These Crazy Days of Summer

Can we just say it's been a crazy few days and leave it at that?

Okay, first off my co-facilitator, and only local contact for NAMI, is very sick, to the point that she is unable to help me at all. So I had to find phone numbers to other members in our affiliate to get information that I'm going to need to do my first meeting on Monday night. That was a big stress for me, because I need to have everything planned out ahead of time so I feel comfortable to do something like run a meeting. Fortunately, the state office was able to get in touch with a local person, who got in touch with me and I'm now off and running.

BIG SIGH.

That was Wednesday. On Thursday, Julianne had an assembly where she was being presented an award for academic achievement. Thankfully, Melinda offered to stay home with the boys, because it turned out to be a month, trimester, and end-of-year award assembly. So to say it was long is an understatement. Oh, and there was entertainment. Yeah. Thank you Melinda, it would have been torture with the boys. But the big surprise was that Julianne made honor roll! This is a huge accomplishment for her, because she has been struggling in school for the last few years.

You know, in second grade I suspected she had ADD. Not the hyper kind, but the kind where her mind wanders off to who-knows-where and she forgets where she is. Kind of like that dog in the movie Up, where in the middle of a sentence he would suddenly say, "squirrel!" The school district had this elaborate test they did, which concluded that she didn't have ADD. So we struggled through the rest of second grade, all of third grade, and most of fourth grade with her having the attention span of a gnat. I mean, seriously, we would put her at the dinner table and send the boys into the bedroom, and her dad and I would distract her. We would put her alone in her bedroom and the air would distract her. Her dad would sit with her and try and keep her focused, and his breathing would distract her. It was awful.

Finally, in desperation I asked my psychiatrist, who also works with kids, if he could offer any suggestions. He sent me to a simple (and free) test I could download and have filled out by her teacher and myself and bring to him for evaluation. I'm telling you, if this test was done in second grade she would have been diagnosed then. But anyway, he brought her in and talked to her himself, decided she definitely has ADD-I something (inattentive something, I can't remember the rest) and put her on a medication that has saved our sanity. Hers included.

So being on the honor roll was, as I said, a huge accomplishment.

And today, Friday, was my last day of IOP (intensive outpatient program). I finally graduated from my hospital program. It's been a roller coaster for the last few months, and I really feel like I'm finally well. I still have my down days, but it's days, not weeks. I'm in a good place mentally and emotionally and I'm very proud of my hard work. I'm better than I've been in a long time, and that's saying a lot.

So this afternoon I'll go have my nails done and celebrate the first official day of our summer break. We get to sleep in a little later now, and go to the pool and hang out with friends and just have a nice time being together.