Why I Homeschool

I was called in for a meeting this morning to discuss "a couple of things" by Preston's therapist. I felt attacked but walked away feeling vindicated. Apparently when she asks him what he's doing in school, he tells her "nothing". So.....she thought he was doing "nothing". Through many tears, I explained to her what we do and how we do it and why we do it the way that we do. Preston, on the outside, seems like a normal 7 year old boy. When you look at his brain MRI, it's a little different. He spent 4 1/2 years (4 1/2 of his DEVELOPING years) on chemotherapy. How could it NOT affect his brain? We are very honest with his Oncologist and his Endocrinologist about his progress, his lack of ability to read at grade level, in addition to his health related issues. It appears that the majority of kids with his disease are learning disordered and/or developing neurological issues. Once again, how could they not after all that chemo in infancy, toddlerhood, and preschool ages? No, we may not sit at a desk for 6 hours a day like you would in public school, but we are learning. We are learning our measurements through cooking and and measuring liquids and solids and using a tape measure on everything in the house. We are learning levels and pulleys and ramps via rodent traps all over the yard and the field across the street. We learned about electricity through a board with all different sizes of batteries and light bulbs and wires. At some point in the meeting, I saw a change in her face and I knew that it "clicked". At the end, she told me that if her now learning disordered 20 year old were in 4th grade, she'd do the same thing I'm doing. She also told me that if anyone else questions my decisions, to send them to her. Yes, I feel like I won this one...but why must we homeschoolers constantly defend ourselves and our decisions?

Farewell 2008

I haven’t blogged in quite a while because everything I had in my brain to blog about was “heavy”. So, I’ve decided to write a farewell to 2008 and then try to write every couple of days about the daily grind, good and bad, at the Allen house.
Farewell to Paul….our beloved next door neighbor that died unexpectedly on October 31. His death affected us in more ways that we could ever have imagined. Preston, our 7 year old, was deeply affected as well. Preston and Paul played “tennis” across the driveway 3-5 days a week and Preston was very attached to him. Paul and his first wife, Laura, had been the first (and only non-medical) babysitters that Preston had, starting when he was 6 weeks old. Paul was a fixture in his life. Although I’ll never understand why things happen, I’ll have to carry on. Every time I look out the front door, I look for him walking to his mailbox (something he did several times a day, I swear). Every time I see a vehicle in town that looks like his, I look for him. Every time I see a coconut cake, I think of Paul. And today, as I was watching Extreme Loggers, I had a giggle thinking of the time he cut down our ailing pine tree and we were all praying that it would fall towards the yard and not across the highway we live on. A few weeks ago, I bought green Gatorade for Preston’s basketball team and he wouldn’t drink it because it was the color that Paul always kept in stock for him. Preston still talks of him often, but the sadness seems to be getting better. I’ve been close to death for many years now due to my husband’s cancer, but this blindsided me like I could never have imagined. I would have never dreamed I would have felt this way, and I’m not quite sure when it will go away. I think it would be easier if it were a friend across town or across the country, but being next door, I’m reminded of it daily…every time I pull into my own driveway, every time I look out the front door, every time I walk down to the mailbox. Paul…..we loved you dearly and hope to see you someday.
Dana’s tumors (30-50 of them depending on how you interpret the words “cluster” and “group” and “several” on the CT report) have doubled in size for the 2nd time in 5 months. He was able to get a whopping 3 chemo treatments in in August/September before his blood counts tanked and he was put in isolation and pulled off of treatment for 3 months. He started again on 12/31. His counts were still low the day of treatment, so I’m not confident that he’ll be able to take many treatments this time either. It’s so exhausting. I know it’s exhausting for him…to have been fighting it for so many years, to constantly be reminded that he has a death sentence and to be slowly losing his mind to the toxicity of the chemo. He’s like an early stage Alzheimer’s patient at best. Some days he’s 43, some days he’s 17, and some days he’s 7. We never know what we’re going to wake up to and it’s taxing on the kids as well. I thank God that our 3 older boys have good memories from before diagnosis and haven’t ended up in jail for all they’ve been through in the last 7 years with the diagnosis of their little brother and then dad 6 months later. I hope that Preston will remember the good times with his daddy and understand the bad later on in life. He’s mature far beyond his 7 years of life and understands way too much about cancer and chemo. He was diagnosed with MRSA in November and sent me back into a fear that I was going to lose him. It took me back to that day, holding my 5 month old baby and being told that he has a rare disease that kills. I don’t like being there. As it all worked out, it benefitted us to be so paranoid about his skin involvement and we had the MRSA under control before any of the wounds even opened. Thank God.
I pray that 2009 will be a better year with better memories and the ability to let go of the sadness of 2008. I want to be able to live each day to the fullest and to not look back.