February was probably one of my busiest months of the year so far… mid-January
my last student finally started attending school and by February he was coming
every day. It has been a joy having him,
but it did change the dynamics in our room.
Also, Krystal started working on her student teaching at the elementary
school and was out on Wednesdays… thankfully she got a consistent sub for the
time she was out. February is also the
beginning of testing month and this year I had 20 students to test for the WIDA
and 4 students to test for the WA-Aim which is one of the requirements for
graduation. Testing takes a lot of time
and organization to happen especially with our crazy schedule at TOP. I did my best
to not hold students back from their job sites and catch them when it was most
convenient for them. In the midst of the
testing, I also made time to visit all four of the high Schools to meet
incoming students. This is part of the job
that I LOVE. I love connecting with the
high schools and making sure we get to know the students before they come up to
us, so we make sure we have the support in place for them ahead of time.
Life at home was just as busy as it was at work. The first weekend, I had Mason and Lily come
over while their parents enjoyed a weekend away. Thankfully they are pretty self-sufficient
and other than cooking and making sure they are not driving each other crazy
they can keep busy on their own these days.
Mason spent some time cleaning up the swing area and then practiced his
guitar on the swing outside. I love
these days of sun even if they are still a little chilly. Of course, they had a blast coming to church
with me on Sunday. We got to spend time with Chris and Sarah during the week by
trying out a new Mexicuban restaurant with them. The food was delicious and the company was a
lot of fun.
The following Saturday, Matthew and I attended a meeting about leading
small Groups through our church. Our small
group has been taking a break, so we contemplated starting a group at our
house. After praying about it we decided
to wait until the fall kick off of groups so we could get the house back in
order. It was just too much with the house renovation going on. I’m excited for what God has in store for us
in the future as we open up our house to serve him in this way.
Of course, Super Bowl Sunday we spent at my sister’s house. The Chiefs were in it again, so Kim had to
host a party for Keb. It was going to be
the last time they were in town for the game, so we opted to go their house for
the party. It was crazy to see how empty the house was as they prepare for
their move to Texas… I think I am in denial about the move, but I know it is going
to happen sooner than I expect. The party was a lot of fun and the food did not
disappoint. Of course, Keb was over the moon excited that his team won two
years in a row.
Matthew decided to head out of town the following weekend and visit a
friend in Oregan which gave me uninterrupted time to work. I was able to get a ton of work done preparing
the house for the remodel. It is a huge
job packing up the entire house while working at the same time. My friend Brooke came over one afternoon to
help out a bit. I had various piles of items… some to throw away, some to sell,
and I also took a huge load of items to the Goodwill. Of course, I had to learn
how to use the online selling apps since I’ve never done them before. I started off selling only the bigger items
and a couple smaller ones I thought were valuable.
To top it all off, I started writing my commentary for Component Two of the National Boards. It took me forever to figure out what student I was going to use for this section, but once I decided what to do, the writing started flowing. That is one blessing of being a writer! I got a good chunk written during the weekend between working on the house. It was a good mix of physical and mental labor. I also took advantage of Matthew being gone and cooking up some fish meals from Hello Fresh. I decided to order a few meals that were just for me and make them when he was eating his chicken and potatoes but not having him home made it even easier since I just had to cook one meal. 😊
The following weekend I ended up taking Matthew into the ER. We were afraid he had a bowel blockage
again. He was in a lot more pain than
normal. I could tell the doctor was also
concerned by how quickly they were doing the studies. Thankfully, the results came back that he did
not have a blockage, but he was backed up and it was preventing him from
urinating. They ended up putting in a catheter
and he made a record for the amount of pee they collected. They decided to leave in the catheter until
his appointment with his regular doctor, but for some reason his doctor didn’t
want to take it out… instead he referred him to urology down the hall. When we went to talk to them, they also refused
to take it out and said he needed to schedule an appointment with his urologist
who was booked out a month. After a couple days of suffering, we finally
figured out how to get Home Health out to the house and they were able to
remove the catheter. Unfortunately, by
then it was too late… Home Health came back a couple days later to diagnose him
with an infection which took a couple rounds of antibiotics and about a month to
recover from. We learned from that situation not to let the ER leave in a
catheter unless absolutely necessary.
Thankfully, part of this time his former PA was in town and staying with us,
so I was able to get advice from her and she was able to keep an eye on Matthew
so I could go to work. During the two-week
period Matthew had 11 medical appointments, if you include the ER/Home health visits. It was a bit insane and not how I expected to
finish off the already busy month. One day my boss looked at me and asked me why
I was at work… I told her I needed to get the testing done since I had to take
days off for the appointments coming up.
To be honest, it is only by the grace of God that I survived February
with my sanity in place.
No comments:
Post a Comment