the letters of the word in her visual working memory, ask her long-term memory to tell her the word, and listen for it at the site of her auditory working memory. Bingo!  I only had to remind her to try her automatic processing before she tried another strategy.  She went through word 1-50 at a relatively good clip.

   First-grade PO had asked to work with me. When I called him, he revealed he only wanted to play with the slime. Nope. It was only there to help students while I worked with them on reading or math. He had no interest.

   I finally worked with 4th grade LK.  Holy cow! The kid had no idea how to multiply a number by 10, no less  100.  He missed all of the math. I have to start from scratch with him.  I worked with LK on reading last year. He is a bright child.  Math makes him feel stupid.  I pushed him too much. He said he felt like he was in prison.  

    After LK, I had 3rd grade BR approach me. I had to go home. I get tired working with these kids. Several called out as I walked past the tables where the kids were working, saying they wanted to work with me. I made it clear that I used the slime to help those who wanted to learn. If it brings them in, I’m good with it. I had no idea it would be such a draw.