Ridiculous amounts of rain down here. We're safe, our house remains unflooded, and we're staying close to home so as not to tempt the low water crossings that seem to spring up at a moment's notice. Hard thing, living on topsoil-free land that's been saturated by 10 days of downpour. Add to that our area's lack of sewer drainage (because of the rock 3 inches underground), and there are quite a few people who are downright hosed.

All we're really dealing with is a massive influx of ants. When it rains, they come inside. Yuck.

Huck's well, we're well. I'm bugging Huck's SW for access to his file. He's readjusting to us just fine, the first few days there was a lot of boundary testing, but nothing too terrible. He was confused as to why we weren't running out and buying him cupcakes and creme sodas whenever he asked for them, as my mother did, but by now he's just about back to how he was before surgery. My mom wasn't just feeding him crap for the fun of it, for a while there Huck refused to eat or drink anything, and he was a few hours away from being admitted to the hospital for lots of IVs. A mix of pedialyte and creme soda was just fine with all of us.

So, if your kids go in for surgery, make sure the nurse weighs your kid correctly. When I talked to the surgeon, he told me that Huck had weighed in at 55 pounds. I refused to believe it, insisted that he be reweighed, and as the nurse rolled her eyes at me, I explained that a month ago Huck weighed 39 pounds, and his clothes still fit him just fine, and yes, I'd been fattening him up the last week preparing for surgery, but no way was I that good at it. When he was weighed a second time, he measured 41.3 pounds. I'm not really sure what a 25% difference in weight would have meant as far as anesthesia administration, and it didn't happen, so I've not investigated it, but, you know, make sure the nurse that weighs your kid has had her morning coffee.

Thanks for all your comments on the last post. I got all misty. So glad to know there are people out there. Sometimes I just feel like I'm throwing this all out into the void.

From the Other Side

We've put a lot in our past. There've been surgeries, evaluations, therapies, and hydrocodone out my ass, but we've made it past a lot of the big stuff, and I really only lost my mind once, last night, as our plane touched down at home after a few days' vacation with The Hub. The thought of coming home to a child who has so many physical, emotional, and developmental problems and needs, and who doesn't like me all that much anyhow, well it was enough to have me sobbing from the time we started our descent until we picked up our luggage.

Yeah, I'm having a hard time with everything. If you hadn't noticed by now, I tend to withdraw when I'm unhappy or depressed or whatever. There's really only so much maintaining I can do, and times have been rough. I think it is time for mommy to get some antidepressants.

But here's a rundown.

No heart surgery needed, woohoo.

Eyeglasses are correcting Huck's vision to 20/70-ish.

The tonsils and adenoids that were taken out of his throat were the size of a grapefruit all together.

The ear tubes are holding in place just fine, even with two nights of slasher-movie amounts of blood pouring out of the ear he sleeps on.

The psych evaluation revealed even more fun areas of improvement, and a whole new layer of needed therapists and services.

We won't know for a little while longer how bad his ears are. Hopefully, they'll improve past the 60% hearing loss now that the ear tubes are in and once he heals.

Huck's voice is totally different now.

In news that hasn't surprised anyone around here, Huck tested at the 97th percentile in verbal communication, one wrong answer away from genius level.

Meanwhile, he's at the 43rd percentile for nonverbal communication, which is just fine. However, probably because he's blind as a bat, he's at the 8th percentile for motor skills, which means that he's about a year delayed. So now we get to add an occupational therapist to our ever-expanding list of regularly visited professionals.

There's more, but it is snacktime. Anyone still out there?