Stella Aid(e)!

There's dancing in the streets -- Stella has a new PACE Aide! Yeah!

For those following the Saga of Stella, we had a temporary one-on-one aide for 2 hrs daily, 5x a week, from May until August. We have been searching for an aide since July. Having that one-on-one time with the aide made a huge difference in Stella's progress -- she works much harder for the aide than she does for me.

So, instead of waiting for the Agency to find us an aide, I began asking around. Bojana works at Stella's daycare as her Supported Childcare Worker, and was interested in additional hours as her aide. I have spent the past couple of weeks trying to weed through the paperwork to make this happen. Actually, none of this would have happened without the help and support of the wonderful! amazing! dynamic! new director of Pumpkin Patch, Lori.

This is the good news. The bad news is that Stella is sick still, often. She has lost one of her new T-ear tubes (um, the ones which were supposed to last 2 years?). There is a new ENT at the ACH, so here's hoping that he can help her. In the short term, she needs new tubes. I know that the surgery is routine with small risk, but these small risks add up each time they put her under. Each time they put her under they take years from my life with worry. In the long term, I need to find a way of short-circuiting these recurrent infections that end up in ear infections, chest infections, asthma. We are just treating the symptoms here, and badly. As our Neurologist pointed out, it is truly amazing that Stella has progressed as far as she has given how often and how sick she is.

There must be someone out there with a sub-specialty in this. I am ready, seriously ready, to take out loans and cross the globe to find someone who can help her.

(As an aside, the in the photo above she is trying to help rake the leaves).

Country Living

We just got back from Castlegar to visit my Aunt and Uncle. More specifically, my Auntie Dee-Dee and Uncle Mark live in Ootischenia, an old Doukhobor community. They usually have chickens (maybe even a turkey) and a dog for the kids to torment, but they are downsizing. Every year they plant their "last" garden, which my Aunt then spends weeks freezing and canning.

Needless to say, the kids loved it there. Francis loves to garden, and Mark let him crush grapes, and took him fishing and golfing. "We're doing guy stuff, Mama", Francis told me. (Apparently that also included peeing into the river, which Francis thought was fabulous).



I wish I visited more often - the drive can be up to 10 hours with the kids, depending on traffic and/or how much meandering wildlife is blocking the highway. The pass was very hard for Stella -- her eardrums ruptured the next day, from the pressure I am sure. And the winding roads are hard on Francis -- on the way back he threw up 3x. Maybe just as well -- I think that the 3 of us exhausted Auntie and Mark (especially Mark, since he had 2 days of Francis, Francis and more Francis).

They live in such a beautiful place, right on the river, in the middle of the mountains. My goal this winter, now that Stella is bigger and stronger, is definitely to spend more time in the mountains.