On the Up Swing

To be honest, it was kind of a long hard summer. All of the stuff with Chelsea weighed heavy on all our minds. I think it has really affected Sherry. She was so much more moody, got down on herself so much, to the point of hitting herself at times. Chelsea's troubles were not the only thing to be sure, but I know it really bothers her. Because of the mood swings Sherry has been seeing a physciatrist to monitor her medications. We tried several different variations without much success. Things seem to have settled down a bit for the time being. Sherry is aware that her "meltdowns" are a real issue and may be contributing to an increase in the small siezures that she has. The frequency and duration of these "glitches" as I call them has increased as well over the summer. She is trying hard to control the "cranky Sherry" as she calls it. It has to be so hard. She was the most independant person I think I had ever met. Now, she has to rely so much on others, and she knows it...that alone makes it difficult for her.

She is back to seeing Tim at the U of O for speech therapy, that has made her very happy. It looks as if this may be the last term that Sherry will be seen there. After that, I think we will look for things out in the community for Sherry to get involved with. It may be time to move away from therapy mode and much more into "real life" mode, so to speak. I am so proud of her, she is still my hero. I have not told her that in a long time...I will tomorrow for sure.

As we like to say...it is not easy being us, but we have each other and the girls. It is one day at a time and it is hard in many ways, but I would not want to be anywhere else or married to anyone else.

Brittney is doing well. She is having a better start to the school year than in years past. She is often very helpful around the house and just a delight. She just had a baby tooth pulled because it had broken in half due to her adult tooth coming in. She just turned 13 a few weeks ago...so keep us in your thoughts and prayers :)

I cannot finish this without once again thanking Gail, Sherry's care provider. She is so much more than that really. She helps us in ways that are really above and beyond her job description. She has become more of a member of the family really. We cannot thank her enough.

Well, again Sherry has been doing better the last few weeks. There are still meltdowns to deal with, but I feel there are less of them and Sherry really does understand that we need to find a way to deal with them. She knows they are getting in the way of her "moving forward" as she loves to say. It feels like we are on a bit of an upswing.

enough for now....I love my family
tomorrow we move forward.

Dean

Catching Up

Well...I know it has been forever since my last post, probably the longest gap yet. We have just about survived the summer. Brittney will start school next week. Chelsea continues to really struggle. She is still not at home and does not seem any closer to coming home. I am going to start another blog soon, where I will talk a bit more about this situation and other things that are on MY mind. However, I want this blog to remain about Sherry.

The summer has had it's ups and downs...that's for sure. Sherry has shown some progress, adding some things to "the list" of things she can do independently. One great example is getting the mail. Sherry can now decide she wants to get the mail, find the key, walk out the door, down the porch stairs, cross the street, somehow get the key into the keyhole, get the mail, close and re lock the box and walk back home again. She can get the mail herself. We don't even think twice about it anymore. As always...it may not sound like much, but those of you who know what she has been through, know that this is a big deal. She is close to mastering a few other tasks as well. soon, I think she will be able to take a shower without help. She is also close to being able to do a load of laundry from start to finish. She just needs a little help starting the washing machine. Gail is working with her on that, and I think in time, she will get it.

Sherry has had some trouble controlling her emotions over the course of the summer. She has had some of her medications re-evaluated and changed. She just remembers the way she used to be and really gets down on herself when she can't make certain things happen. It is sad to see when it happens, because she has come so far and is still showing progress. But I think this gets in her way and is possibly slowing her progress.

Sherry has been seeing a speech therapist at Sacred Heart for part of the summer. Hopefully we will take the information gained from that and use it to start of at the U of O this next month.

There is more to get you all caught up on, but this is enough for tonight. I promise not to be so much of a stranger. More soon.

I love my wife and girls....tomorrow we move forward

Dean

Watch out for emails!

In Speech therapy Sherry has begun to explore some interesting possibilities with her email program. As you may remember, Sherry uses a program, designed at the U of O especially for people with brain injuries. It is meant to be very easy to use as well as safe. Only people that Sherry has on her buddy list can send and receive emails, so there is no spam to worry about. She has photos of the people on her list, so all she has to do is click on the photo (although she can read the names as well) to begin an email to that person. At this time, she has trouble sending anything longer that a word or two, like hello, hi etc. This is due, I think, to her difficulty with spelling. She is able, on many days anyway, to hunt and peck the keyboard pretty well if someone helps her to spell the words. This is actually a vast improvement from before when she would tend to "overshoot" everything to the left. If she tried to touch a certain key, she would always hit a key or two to the left. Now, her finger goes right to the correct key most of the time. It takes her time to locate the correct letter, but even that is getting better. We are going to start a home spelling program while she is on break from speech therapy this summer.

James has come up with an idea to help Sherry with writing emails. I am not sure I totally understand it yet. I think the idea is to use a program called FlashPaper to pre generate sentences for Sherry to insert in her emails. For example, if I have the right idea anyway, Sherry will be able to look at a list of sentences, hit a certain key and have a particular sentence inserted into her email. I don't quite see how Flashpaper is going to work, together, with CogLink (her email program) but I look forward to finding out from James exactly what he has in mind. Anyway, those of you on her list, watch out for the emails!

I hope you enjoy the short video below. I took it with my iPhone, which makes it very easy to upload to the blog. I plan on using video a lot in the future.

enough for now...

i love my wife and kids...tomorrow we move forward.

Dean

Shopping, Banking and Email....Watch Out World

As a long summer break approaches, Sherry is working very hard with her two University of Oregon student speech pathologists. We are all so impressed with James and Tim as well as Karen, their supervising professor. They really put Sherry through her paces and I know she is making progress, moving forward as she likes to say. What we really like is that they have chosen "real life" goals for Sherry, working on things she can really use in her life. For example, the last several weeks have been spent on practicing how to do a bank deposit and how to go through checkout in a grocery store. Last Thursday, for her "graduation", Sherry and Gayle met with all three at the Albertson's near our home. The store manager was kind enough to let them all take over a check stand for the better part of an hour. The therapists role played the part of the checker and had Sherry practice handing the checker her debit card, asking him to please slide it for her. Then she was able to enter the PIN number herself and complete the transaction with the debit card machine. Everyone was thrilled at how well she did. She was also able to complete a a deposit at the US Bank located in the store. After James, Tim and Karen had left, Sherry and Gayle did some actual shopping. When it was time to pay, Sherry took the lead and according to Gayle, did an awesome job. I am so proud of her and what is more important, she was very proud of herself. She admitted to being scared in the beginning, but took pride in what she had accomplished.

Sherry is now working on a different way to send email. She uses a program developed especially for people with brain injuries. It was developed at the U of O and is called CogLink. She has been using it for many weeks now, with some success. She is able to slowly type out short messages with help. She often does it by herself with mixed results. She has difficulty with spelling (something we are going to work on at home this summer) but likes to feel in touch by emailing her family and former co-workers. James and Tim have some ideas regarding special software that will help her send longer, more meaningful emails. We are all looking forward to the possibilities.

Most of the time Sherry has a great attitude and work ethic, it has carried her far and served her well. However, there are times when she does get down on herself. She yearns for the "old Sherry" and often get very emotional and teary. She is also easily frustrated at times and does not really know how to express her feelings. This can can lead to frequent "meltdowns" as we have come to call them. These can occur at home as well as out in public. Sherry takes medicine to address this issue, but we have noticed that it seems to be happening more often in recent weeks. With all the stress our family faces, it is no wonder, but it is a problem. Her doctor suggested to her that she seek counselling as a way to approach the problem. Sherry was at first, resistant to the idea. She finally agreed to let Gayle make an appointment for her. She had her first session today. Gayle was able to find a therapist that actually has experience with cortical blindness and working with brain injuries. I talked to him on the phone shortly before her appointment, and was very impressed with his experience and attitude. He told me that his first job, as a therapist, is to create an environment that Sherry will want to come back to. He succeeded in this and I really feel that Sherry will get a lot out her visits. I will keep you all informed.

This weekend we will have our first home visit with Chelsea since we had her placed in therapeutic foster care. I see her once a week at her school, but it will be nice to have her home again, if only for s short time. She is still struggling, not always making the best decisions, but I know she is trying, she wants to get back home. Only time will tell, but that is what we all want, to have our family whole again. I went on a pity tirade with my last post (sorry about that), so I will just leave it at that for now. Again, I will keep you all informed about Chelsea's progress.

Enough for now....I love me wife and family,

tomorrow we move forward

Dean

Blame it on Bruce

This blog is about Sherry. I promise to update you all about my amazing wife next time. I didn't go back and review all of my past postings, but I don't think I have used this outlet to vent about too much about anything else, with the exception of the last post about Chelsea. But today was such a day, I feel the need to vent. I hope by the end, this makes sense to people. Those who are close to us, I'm sure will understand.

Everybody has stressful days at work, I know. Today was one for me. Part of my job at the Eugene Hearing and Speech Center is designing our print ads and quarterly newsletters (among many other graphic design projects. ) I had two deadlines today, I am using new software so am I am working in somewhat uncharted waters. I think I met both deadlines okay, although I won't know for sure until I get to work in the morning (if you see and ad for EHSC's Health Fair in the R-G Thursday, that's me :) Right in the middle of trying to get everything done on time I got a call from Chelsea's caseworker who told me that she had run away from school in a very angry mood. She was missing for several hours and I was worried sick. She called me late in the afternoon and took my advice as to what she should do. I went from being scared for her to being proud of her and encouraged that she chose to call me and follow her dad's advice. There is hope after all. I think, for the first time ever, she told me she was "embarrassed" about the way she behaved. That, I hope is progress. She made it back to her temporary foster care home safely. Crisis # 1 resolved.

Brittney started doing volunteer work today at her schools after school care program. She was supposed to be out in front of the school at 5 pm to be picked up by Gayle, Sherry's care provider. I got a phone call from Gayle (again, in the middle of the whole Chelsea ordeal) telling me that she had waited 20 minutes and no sign of Britt. So, for a time both of my girls were missing. Brittney eventually made it home with the help of a friend's mother (thank you Kristen) Crisis # 2 resolved.

When I was home and knew everybody was where they were supposed to be and safe I began to relax a bit. Then right around 8:30 one of our cats, Kali, began to meow in an loud and unusual way, she started scratching her neck aggressively and wouldn't let me touch her. She disappeared under our bed and I was honestly afraid she was going to die there, her behavior was so unusual. I checked on her several times and she barely moved when I poked her with a broom handle.

So, what does this have to do with "Bruce" you may be wondering. Late last month I went to Portland with my sister Kim to see a Bruce Springsteen concert. For many weeks prior and ever since I have often visited his website www.brucespringsteen.net to check out set lists and to watch videos (including one from the Portland show.) His long time keyboardist, Danny Federici, passed away from cancer a few weeks ago. He made one last appearance with the E Street Band about 8 days before the concert I attended. There is a video clip of the band doing "Sandy", one of my favorite songs. I made the mistake of watching it tonight. I soon found myself crying like a baby, tears streaming down my face. It's funny how sometimes it takes something totally separate from your real life to get the the emotions going. I watched the video, watched Bruce Springsteen's face as he looked at his friend, kissed the back of his head at the end of the song. I could tell he knew it would probably the last time he would play music with him. Everything just hit me like a ton of bricks.....especially the situation with Chelsea, the whole day as well, and maybe my damn cat was under the bed dying (she has since come out and seems okay, crisis # 3 resolved).

So, you can blame this long self pity post on Bruce. I miss my daughter. I want things to be perfect, I know they never will be. But we didn't adopt Chelsea to give her to someone else. I want her home, with her family. We have a ways to go, many challenges to meet, but despite the rough day, I have some hope things can be better.

enough for now....I love my wife AND MY GIRLS

Tomorrow, somehow we move forward

Dean

Rough Family Times

A long time, I know. much has happened, some good, some not so good. As most of you know our family has really struggled with behavior issues with our oldest daughter since the adoption about seven years ago. Earlier this year we removed her from public school and enrolled her in a therapeutic school. She seems to be doing much better there (although she is now beginning to show signs of rebelling there also.). However, her acting out, outside of school, and at home in particular has spiraled out of control. I won't go into detail about the behaviours here, but they made for an unlivable situation at home. After consulting with all of her councillors and at our request Chelsea has been temporarily placed in a therapeutic foster care home in Junction City. This situation will last several months as Chelsea gets more help to stabilize her behavior. It of course, gives the rest of us a much needed break from the constant drama, tantrums and dangerous behavior . This was a tough decision, we all miss Chelsea and look forward to her eventual return. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as she goes through this tough time in her life.

KM, if you read this, I would really like to talk to you if possible. Email me and let me know if we can do that :)

Enough for now.......I will post soon about the happier things that have been going on, and keep you up to date on Chelsea.

I love my wife......,,tomorrow we move forward, no matter what.

Dean

WARNING TO READERS OF THIS BLOG

Hi everyone,

Until further notice, please do not click on anything in the "comments" section below the posts unless you are sure it has come from friends or family. Three days ago there was a comment left that required a click to view it. I foolishly did so and something immediately started to download onto my computer. I stopped it before it finished downloading, although it attempted to stop me from ending the download. I deleted the comment, but yesterday there was a similar comment left again.

DO NOT CLICK ON ANYTHING IN THE COMMENTS SECTION UNLESS YOU ARE SURE.

I am working on a solution to this problem. In the future you will probably need to "sign in" to leave a comment for Sherry. Such is life on the internet.

Dean

Still working hard

Again, my apologies for the extreme delay in posting. Sherry continues to do well and work hard. She is back into speech therapy at the U of O with a new student therapist named James. She is very fond of him and thinks that he does a great job. He apparently works her hard and she wants that. We have had some difficulty getting her to her appointments in recent weeks. For some reason Senior and Disabled Services have messed up the taxi arrangements that get her to and from her sessions. She has missed her last two sessions for this reason. We hope we have it all sorted out now and that she will be back on track to attend her appointments this coming week. It is frustrating because she has just two sessions scheduled before going on an extended break (Spring Break) Sherry's care provider, Gayle, has offered to drive her to all of her appointments but the parking situation around the clinic is so horrible, we cannot really do that. It is a gamble every day whether or not they can find a parking space. So, the taxi works out very well, when it is scheduled properly.

Gayle continues to work out so well for us. She is so good for Sherry and she has taken a real interest in the girls. She is not afraid at all of any of the issues we face with the girls and often has great suggestions. She goes out of her way to help our entire family, often going above and beyond the call of duty. Recently our outside freezer broke down. It had been down a long time before I realized it. You can imagine what it was like when I opened the door. I got most of the food out of it and into the garbage can (almost hurling several times in the process) but then had to go to work. When I got home that night, Gayle had finished cleaning the entire freezer. When I tried to pay her a little extra money, she refused. On the 28th. of this month Gayle has agreed to spend the night at our house so that my sister and I can travel to Portland to see Bruce Springsteen. These are only a few examples of how she helps us out. I do not know how much she gets paid by the state, but I am certain it is not enough. I am so thankful that she is here. It is not easy being us, but Gayle really does make it a bit easier.

On Friday Gayle took Sherry for a visit to the courthouse to visit once again with her old co-workers. I doubt if all of those people realize what an impact these visits have on Sherry. They bring back bittersweet feelings to be sure. She is so, so happy to see them but can get sad that she is not still there working along side them. I want to thank Tana, who arranged the visit this time. Thank you for allowing us to come, it was all Sherry talked about the rest of the day.

Sherry is really getting interested in the upcoming election. She has decided that Barrack Obama is "my guy" She watches the news now to keep up on all of the primary elections and other goings on. She sat down and watched an hour long TV biography on Obama, so she is pretty well informed. Brittney is a big Obama supporter as well. I asked her one day why she didn't want Hillary. I said "don't you want to see the first female president in our history?" She looked up at me as serious as could be and said " Dad.....I want to be the first girl president." So, I guess one could say that she has her own agenda. I am still undecided. I like them both, but probably lean a bit more towards Hillary at the moment. During the last presidential election the girls and I actually did some volunteer work for John Kerry (met the singer Carole King in the process) Hopefully we can find a way to do some this time as well.

Anyway, enough for now

I love my wife.....tomorrow we move forward

Dean

Well it has been awhile, but here we go with the first post of the new year. We had a wonderful holiday and hope you did as well. We spent Christmas Eve at my brother's house. His wife, Amber put together a great spread with the help of her mother, Marsha. After eating, we headed straight for the gifts (we have always opened presents on Christmas Eve in our family) Sherry received a wonderful locket and two great cookbooks from Amber, who had drawn her name. The girls big gift this year was an iPod Nano. I think they were both pretty happy. I am planning on posting some video soon, so keep your eyes open for that (if you are at all interested) This year's Christmas was made even more special because it was Brian and Amber's son, Caleb's first Christmas. Peanut was certainly the star of the evening (again, look for video soon) He seemed to have a great time opening presents and taking in all the attention her received.

Christmas day was spent at our home with Sean's family. We also got to talk to Eric in Chicago and to thank him and Kelly for the wonderful gifts that they sent to us. Overall, it was a great Christmas although I will admit to being glad it is over. This time of year always brings it's share of extra stress, as I know it does for most families. I want to thank Brian and Amber for a great time. This was the first time we had been anywhere other than our mother's house on Christmas Eve.

After the break, Sherry began her speech therapy again. We were sad to find out that she would not be working with Kelly anymore due to scheduling conflicts. That is a drawback, to be sure, of receiving therapy at the University. Sherry will have to get used to changing therapist from time to time. However, there are advantages as well. We are charged a very reasonable rate, one that we can afford. Sherry is seen for two hours a week, more than when she was being seen at Sacred Heart. I also feel that working with students is good for Sherry (and the students as well.)
Before the holiday break (and during the break, at home with Gayle) Sherry was working on exercises meant to improve her attention abilities. I feel like they are really beginning to pay off. Sherry has a computer program that asks her to, for example, click on a shape and move it to a certain location relative to another shape. As an example the computer will say (through the speakers, this is an auditory exercise) "put the square to the right of the star." Before Sherry began the therapy at the U of O she could only retain the first part of the instruction. She could usually click on the "square" but then she would "lose" the second piece and not remember where to move the shape. Now, she can usually complete both parts of the task with confidence. It takes her much less time, and she doesn't have to have the instructions repeated nearly as often. I know it does not sound like much, but it shows me that she is still continuing to improve and that her brain, despite the damage, is capable of adapting.

It is getting late, I am not going to spell check, so please forgive any typos.

enough for now,

I love my wife......tomorrow we move forward

Dean

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