Today I am ANGRY. I am MAD. And I'm a little ROYALLY TWEAKED too. I know it's poor form to type in ALL CAPS because it looks like you're shouting.
BUT I DON'T CARE. I AM MAD MAD MAD MAD MAD.
We accepted the referral for Doug to be cognitively assessed because we were told that this would be a good way to figure out the best techniques to help him - if indeed he needed it. Somehow along the way, this turned into a full out Autism test - and NOBODY BOTHERED TO TELL US. We've all just been through 3 very stress packed days of having Doug's behaviour picked apart for what appears to be the sole purpose of slapping a label on him.
At the end of what was a very stressful THREE HOUR interview today, I told the interviewers that we were told that this was to be a general cognitive assessment, and we really didn't know why they were spending so much time on the autism component. The look on their faces made me want to get up and throw up. Judging by the look on their faces and the quick shared look between them it was bloody obvious that they were there solely to make an autism/no autism decision. One of two things seems to have happened. Either someone mixed up the paperwork along the way, or we were railroaded. Neither of them makes me feel particularly happy about the medical system right now.
Did I mention that I am MAD?
Now, I don't have a problem with autism. It's not that at all. I'm steamed about "the system" adding more and more labels to him that are going to get him stereotyped in school, and amongst his friends. And to have it done without us being warned about it is simply appalling. You can only imagine the stress that we are under right now.
Now I typically don't call doctors on things. I figure, they've got all the schooling, they probably know what they are talking about. This time I'm going to be more assertive. I've got a few questions about this whole process that I am getting answers for. We've got the "results" session tomorrow. Maybe this whole process is a wake up call for me to be less trusting. I don't know.
Those of you with mp3 players can cue up "Hair of the Dog" by Nazareth tomorrow at 3:00 and follow along with our appointment at home. Crank it up loud - I know I will.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Water water everywhere
... at least it's not in my crawlspace.
On the good news side, it looks like our floors have been chipped and ground down to where they need to be. There were some very tired looking guys downstairs. Now they can start on day #2's scheduled work.
On the bad news side, there's a boil water advisory for our area due to all the rain. Our stove is in the living room. Our other stove is in the garage. Hmmmm.
Only one medical appointment today, and it got bumped to a new time due to power outages at the therapist's day care. We're pretty flexible today, it's going to take a lot to knock us down now. The ratio of things going wrong to right is so far off kilter that we're not getting all that terribly worked up anymore.
Did I mention a bunch of our flooring that was on backorder and supposed to arrive a couple days ago is "maybe" coming in next Tuesday?
On the good news side, it looks like our floors have been chipped and ground down to where they need to be. There were some very tired looking guys downstairs. Now they can start on day #2's scheduled work.
On the bad news side, there's a boil water advisory for our area due to all the rain. Our stove is in the living room. Our other stove is in the garage. Hmmmm.
Only one medical appointment today, and it got bumped to a new time due to power outages at the therapist's day care. We're pretty flexible today, it's going to take a lot to knock us down now. The ratio of things going wrong to right is so far off kilter that we're not getting all that terribly worked up anymore.
Did I mention a bunch of our flooring that was on backorder and supposed to arrive a couple days ago is "maybe" coming in next Tuesday?
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
What a day.
Wow. What a day.
Yesterday ended with what I thought was yet another "typical" home renovation story. Our dishwasher was due to be delivered yesterday. At noon, I hadn't heard anything about when it was to be delivered - so I called. I got transferred to the delivery desk, who had no record of my purchase. They said not to worry, there was another company that also does delivery, and they transferred me to the appliances department. They, in turn, gave me the number to the proper delivery company. When I called them, they also had no record of me. So I called Home Depot back. Once again, transferred to appliances, they told me that my dishwasher hadn't arrived at the warehouse yet, and they didn't have a firm delivery date for me. I had, of course, just finished wrestling a beast of a dishwasher out the door, and given it a few good kicks to boot. Sigh.
Fortunately, both my paperwork and dishwasher were located a few hours later. I actually got a delivery scheduled for today! It probably helped that I was understanding and didn't yell and scream. It probably also helped that I was calling from "home" and not "work", and they assumed I had taken the day off work to wait for it. The fact that I wasn't yelling and screaming about being without a dishwasher for a few days also aided my case. I was completely silent on the fact that I needed the dishwasher out for those days anyways to let the flooring guys work...
So my dishwasher arrived today. They even managed to hit the early side of the delivery window - between 6:30 and 8:00 IN THE FREAKIN' MORNING! Needless to say, my day started earlier than normal.
I had just managed to start getting the kids up, when the flooring guys appeared at the door at 8:00. I missed breakfast as I frantically tried to keep ahead of them by moving furniture around as they yanked and pulled up the carpet. Doug was abandoned at the table, as we rushed to get Samantha out the door to school. No leisurely start for me today!
Part of the job was to rip out the K3 board (particle board) under the linolium. In the upstairs bathroom I did earlier, the board chipped out nicely. It was screwed down very dilligently, but had not been glued. The kitchen was a different story. It was screwed and glued like there was no tomorrow. Saws, chisels, undercut saws, and a jackhammer were all used to chip and pry the stupid stuff off. There is a 6 inch layer of dust downstairs from all of the grinding and chipping. The floor guys had budgetted a full day to chip it out. They fell behind quickly.
Meanwhile, Doug had a physiotherapy appointment. He's been walking on his toes a lot over the previous 2 weeks and we wanted to be sure everything was ok. Our downstairs was completely uninhabitable with the noise, dust, and exposed plywood floor with nails. So we retreated upstairs to a tiny open space that was shovelled out from where our downstairs stuff was being stored. I went for a shave to get ready for an important business meeting in the afternoon.
Somewhere in this time, a saw hit a nail, and threw it through our sliding glass door, shattering it into 6 zillion pieces. Great. Just what we need when there is a storm with high wind warnings on it's way. Fortunately, Doug's physio was going nicely, and there's no big concern as of yet.
Then, without warning 11:00am hit. This initiated a sudden rush. You see, today was also flu shot day for us. So we hustled physio out the door, and starting packing up Doug to go pick up Samantha from school to get our shots. I think I managed a short conversation with the floor guys (who really are hating my floor at this time) about replacing the window tomorrow. But I was in "a bit" of a hurry.
Samantha was collected without issue, and we arrived at the doctor's office right on time. We then proceded to wait for about 1/2 hour - in spite of the office reporting not 40 minutes earlier that they were running right on time. Fortunately, my 1:30 meeting (downtown Vancouver) had been bumped to 2:30, and this wasn't making me late - yet.
I hate needles. So does Samantha. This was a very traumatic appointment for both of us. I think I took it better than she did though. Nobody had to physically restrain all 4 of my limbs well the shot was being administered. Poor kid.
By this time, it's already after 12:00, and we need to rush a McLunch into us, so I can get downtown in time. I'm just biting into my burger when I get a call from the floor guys. The floor is getting tougher and tougher, and the ratio of glue to wood is approaching 1:1. They want to know if we can go to plan B and raise the rest of the floor downstairs by sheeting it with plywood instead. If it weren't for the water damaged K3 that needs to come out anyways, I'd be more tempted. They say they'll explore the damage and call me back. Not more than a couple minutes later, I'm talking to Milt about the weather and traffic. Trees are down across the freeway, and power is out all over the place. We need to leave extra time, but we're already at the wire.
And if it feels like this blog is too long, well, imagine how I'm feeling by this point!
We arrive on time for the meeting, and it is a good one. The project sounds exciting. The sort of clean sheet development every software guy likes. Things are looking up - but there is still no word from the flooring guys. We are getting reports that large parts of our neighborhood are without power. I hope they're not chipping by candlelight.
I get home to see much more floor still there than I wanted. They're about 1/2 done. It looks like they are squaring the edges to make way for laying more plywood down. I don't know how much 23 sheets of plywood costs to install these days, but I doubt it's cheap. We put dinner in the oven (Pappa Murphy's Take and Bake gave away free pizza yesterday!) to bake, and I was just about to head upstairs to see the kids when the power went out. Great. The pizza was only 1/2 cooked, and every restaurant in town has a 4 hour line up. This day is not getting better.
Fortunately, we're on the same power grid as a firehall, and seem to get priority treatment. It wasn't more than about 20 minutes before the power came back on. We cranked the oven up high and crossed our fingers. As of now, the pizza is eaten, and the power is still on.
Tomorrow, the flooring guys say they'll be back, and they have resolved to "beat" this floor yet. He feels that he quoted on pulling out the floor, and by golly he's going to do it if it kills him. Hopefully it won't.
So, if any of you out there have a building contractor job you want filled, I've got some real world experience. Please address your job offers to:
dream-on-im-not-doing-this-again@forget-it.com.
I'll update you more later as tomorrow hits, and sees me return to the flooring supply store to check on backordered trim pieces, and return some low quality underlay...
Yesterday ended with what I thought was yet another "typical" home renovation story. Our dishwasher was due to be delivered yesterday. At noon, I hadn't heard anything about when it was to be delivered - so I called. I got transferred to the delivery desk, who had no record of my purchase. They said not to worry, there was another company that also does delivery, and they transferred me to the appliances department. They, in turn, gave me the number to the proper delivery company. When I called them, they also had no record of me. So I called Home Depot back. Once again, transferred to appliances, they told me that my dishwasher hadn't arrived at the warehouse yet, and they didn't have a firm delivery date for me. I had, of course, just finished wrestling a beast of a dishwasher out the door, and given it a few good kicks to boot. Sigh.
Fortunately, both my paperwork and dishwasher were located a few hours later. I actually got a delivery scheduled for today! It probably helped that I was understanding and didn't yell and scream. It probably also helped that I was calling from "home" and not "work", and they assumed I had taken the day off work to wait for it. The fact that I wasn't yelling and screaming about being without a dishwasher for a few days also aided my case. I was completely silent on the fact that I needed the dishwasher out for those days anyways to let the flooring guys work...
So my dishwasher arrived today. They even managed to hit the early side of the delivery window - between 6:30 and 8:00 IN THE FREAKIN' MORNING! Needless to say, my day started earlier than normal.
I had just managed to start getting the kids up, when the flooring guys appeared at the door at 8:00. I missed breakfast as I frantically tried to keep ahead of them by moving furniture around as they yanked and pulled up the carpet. Doug was abandoned at the table, as we rushed to get Samantha out the door to school. No leisurely start for me today!
Part of the job was to rip out the K3 board (particle board) under the linolium. In the upstairs bathroom I did earlier, the board chipped out nicely. It was screwed down very dilligently, but had not been glued. The kitchen was a different story. It was screwed and glued like there was no tomorrow. Saws, chisels, undercut saws, and a jackhammer were all used to chip and pry the stupid stuff off. There is a 6 inch layer of dust downstairs from all of the grinding and chipping. The floor guys had budgetted a full day to chip it out. They fell behind quickly.
Meanwhile, Doug had a physiotherapy appointment. He's been walking on his toes a lot over the previous 2 weeks and we wanted to be sure everything was ok. Our downstairs was completely uninhabitable with the noise, dust, and exposed plywood floor with nails. So we retreated upstairs to a tiny open space that was shovelled out from where our downstairs stuff was being stored. I went for a shave to get ready for an important business meeting in the afternoon.
Somewhere in this time, a saw hit a nail, and threw it through our sliding glass door, shattering it into 6 zillion pieces. Great. Just what we need when there is a storm with high wind warnings on it's way. Fortunately, Doug's physio was going nicely, and there's no big concern as of yet.
Then, without warning 11:00am hit. This initiated a sudden rush. You see, today was also flu shot day for us. So we hustled physio out the door, and starting packing up Doug to go pick up Samantha from school to get our shots. I think I managed a short conversation with the floor guys (who really are hating my floor at this time) about replacing the window tomorrow. But I was in "a bit" of a hurry.
Samantha was collected without issue, and we arrived at the doctor's office right on time. We then proceded to wait for about 1/2 hour - in spite of the office reporting not 40 minutes earlier that they were running right on time. Fortunately, my 1:30 meeting (downtown Vancouver) had been bumped to 2:30, and this wasn't making me late - yet.
I hate needles. So does Samantha. This was a very traumatic appointment for both of us. I think I took it better than she did though. Nobody had to physically restrain all 4 of my limbs well the shot was being administered. Poor kid.
By this time, it's already after 12:00, and we need to rush a McLunch into us, so I can get downtown in time. I'm just biting into my burger when I get a call from the floor guys. The floor is getting tougher and tougher, and the ratio of glue to wood is approaching 1:1. They want to know if we can go to plan B and raise the rest of the floor downstairs by sheeting it with plywood instead. If it weren't for the water damaged K3 that needs to come out anyways, I'd be more tempted. They say they'll explore the damage and call me back. Not more than a couple minutes later, I'm talking to Milt about the weather and traffic. Trees are down across the freeway, and power is out all over the place. We need to leave extra time, but we're already at the wire.
And if it feels like this blog is too long, well, imagine how I'm feeling by this point!
We arrive on time for the meeting, and it is a good one. The project sounds exciting. The sort of clean sheet development every software guy likes. Things are looking up - but there is still no word from the flooring guys. We are getting reports that large parts of our neighborhood are without power. I hope they're not chipping by candlelight.
I get home to see much more floor still there than I wanted. They're about 1/2 done. It looks like they are squaring the edges to make way for laying more plywood down. I don't know how much 23 sheets of plywood costs to install these days, but I doubt it's cheap. We put dinner in the oven (Pappa Murphy's Take and Bake gave away free pizza yesterday!) to bake, and I was just about to head upstairs to see the kids when the power went out. Great. The pizza was only 1/2 cooked, and every restaurant in town has a 4 hour line up. This day is not getting better.
Fortunately, we're on the same power grid as a firehall, and seem to get priority treatment. It wasn't more than about 20 minutes before the power came back on. We cranked the oven up high and crossed our fingers. As of now, the pizza is eaten, and the power is still on.
Tomorrow, the flooring guys say they'll be back, and they have resolved to "beat" this floor yet. He feels that he quoted on pulling out the floor, and by golly he's going to do it if it kills him. Hopefully it won't.
So, if any of you out there have a building contractor job you want filled, I've got some real world experience. Please address your job offers to:
dream-on-im-not-doing-this-again@forget-it.com.
I'll update you more later as tomorrow hits, and sees me return to the flooring supply store to check on backordered trim pieces, and return some low quality underlay...
Thursday, November 9, 2006
Stress - "You don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone."
You know - sometimes you don't know how stressed you are until some of it goes away.
Today was the first of TWELVE medical appointments for our family in the next THREE weeks. It's not that we're all that unhealthy, it's just that November kind of crept up on us, and caught us unaware. I've been working hard on time-management (which is why I got really annoyed at losing that last blog entry). I've been putting everything into my Outlook Calendar and using it to optimize my schedule and avoid double bookings. Well, I can safely say that it kind of works. I've managed to fit more things into less time than ever before. The problem is, there isn't "less time", so I'm just plain doing more in the same amount of time. My "free time" hasn't grown, and hasn't really shrunk.
But back today. Today's appointment apparently was a source of a great deal of stress that we didn't even know we had. Well, we knew we had stress, but hadn't really clocked today's doctor appointment as being relevant to it. You see, we're renovating during this month too. I'm trying to schedule flooring guys, counter guys, and plumbers to arrive here soon, but not before the stuff they're supposed to be installing. So between this and doctors, I'm pretty busy. Oh yeah, there's work too....
Today we went for the pre-assessment assessment for Doug's Autism tests. We don't think he has it, and never have. But there are some "tendencies" that may put him "in the spectrum". And as good cautious parents, we're taking on the additional stressload just in case there is more to it than meets the eye, and extra support and funding for treating it. Today went well. The doctor interviewed us, and examined Doug. He came to the same conclusion we did, in that Doug is "well outside the spectrum". The relief in the room was tangible. At that point I realized that I was pretty worked up about this - despite believing that there was nothing to worry about. I guess we've experienced the "worst case" diagnosis before, and our bodies were working themselves up to deal with another one.
What have I learned? Stress is bad. Being to busy is stressful - and worst of all - being too busy masks the root causes of stress. Fortunately there's a sermon series under way now at church about managing stress. I'll be paying close attention.
Today was the first of TWELVE medical appointments for our family in the next THREE weeks. It's not that we're all that unhealthy, it's just that November kind of crept up on us, and caught us unaware. I've been working hard on time-management (which is why I got really annoyed at losing that last blog entry). I've been putting everything into my Outlook Calendar and using it to optimize my schedule and avoid double bookings. Well, I can safely say that it kind of works. I've managed to fit more things into less time than ever before. The problem is, there isn't "less time", so I'm just plain doing more in the same amount of time. My "free time" hasn't grown, and hasn't really shrunk.
But back today. Today's appointment apparently was a source of a great deal of stress that we didn't even know we had. Well, we knew we had stress, but hadn't really clocked today's doctor appointment as being relevant to it. You see, we're renovating during this month too. I'm trying to schedule flooring guys, counter guys, and plumbers to arrive here soon, but not before the stuff they're supposed to be installing. So between this and doctors, I'm pretty busy. Oh yeah, there's work too....
Today we went for the pre-assessment assessment for Doug's Autism tests. We don't think he has it, and never have. But there are some "tendencies" that may put him "in the spectrum". And as good cautious parents, we're taking on the additional stressload just in case there is more to it than meets the eye, and extra support and funding for treating it. Today went well. The doctor interviewed us, and examined Doug. He came to the same conclusion we did, in that Doug is "well outside the spectrum". The relief in the room was tangible. At that point I realized that I was pretty worked up about this - despite believing that there was nothing to worry about. I guess we've experienced the "worst case" diagnosis before, and our bodies were working themselves up to deal with another one.
What have I learned? Stress is bad. Being to busy is stressful - and worst of all - being too busy masks the root causes of stress. Fortunately there's a sermon series under way now at church about managing stress. I'll be paying close attention.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)