September/October News

I have not checked in lately because things have been so crazy at our house. The school year has not been great so far, but that is a whole different story. A story I hope to get to tell soon. The many meetings have kept me very busy. But for today I will do a quick catch up on events in our lives. Ashley is actually doing very well! We have had some school changes, but they appear to be causing me more stress than her. Her behavior has been excellent. Sleep seems to be going downhill ever since we put the pool away for the winter. She did swim into the beginning of October. She competed in Special Olympics Bowling and did amazingly well. She has also started therapeutic horseback riding, and loves it. Josh has been having a hard time across the board. He is struggling with self-control and anger. We are trying some different strategies, and hoping to get him calmed down a bit. Things are slightly better, but we have a long way to go. The poor kid just needs to get out of his own way. He participated in flag football and did okay, and his grades were surprisingly good considering all the school issues he has had. We made the difficult choice last week to put him back at the behavior school. This decision was not made based on his behavior, but because we were dealing with so many school issues. He participated in the decision, and is much happier. Oddly, our real news involves Hailey. We decided to take a late vacation to South Dakota at the end of September. The vacation itself deserves its own post. We were in Hot Springs, South Dakota, and decided to go to a water park. While going down a water slide, Hailey’s foot got stuck. It ended up hyperextending her leg. We knew immediately, that she significantly damaged her leg. So we cut our vacation short, and got her home to a doctor. She has a tibial plateau fracture, and some ligament and muscular damage. She was in a great deal of pain for several weeks. She was unable to walk for almost 6 weeks. There was concern because the swelling was compressing an artery making her circulation slower. And of course, blood clots can always be a worry with these types of injuries. But now she is finally off the crutches, and doing much better. She began swimming again this week. The leg is still very weak, but there shouldn’t be any permanent problems. Although she did significant damage, it could have been much worse. Like Created In His Image on Facebook     Originally posted November 2012