Rough Sledding Today!

It's been a day that much of it, I wish I could just forget - very tiring, very hard initially to deal with too.

This morning, I went to Clearfield with Mandy to take Kurtis over to the hospital there for an x-ray of his sinus cavity as well as blood work to test for allergies. These were ordered by the Ear/Nose/THroat specialist she had been referred to have Kurtis checked for any possible hearing issues in addition to the developmental delays already diagnosed in him.

Now, anyone who has children will understand how difficult it can be to get tests like these done to a small child - he is 19-months old. Even the sinus x-ray was hard because how do you get a child who is frightened over the strangeness of the atmosphere, for openers, to lie still while the technician tries to take the x-ray. Then, the allergy test - drawing blood out of the arm of a toddler - that's enough to wear anyone out! It took the technician, another technician, Mandy and me - each at a strategic point, to hold him down so she could insert the needle and then be able to withdraw several vials of blood for the tests to be done - all while he is fighting, squirming, kicking - and of course, screaming at the top of his little lungs too in massive protest at the pain and indignity being thrust on him and his little arm! Poor little guy! He already had a massive bruise starting in the crook of his elbow as soon as the technician finished with him.

I wasn't feeling totally up to par today either - just really tired, legs aching more than the usual so I suspect some drastic weather changes must be heading our way in the near future. I came home and slept a good part of the afternoon till Mandy left for work, as it was about the only way I could get warm and relax my back and legs to get the aching to somewhat ease up on me.

Tonight though, because I excel at procrastination - really I do excel at this - I finally decided if I was going to try writing an essay to submit to an anthology project about Autisim, it was going to have to be now or never as the deadline to submit this essay is midnight tonight - in about 45 minutes from now.

I've been putting off trying to write this piece because I couldn't come up with anything that I felt really portrayed my thoughts about my granddaughter - my precious little Miss Maya, who was diagnosed this past spring with Autism - PDD-NOS, high functioning -and her baby brother, Kurtis, who was recently diagnosed with developmental delays which the therapists who tested him strongly suspect will most likely lead to a diagnosis in the future of autism for him too.

I didn't want to write something that was totally all gushy and mushy and stuff like that - but rather hopefully would show that although Autism is not an easy thing to learn to live with - for the family members or for the person with the diagnosis - it is not the absolute pits, not the end of the world for any concerned either - regardless of the diagnosis.

I did pull an essay together - and just finished submitting it for consideration so cross your fingers, toes, legs - whatever - and hope and pray that it is found to be acceptable to the publishers of this anthology. I can not post it here - of course - since it is under consideration for publication and all that. I will only tell you this much that I wrote it as a means of showing a few ways living with my little sweetheart has changed me over the past four years since she entered my life. Mainly, how as my son will tell anyone and everyone who would listen, it has helped me to develop, at least somewhat, a bit of patience from time to time. Actually, he would say compared to how demanding I was when he and his sister were youngsters, I am now virtually a completely different person.

One thing that was difficult for me to deal with in writing this essay tonight was the usual problem - word count! Gee, imagine that, huh? My first draft was 2,468 words and the limit was 2,000 - so I kept the first four paragraphs to that draft -or the bulk of those paragraphs anyway - and trashed the rest -as I re-wrote it then. When I finally finished it, I came in at 1,960 words! Yay, yay - a big doyay there for me in that I did that much anyway!

Other than that being finished and now, leaving me really feeling VERY tired - putting something like that piece together, trying to get as much in it in a manner that made decent sense, is like putting myself, voluntarily, through a wringer on the old washing machine. Just completely drained, ya know!

I haven't finished yet making my full rounds reading blogs that I normally do every day - and I doubt I will be able to stay awake much longer tonight to finish up with that task either. Believe it or not, I may actually go to bed at what many folks think of as being a semi-reasonable hour - well, at least before 1 or 2 a.m. I imagine!

So for tonight - that's about all there is to say!