#887 Saturday 13 April

Sorry ... missed yesterday.  My fever etc is gone but the lethargy and tiredness is still in nearly full force and difficult to cope with.  Kaylia is in an unusual state this morning .... I sent Brynn off with her with instructions that she is not to be a hero!  Retreat to the car if Kaylia hasn't recovered .... Kaylia is always OK in the car.

#886 Thursday 11 April

In previous blogs I've spoken of Kaylia's absence of imagination ...... yesterday we had a demonstration of this and of just how difficult it is for normal adults to comprehend the depth of this problem.

School were stern with us about the homework not being done lately .... (now I wonder why that is???) ..... so Naomi sat down at the table with "bookers". The exercise was to draw a picture of the story subject. Usually I coax her through this hand over hand. Naomi wanted to see what she would do.
(Background ....she knows what 'draw' means .... and she has just finished the illustrated story.). .... Instruction ...."Draw Ben in a tent"..... She writes "Ben in a tent".
The usual conclusion that we adults would make is that she has confused 'draw' with 'write' ... but .... we know that she can understand the difference between the actions of draw and write ..... and we're familiar with her absolutely literal interpretation of a sentence. So my interpretation is that the exercise is beyond her!! When she reads a story, the pictures mean nothing .... she cannot build a mental picture that she can mentally attach a name tag to. When we point to a picture of a dog chasing a ball .... it's a complete blank to her. She must be wondering "What are they talking about now?"
When asked she can attach a mental tag to some squiggly lines and say "Ben" .... because that's what we've been talking about..... but is there a picture of Ben in her mind? ... No! ...

The frustrating thing is that the homework is professionally produced material that's supposed to be spot on for Kaylee type problems ... in reality, the work is a complete waste of time .... it just flies over her head at a great altitude!
I can't get upset at school staff either because the comprehension of this problem by a person who can "imagine" is a bit hard ... it involves very convoluted thinking. ......trying to imagine how an absence of imagination would imagine an imaginary concept! Phew.

So .... for years we have tried to "turn on her imagination" .... without success. Perhaps we should try to build an artificial imagination as a sort of replacement? I'll think about that as I lie here in recovery mode.

Later:  Naomi has pointed out that Kaylia's imagination has begun ..... in the past 2 years she has learned to imagine real things .... things that she has experienced.  She can imagine being at the dentist ..... or going to Bali ..... or going to the shops.

But she still can't imagine things she hasn't experienced.

#885 Wednesday 10 April

We have a possible explanation of Kaylia's behaviour yesterday ..... she's in another growth spurt and she's getting the dreaded growth pains again.  The mix of anxiety and pain medications is just right for this .... this explains why it had such a marked effect yesterday.

My night was pretty good..... my temperature has settled to a steady near normal level so I don't need to go off to hospital.  I still feel very weak & lethargic so no heroism today!

#884 Tuesday 9 April

Delirium rules!

Last evening my temperature was back to normal .... by 4am I'm back to 38.8 ..... just where I was 12 hours ago. When taking my temperature I need to wait till the thermometer beeps to say "Hey, I'm ready". So I'm lying in bed and I hear this beeping noise and I had to think really hard to work out what it was .... despite the fact that the thing is poking out of my mouth!

While all this is going on, Kaylia is woken by the heat radiator beside her ..... she goes downstairs at 3am .... Naomi follows soon after ..... the heat must be bad!
At 4am Kaylia is back upstairs ... but she forgot "pink peewo"... so off she trots again. Now at 4:30 she's back upstairs snuggling with her hot water bottle.
Now I'm feeling warm enough to take off most of the blankets I have piled on me!
It's crazy. I'm surprised that I can actually think well enough to write this.

It's crazy also that when you have a fever, you feel chilled!

8am. She pretended to be a yo-yo from 4am to 5am .... and then slept. Phew!

Now we're struggling with a sick car (as well as a sick bloke!)  And the car is so sick that it won't start so that we can take it to hospital. B{##%^%#}  ..... it's all too hard.


While recovering my strength I was perusing the blog statistics .... and found a comment on #648 from a dentist in Leesburg ....it was a very nice comment .... thankyou Lillian.   I think this blogging thing is fascinating .... that completely unknown people can read about our life.  What an incredible leap in communication compared with 50 years ago .... or even 20 years ago! 

7:30 zzzzz oops .... the zeds were a mistake but very appropriate!
I'm stuffed. I can move quite well but I'm so weary of being weary. We will see what tomorrow brings.

The (formerly) sick car is home from hospital .... I wish our bodies were as simple to diagnose and as easy to repair.

Today was a therapy day and at 3:20 (10 minutes before), Kaylia was a sobbing mess rolling on the bed. I thought we'd have to cancel the session for sure .... but fortunately we had chosen the right medecine for the situation at 3:10 and it turned out to be a magic therapy session.

#883 Monday 8 April

It's 6:30am .... She's been downstairs hefalumping since 5am ...... and now she's outside under the hose! She must be an Eskimo!
I should go down and supervise .... but it's been another bad night for me ..... awake every hour with sweats and chills. The oatmeal cookies work a treat and get it back under control in 10 minutes. The cookies seem to control the temperature too.

Nighttime .... I had a doctor visit this afternoon an it turns out that I have a kidney infection .... almost bad enough for a trip to hospital ....

#882 Sunday 7 April

It was a bad night ..... and for a change it was not due to Kaylia! I had bout of what appears to be hypoglycaemia .... it was not pleasant and I didn't sleep much from 11pm on. Needless to say some changes are going to be put in place.

4:30pm
After a visit to "Aunty Moo's" we've been dealing with a Kaylia "on the edge" ..... or rather Naomi has. I've been pretty useless with another attack. We're trying the 15 -15 rule ..... try 15 gms and wait 15 minutes to evaluate the effect.

7pm
Oat biscuits with no sugar seem to do a good job. Naomi has made a special batch. I'm running a slight temperature and I feel really bad.