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We have a friend who is a CAT for a local university.  They were playing nearby today so we went to watch the game.

SAC Museum

Yesterday, we went on a field trip to the SAC with the entire homeschool co-op.  It was really fun.  A bit much for FigNewTon, but worth the expenditure of energy I think.

We enjoyed the warmth and the sunshine waiting to go in.  

A little more waiting for the presentation to begin.   

They had an inflatable planetarium even.

Then there was a time of learning about our solar system.  

Lastly, we went to a hands on room where they learned about comets, meteors, and asteroids.  It was nice to see the older children interacting with the younger children and teaching them.

I think it is so good for children to be together in a learning environment like that.  I am always blessed by how respectful the older children treat the younger children, how patient they are with them, and how much the younger ones adore the older children and teens.

Also posted on our homeschool blog.  

Once Again

I had a post typed out and ready so that all I had to do was push publish. A post that expressed all of my fears yesterday. A post that I hoped and prayed I wouldn't have to post. A post that I am so glad the world is not seeing today.

FigNewTon is sick. Again. With some unidentifiable problem that is sapping her strength and energy. And although we still don't know exactly what is wrong with FigNewTon, we do know what is not wrong. That is a great place to start.  

So today when we got home from all the doctors that FigNewTon needed to see, we spent some time having fun and praising God in the beautiful evening air.

The Done List

For a few weeks, I have been keeping a "done" list.  It is much like a "to do" list except the things on the list are things that I have already accomplished instead of what I hope to accomplish.  Sometimes I do this because life gets so chaotic that I need to be able to look back and see when something happened.  Sometimes I do this to remind myself that I am actually accomplishing anything.  Sometimes I do this because even getting dressed feels like an accomplishment.  I never actually put that on my list.  Sometimes I probably should, though.

tea w/ 2 t honey - 40
1 avocado - 289
1 banana - 115
2 graham cracker squares - 65
1 t homemade pb - 86
1 1/2 c milk - 225
2 taco bell soft tacos - 520
1/2 c strawberry awake cereal - 55
Total calories - 1395


The pain in her hand and the disruption in our schedule that the trip to the er created threw things off today.  Thankfully nothing was broken but she busted her hand up pretty good.  She almost passed out several times purely from the pain and allowed herself to eat after leaving the hospital.  I am quite surprised every time we are tired and hungry and settle for fast food exactly how many calories it contains - and how bad the food tastes in comparison to what we have at home - and how quickly we feel hungry after eating it.  I think I will have to try charting calories again tomorrow to see what her norm is right now.

She danced for an hour and a half today.

Dilemma Exemplified

I am taking Lexapro. It has helped the depression. When I started taking it, my desire to die was at a ten most of the time and plans were beginning to form so I thought it was worth the risk. Worth the risk might not make sense but previously antidepressants increased my depression and made the suicidal impulses impossible to resist. I waited longer to try the Lexapro because of that. But.... it has helped. Specifically, I am only reasonably depressed given the amount of stress in my life. And I have been sleeping fairly well. That is to say that I sleep through the night most nights and don't remember any nightmares I might have had. Flashbacks are few and far between. The one time I forgot to take it recently the nightmares and memories were intense.

So it might not sound like I have a dilemma. Staying on the Lexapro sounds like a good option. It seems as if there is no negative. But, I don't like meds and would like to be off of them as soon as possible. I also believe antidepressants are a short term fix to a long term problem. I believe the only true solution to depression is figuring out and fixing the root problem.

Obviously, I know what the problem is.  When I am on the Lexapro I am not as motivated to fix the problem. Since I am not remembering nightmares and not being bombarded with flashbacks, it seems easier to just focus on life now and leave the past alone. It is harder to make myself talk about those things when not talking about them isn't causing a problem in the short term.

And then there are the things that might or might not be related to the Lexapro. I am beginning to integrate much more quickly than anyone would have anticipated. It will still take years. There are close to thirty after all. But two young parts of me have found out about the DID in recent months and are maturing quickly. And some of us that are older are beginning to merge as well. That could simply be a correlation or there could be causation. For example, because I am sleeping and not faced with the nightmares, it is possible that is why I have the ability to make progress in other areas.

So, I am faced with two undesirable choices and I see no clear solution.

I am still holding off on charting calories because D seems to obsess about them more when I do.  I am not sure, though.  It seems like she is overestimating her calorie intake so I might chart tomorrow just to see how accurate her estimations are.

She lost 2 pounds this last week, weighing 134.  She only weighs at doctor visits.  She is eating less and less each day until she feels like she is going to pass out.  Then the next day she eats what she considers a normal amount, generally about 1000 calories, before beginning the process again.  She states her goal is to figure out the "perfect" amount of calories that she can eat w/o passing out.

She has learned a lot about what the body uses each type of food for and is targeting her eating to be most beneficial to her body.  For example, she is likely to eat pb on crackers before working out b/c she knows that carbohydrates give the body energy and the brain needs fat to function well.

She has also stated that fine arts is more important to her than losing weight right now and that in some ways she hopes they don't make it to nationals so that she can completely stop eating the end of the month.  She practices for about an hour most days, though I am not sure if that is more about fine arts or more about exercising.  

Cereal Box

I was in the 5th grade.  It was early in the year.  This is important for two reasons: I was still relatively unaccustomed to my mother's temper because I had been living with her for just a few months at that point and the monster she was living with had not begun to lash out at me.  So, I had finished off a box of cereal and mother started to throw the box away.  I said, "Wait!  I need that for school."  She went off.  She was screaming and saying that she had asked the night before if I had homework and that I had lied to her when I said no.  I tried to explain that the teacher didn't want us to empty boxes, just to bring in those that were going in the trash, that I didn't need it now, and that it was for a future project that the teacher hadn't explained yet.  She wanted none of it. She began by hitting me with the box until it was in shreds and then she threw me to the floor and kicked me and pounded on me with her fists over and over.  My sister was sitting there in horror; scared enough and smart enough not to intervene.  When the school bus came, she kicked me toward the door and I gathered all my energy to get up and lean on my sister while getting on the bus.  My face was puffy and red, my arms were marked and it hurt to breathe but no one asked any questions, no one did anything more than give me a look that said how sorry they were that I was going through that.  It was a different time.  Today, that would be acted on and the child would be removed from the home.  

Our Internet was down for just over a week.  The timing was good because D seemed to be obsessing about what I was putting here again.  It is hard for me to keep track of her calorie intake without her knowing so I have to stop again for a bit.  I know that ultimately it won't matter if I am charting it or not, she will do what she will do, but I don't want to do anything that propels her to stop eating and though sometimes charting here seems to encourage her to eat more,sometimes it seems she eats less so I have to tread carefully and accurately assess what she needs at each moment.  She seems to be consuming less than she was a week ago, but is still eating a reasonable amount.  She has made a choice to begin eating more healthy, even when temptations are put in front of her.  She has also made a conscious effort to eat protein before dancing so that she can focus and her body can handle the pressure.  I believe many of these changes are due to the army of people praying for her.  In addition to the stress that she is putting on her body by eating so little, we found out last week that both children have an enlarged aorta.  This puts her at increased risk of damaging her heart in this process.  I wish she could see the big picture.  She is permanently hurting herself in so many ways.

This hurts

I thought I knew what to expect.  I thought I could handle the others going away or combining inside me.  I thought that since my ultimate goal is to be whole, to be one person instead of many, that I would embrace these changes.  The truth is that it is a mixed blessing.  Even those that I don't enjoy being around, those parts that are so different from me that I struggle to accept that they are inside of me, even they are missed and leave an empty ache inside.  It seems harder this time.  Maybe because I have grown to like OT and I never really got past tolerating Moe.  Maybe because Christina and Jo didn't really go away, they just merged to become cj. I don't know.  All I really know is that this is different.  This is hard.  This is like witnessing some part of me slowly die.  

Just A Reminder....

Check out Autumn's post today about TBI's.  Thanks.

An Update On Butterfly

My friend Autumn is doing a series of posts this week on TBI's.  I figured this would be a good time to give an update on Butterfly's brain functioning.  

Butterfly is doing well.  She has probably progressed as far as she is going to, short of a miracle.  

Most of her memories are re-filed correctly and in chronological order.  Occasionally we will come across something that she hasn't previously remembered and it is out of order, but for the most part, she is able to put things in context rather quickly when that happens.  

Butterfly is having emotional outbursts much less frequently.  This is partially due to the medication that is helping her to control the impulses and partially due to keeping her life very scheduled but it is also partly due to her growth and healing in this area.  

She still struggles with busy places, loud noises and bright lights.  All of these diminish her ability to focus and increase the probability that she will have an emotional outburst.  For this reason, it is unlikely that she will ever be able to work a typical job.  We are working to find ways that she can support herself when she is grown that accommodate her special needs.  She is currently trying to learn about cake decorating in the hopes that she can start a business in a few years.  I have no illusions that she will move out of my house for quite some time.  In that way, I have had to readjust my parenting clock.  Kind of a bonus, if you ask me.

She is completing grade level work at a much slower pace.  She can successfully focus on a maximum of three subjects a week, generally no more than two per day.  She alternates between the two subjects.  Whenever she gets stressed or overwhelmed by the harder subject, she will "take a break" by focusing on a simpler subject.  She is also having to become accustomed to not getting A's; or at least not getting them easily.  Currently, she has a C- in Biology.  That is hard for her because before her accident, she was a straight A student who participated in extra-curricular activities and never cracked a book.  

Butterfly has recently been allowed to participate in normal risk activities for the first time in three and a half years.  This feels good to her.  She also recently went on her first spend the night since the accident.  That was an acceptable risk because she hasn't passed out or fallen asleep spontaneously in over a year.  She did struggle the next day with her emotions and had to go to her room to calm down, but did quite well overall.  

For the most part, she responds appropriately for her age.  This is mostly because she has learned what is age appropriate, not necessarily because she feels and thinks like an average 16 year old.  Occasionally, she will be unable to cover and show those around her exactly how young she is thinking.  She also never regained the ability to lie or recognize sarcasm.  She struggles to understand jokes of any kind.

Butterfly is a different person than she was before the accident.  In some ways, it is just that certain aspects of her personality were amplified due to the injury.  Also, though, there are some things that are just gone.  We have all had to adjust to the new person that she has become.      

Through it all, I am confident that God is in control.  I do not believe He caused the accident, but I know that He protected her in so many ways that day and in the months that followed.  We are no longer sure if Butterfly will be a missionary when she grows up but even that is something God could accomplish if it is truly His plan for her life.  

I tried to copy Autumn's post today here for you all to read, but blogger isn't cooperating.  So, drop by and read what she has to say and then go back to read the rest of the posts she will write on the topic of TBI's this week.