kate, her pain during rehab is not severe at all. (2 on a 1-10 scale),
but just different since she had no pain at all til now. your
explanation makes sense to me. she sees her surgeon tomorrow, so we'll
see what he says.

diane

yes, i got that her pain levels were minor, though i was thinking level 3 or
4.   so, you're saying it is during her rehab sessions when this pain occurs
(not necessarily after a session, which would be normal, too), if i read you
correctly.

at that pain level, which sounds very good to me, it really does sound like
her muscles were being protective.  and now, they are obviously being very
gently required, through rehab exercises, to function in more normal ways
than the way they have been functioning.

diane, it sounds to me like she had a very good and gentle rehab therapist.
i like that she does have a gentle therapist, cuz she's already been through
a lot.  if the surgeon doesn't give you guys a satisfactory answer to the
pain question, her therapist certainly can give you guys the answer, if
asked.

kate

That's great! But remind her it's possible to work too hard and set herself
backwards. Pacing is important. To put in a plug for the home team - The Red
Sox have had their share of injuries this year. But with several of them,
they 'benched players and put them on strict work schedules that they
weren't permitted to exceed. The result - most everyone is as healthy as
possible for this pennant/world series race. If pampered elite athletes have
to be careful not to overdo rehab and follow instructions, why shouldn't we
follow their example?   GO Sox!!!!!!

Thanks for asking! Things here are getting back on course.

Becca read your reply to her. Despite silence, one could tell she was
pleased you said you would use something she contributed. It has influenced
her behavior. She would never let me edit her work because I'm 'too strict
and a perfectionist.' (Damn straight). Well, yesterday, not only did she ask
me to edit her National Honor Society application essay, but she followed my
advice! Or so she says. She wouldn't let me see the second copy because she
wasn't going to do any rewrites at that point.

Yesterday was meeting day for the Special Education team to go over the
results of Ian's testing. Essentially, we have a child with a superior
intellect (IQ around 126) with apraxia which causes him to process verbal
expression very slowly - both oral and written. He also has executive
functioning issues so can't organize his thoughts or work. He writes on the
level of a seven or eight year old at ten years; it takes him twice as long,
and its a disorganized product. He also has dysgraphia (not diagnosed, but
its obvious) so this immature product from a really smart kid is also
illegible. He also has some processing issues.

He'll get OT to learn how to keyboard and  work with the speech therapist on
how to get words from his brain to his written work; he'll go to the Title 1
reading program to get help in how to process and understand a story and
repeat that process in his own writing, and he needs to be seen by a
neurologist to follow up on the executive function/processing stuff to see
if he'd benefit from ADD meds. And through all this, he doesn't qualify for
an Education Plan (has more teeth in terms of the school having to follow
it) because he's making 'adequate progress'  (because he's getting B's and
A-'s ) the new criteria for SPED services.

It's both a curse and a blessing he's so smart. On the one hand, the school
psychiatrist said the gap between his IQ and other parts of his testing
occurs in less than 1% of the population and is so stark it poses no
question to her that it's a neurological disability that should be addressed
through services. But because of it, he won't qualify under the state law
for some of those services which are only available under the SPED program
because he is smart enough to compensate in other ways (sophisticated word
choice - when you can figure it out from the phonetic spelling, good oral
answers, etc.). He'll only qualify if he doesn't progress before the next
review.

Dog's whining to go out - gotta go.  Adelle