Week 24 - Starting Greek

We're heading out of the latest round of sickness finally! Amber has been congested most of the week, but she takes rather a long time to recover from these types of illnesses. Every time she gets a virus of this nature I worry about the length of her recovery time. Then every time she reminds me how long it took the previous illness. So I'm trying to be patient, and she is feeling much better than last weekend.

Monday Amber finally managed to keep a physical therapy appointment after missing two weeks in a row! It was an exciting and very positive appointment too. After making it her longest duration on the elliptical yet, Amber had a restful remainder of the session while her therapist took measurements to update her goals. Despite being sickly for several months and not being able to keep up her normal activity at home, Amber did not really lose any strength in her joints! This is amazing and a huge step forward.

There are some areas that still need strengthening and some spots where one side is stronger than the other. But she is in such better shape than before she started PT in 2015.  We discussed Amber's future needs and goals for physical therapy. Obviously, we don't want her to be in PT for the rest of her life, but we don't want to take her out before she is stable and able to make small corrections at home. Some parts of her body are always going to dislocate because there is only so much that can be done to train the muscles to do the work the connective tissue of her joints should be doing. However, Amber is well on her way to exiting PT - we've got her schedule set through July and by mid-March she should be ready for every-other week PT!!!  We've been striving for this for almost a year without success.

Cuddling Biscotti.  And find the Milori.

We've even managed to sync up her PT and OT weeks and days so that by April she is going one day, every other week to the hospital. That is significantly better than two different days a week, like she has now on the OT weeks. Of course, Amber is a little anxious about these changes. For her it is somewhat unnerving to dislocate something weekly, yet be told that you are just about at the best you can be. She's also a mildly concerned that she will need help if a joint becomes overly weak, but have trouble getting back in. Yet as a previous patient it won't be that hard to get on the schedule and we know exactly who to see.

I don't think Amber has quite realized what this change in her schedule means since she's been going to the hospital multiple times a week for so long. She is free to participate in more teen outings and can more easily schedule events with her friends. Not to mention that she won't be exhausted so many days a week and can actually enjoy the time out with her friends.  Of course, I'm thrilled we will have more time at home to accomplish her school lessons without creative scheduling. I'm also not a fan of driving 30 minutes on the interstate multiple days a week for her sessions.

School Update:

I let Amber have a couple of easy days early in the week since she was still recovering from her cold and honestly was having quite a problem with breathing. She actually didn't go to church or youth group on Sunday. Monday we spent a little more time after PT discussing her adjusted high school plans and decided to push chemistry off for another year. We're just having such trouble deciding what curriculum to use, while we knew what we were going to do for meteorology, astronomy, and archaeology. The simple solution was to push of chemistry another year, or until she finishes the other courses.

Actual school work in an array of subjects - oh, hi Rosie.

Amber was breathing much better by Wednesday and went to her flute lesson despite not having actually practiced all week due to her cold. Flute is one of those instruments that it is rather difficult to play when you can't breath through your nose. Who would have thought. :)  She had a good lesson and is ready to resume her practice schedule again.

We happily received Amber's Greek language curriculum on Saturday in the mail quite by surprise and I spent some of my free time preparing for Amber to start her Greek lessons (watch for a review coming up in April). The curriculum definitely is not an independent learning set, or at least it is not intended to be so. However it is also made so that parents who know nothing about Greek can teach it. I will say knowing fluent German helped me a great deal when Amber wanted to learn Latin, and my knowledge of German and the experience with Latin are making the Greek lessons much easier than I anticipated.

For her part, Amber is on cloud nine with her Greek lessons. She knows, and I reiterated it many times, that this is not going to be something she just picks up. So far she has been eager to do the work required for a good basis in the language. She can't wait for each new lesson, yet knows to take it slowly and complete the assignments diligently instead of just trying to get a check mark for that subject.

Kitty Update:

For those of you interested, Biscotti is still in a room away from the other cats. Since the incident almost three weeks ago where he got loose from his room, he has been nearly terrified of the other two cats. However, we are making more progress after that setback; he will play with the other two cats under the door, and will watch them through the open door crack again without running under the bed in the guest room where he has been staying. This is definite progress, although it is going much slower than anyone anticipated.

They were both having fun playing. Biscotti loves to smack people with his tail.

Biscotti is afraid to leave his sanctuary room though. When we put the other two cats safely away in Amber's room and open Biscotti's door, Biscotti will not venture forth without much encouragement and sometimes it requires carrying him out.  He then does not want to explore the house without me walking next to him. Usually after about half an hour, he runs back to his room and waits for me to shut the door. He is always looking around for the other cats. But just this morning he spent over an hour roaming about - mainly because I played musical rooms to juggle the other two into his room with the door shut. Still, he explored the whole house and ventured off from me a few times.

He does not like being alone though and desperately attempts to keep us in the room with him at all times. He very much needs to be out and enjoying his companion cats again, but we need to ensure their relationships are all healed.  We've tried making all the experiences with the other cats as positive as can be for Biscotti and the others. Milori seems to cause the most fear in Biscotti, which makes sense as he was the aggressor when Biscotti escaped his room. Rosetta is a little wisp of a cat, yet she still causes some fear.  We continue to be patient and encourage all three of them.

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