Homebound

The neurologist's office called this afternoon to discuss our decision to place #1 on homebound instruction at school a month early. After explaining that she's missed so much school the last 12 weeks and the fact that trying to catch up was adding undue stress, combined with the fact that she will be missing the last six weeks of school anyway due to the surgery, they agreed that homebound would be best. #1 herself has mixed feelings – she's glad to finally be rid of the having to play catch up, but she's disappointed that she won't be allowed to attend school with her friends and that she'll have to make up the electives (homebound instructors will only teach your core classes, not the electives). I think it is a wise decision, though.

It's funny – one of my co-workers has a daughter in her mid-20's and she is going through her first MAJOR breakup and it's been worse on mom than on the daughter. I was sitting in her office this morning while she was telling me the happenings of the last few days and at the end she said, "But it's NOTHING like what you are going through." That's not the first time she's said that to me and as always, my response is, "We are all mothers and the trauma of our children affects us no matter what it is." We've been dealing with #1 and her issues for so long that it's a part of our regular life and so I don't feel as though my family or my life is different in any way except our struggles are medical in nature. I've even had people say after meeting #1, "You'd never know that she has problems, she's so normal looking." Hello??!! #1 is the face of epilepsy – it's not a life sentence or a diagnosis of automatic retardation or brain damage. I guess they expect her to look "damaged" in some way, not like a normal teenager. I'm real fond of saying that the world doesn't stop because #1 has epilepsy, #1 has to learn how to live in with world with her epilepsy.

On other family notes – soccer game for game at the unjust hour of 8:00 AM – IN THE MORNING!! So much for sleeping in some. I'm already tagging tomorrow as a nap day (that either makes me extremely old or extremely tired – maybe both). It's also my wonderful hubby's grandma's birthday, so we'll be up late tomorrow night celebrating the big 85 with her.

Later – got to get some much needed sleep.