Almost August

In my last post, I hoped I would remember to update before school started in the fall. Looks like I made it with a month to spare.

First up: Little Miss Minion had her MRI in June. She did so well! We both changed into hospital clothes and they got her bundled into the machine. They have a screen with Disney + on it, so she picked Bluey for her show during the scan. Bluey episodes are about 10 minutes long and they were finished before she finished the episode, which annoyed her. Haha.

We went upstairs to her neurosurgeon’s office to get the results. Comparing this one to her last one shows a slight increase in fluid levels, but he said the levels can fluctuate a little bit naturally. She wasn’t having any symptoms of a malfunction, so he wasn’t concerned. Six weeks later (today), she’s still good, so I suspect it was just a normal fluctuation.

I did ask him about some long term things we’ve noticed that we suspect are due to those pesky areas of brain damage from when she had the meningitis. It’s a doozy of a vocabulary phrase: periventricular leukomalacia. PVL, a much easier abbreviation, has been hovering on the sidelines ever since they found it. At first, they suspected it would impact her ability to walk. She did need AFOs (ankle-foot orthotics) when she was learning to walk, so maybe it did affect her gross motor skills. Since starting school, writing and holding pencils for extended periods is hard for her. Maybe it affected her fine motor skills as well. Brains are weird.

During this visit, we specifically asked about her short term memory. Short term memory problems are a known complication of endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) surgery, which she had way back in 2015. She will hear something at school and acknowledge it, then ask about it 2 minutes later as if the previous explanation didn’t happen. She can read almost at grade level, but if you ask her about what she just read, she can’t tell you. Her neurosurgeon said that it’s hard to answer definitively (again, brains are weird), but he agrees that it’s likely a result of that ETV surgery, since the frontal lobe is the area that they access to get to the ventricles in this case. Memory issues will likely be part of her baseline.

Thankfully, repetition and habit are pushing things into her long term memory just fine. Once she knows something, it stays there forever. She will ask me about the most random things from two or three years ago (when she was 5-6), and she will be 100% accurate. She asked me the other day where a certain dress of hers went—it had a hole in the hem a couple months ago and I forgot to fix it for her. But ask her to read a new story and then tell you about it—she struggles.

Luckily, she has an amazing team of teachers at school. Since she has a 504 plan, we are able to enact workarounds to help her succeed. These include things like sitting near the teacher/teaching space, extra time on assignments, shortened assignments, going to the resource room during free work periods in class, and getting extra help with reading and math. Once the kids start having to write longer answers for homework, she will be able to use a keyboard to type her answers. She will still be expected to do some writing by hand, but when the assignment is content based, it makes no sense for her to struggle with physically writing when she’s mentally got the answer.

Besides that, she had a great time at summer school, working on that reading comprehension. She’s been doing the school summer care program after summer school got out, and they do crafts, activities, field trips, and have special events periodically. Next week, they are going to see a movie at the movie theater!

That’s about all the excitement around here. Happy summer!

December!

I can’t believe another year is almost in the books. This year has flown by.

Little Miss Minion has another loose tooth. This time, it’s one of her upper front ones. She’s very excited because she can wiggle it with her tongue now.

She and I made Christmas houses for the tree. I found some cheap little wooden houses and Mr Minion drilled some holes into them to look like lights coming out. LMM and I painted them and then hooked them onto lights on the tree. They look pretty cool.

We also went to a school event that was about celebrations around the world. There were several booths hosted by families who were sharing their heritage and culture. A family from India dressed in their bright saris and talked about their traditional holidays. There was a booth for Mexico, with coconut candies and a fried dessert. The Kenyan booth was amazing. They served a fried doughnut type thing and also had samosas. They were DELICIOUS and I’m trying to find a recipe so I can make them at home. Santa also made an appearance.

The second term of my BSN program is almost over, and I need to decide if I want to speed up my progress or not. Right now, I’m doing one class every eight weeks. I could do two classes every eight weeks, but I don’t know if I want to do that to myself. I might consider it, depending on how much time it will cut off my program. I also have a math class coming up, and I think I should do that one by itself. Ugh.

I hope everyone has a great December and a lovely Advent.

Commencement!

I finally did it!

Brag time: I graduated from nursing school a couple of weeks ago with:

1. A program GPA of 4.0
2. A cumulative GPA of something like 3.97 for all of the college credits I have taken so far (quite a few).
3. Five consecutive semesters of Dean’s List honors.
4. Nursing Scholar of the Year
5. the highest GPA in my cohort

Since classes ended, I have suddenly found this thing called “free time” where I can do things I have been neglecting for the past 2 years–like reading books and relaxing. It is nice!

Next up on my schedule: I need to register to take the nursing boards and I start my first nursing job in July. I’m so excited to start working at this facility (that I will not name because PRIVACY). And then I start online classes for my BSN in the fall. Glutton for punishment…

Little Miss Minion is finishing up first grade in a few days. Things are slowly going back to normal, pre-Covid times in terms of school functions. They went on their first field trip, masks are optional, and the schools are hosting events again. There was a big carnival a couple weeks ago for the end of the school year and LMM had a blast.

Other highlights:

• She had a great dentist checkup and her Xrays show that her first loose tooth is FINALLY on its way. Please note that she hates bubble gum but will actively request bubble gum flavored things at the dentist because “it tastes good.”
• She has made over a year of reading progress since around October. Her reading is improving so much and she works so hard at it.
• She has informed us that she will be marrying a boy from her class. He is unaware of their impending nuptials but she has determined that she will be wearing a dress made of “meatballs and syrup” and he will be wearing “marrying clothes.”
• Her ballet recital is in a few weeks and should be quite interesting. Her costume is adorable, so that will be a bonus.
• She bridges from Daisy to Brownie at some point over the summer for Girl Scouts, and will also be doing a day camp and two overnight camping trips with myself and Mr Minion taking turns. I have never been camping, so this will definitely be an experience.

Happy Summer!

Happy Fall! (Almost)

Summer blew by and now it’s almost fall! When did this happen?

Little Miss Minion has started playing soccer! She won a medal this week for sportsmanship/respect. She said her favorite part of soccer is “everything.” And also the snacks.

School for me has been nonstop since day 1. In lab, we’re learning how to insert IVs, how to do blood transfusions, wound care, blood draws, and tracheostomy care and cleaning. In lecture, we’re going to cover reproduction, antepartum, labor and delivery, postpartum, neonate care, respiratory, cardiac, and blood systems. Plus we have clinicals, which has been awesome so far. I placed a female catheter, attempted an IV, got to watch a cardioversion, and spent a day in the operating room. I watched a hernia repair, a gallbladder removal, and two gynecologic surgeries. I was able to be in the actual OR and walk around to look at whatever I wanted. It was an incredible experience.

I feel like I’m going to blink and it’s going to be Christmas.

Time Flies…

First of all–updates on the Minion Family:

Mrs. Minion: The first semester of nursing school is officially over and your favorite future nurse has a 4.0! I actually scored a 98.11% in the class, so this wasn’t even a close call. The lowest “A” grade is a 93%, so I am solidly in the A zone. Scored the highest grade on 3/5 tests, plus the highest grade on the final. Yes, I’m bragging, but I’m pretty proud of myself. Virtual nursing school while facilitating virtual kindergarten is no joke.

Little Miss Minion: We have also made it to Christmas break in virtual kindergarten world! Little Miss Minion is doing pretty well, and can navigate her computer with very little prompting from me. She’s learning sight words and can recognize a decent amount of them. They do writing, math, and phonics every day, and she’s catching on pretty quickly. Getting her to sit still is sometimes a challenge, but I remember having similar struggles when I was in kindergarten. The good news is that she seems to be picking up on math better than I did. 😉 And she started Girl Scouts, although that is currently on hiatus since Covid cases here are through the roof. If you want to buy cookies, hit me up on Facebook or via email (my first and last name @ hotmail–no stalkers please. You’ll have to already know my real name😁 ). Santa brought her a scooter, so that has been entertaining to watch. She’s left footed–which is interesting to me, since she’s still writing with both hands. I’m thinking there’s a good chance she might end up being a leftie after all.

Mr. Minion: Apart from being an awesome husband and a fantastic dad, he put a gate into our back fence for easier access to some walking paths and trails. The downside of this is that we have one less excuse to go walking. He also built a custom laptop stand for me to use during class, so I can elevate my computer to a more comfortable position and still put notebooks underneath. Since I’m doing school on two tray tables, every spare inch of space counts. He also made a cookie extravaganza with Little Miss Minion for Christmas. Chocolate chip, M&M, bourbon sables (my new favorite), peanut brittle, snickerdoodles, and chocolate nests. So many cookies!!!

Since we didn’t see anyone for Christmas, I decided to try and make it extra special by making Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon for dinner on Christmas. The long way, not my crockpot shortcut. It was delicious. While we were trying to decide on the menu for Christmas, Mr Minion suggested making something from his Titanic Cookbook. After a moment of consideration, we decided that there was no better way to throw out 2020 than by making the last meal on the Titanic on New Year’s Eve. 🤣

Upcoming Events:

• I get the first dose of the Covid vaccine in January, thanks to the hospital I volunteer with. They consider volunteers as employees for the purposes of health requirements, so I signed up. There are two doses, and I will definitely report back with my experience. I’m so excited to get vaccinated and be able to go out in public again without worrying about bringing this virus to someone who won’t be able to fight it off. Clinicals will also be way less stressful.
• Semester 2 begins in a few weeks. A friend who is a couple semesters ahead of me in the program called this semester “hell on earth” so I’m really looking forward to it. 😑
• The official 2020 summary of the books I’ve read this year will be coming soon. I set a goal of 52 books, one per week. I have crushed that goal, mostly due to the fact that we couldn’t go anywhere for most of the year.

Here’s to 2021 (almost)!

One week down!

We’ve survived the first week of virtual kindergarten! I have to say, it went much smoother than I was anticipating.

Her daily schedule usually looks like this: morning check in form, breakout room chat with friends (she’s getting better about talking to her “new friends” on the computer), then they talk about the calendar and what day of the month and week it is. Then they have an activity and a little break. Then they do a few more activities and then it’s time for lunch and recess. After lunch, they do a class read along, then an activity, then art class. After art is recess again, plus quiet time. They meet again for check out at the end of the day.

The activities have been really fun. They do a dance party where the teacher plays a song about counting and they all dance, they listen to books, they do drawings in art, she had to go outside and spell her name with random stuff in the backyard.

Little Miss Minion is learning to use a mouse too, since I have to help her navigate. We have a tiny mouse that fits her hand so why not? She does some of her activities on my iPad through some app that links to her teacher. They are having a supply pickup this week with all kinds of physical materials like workbooks and stuff. We are also getting a hotspot, which should help with us both being able to zoom at the same time.

Which brings me to another point: 3 weeks of nursing school are finished! Our first test is Monday (we have two days to schedule them through a proctoring company). Should be interesting…

The Night Before Kindergarten

It seems impossible that five years ago, we were dealing with Little Miss Minion’s second shunt surgery and had two more to go in the next couple of months. Tomorrow, LMM will have her first day of kindergarten.

It isn’t what we thought it would be. She won’t be riding the school bus-she’ll be walking downstairs to our classroom area. She will meet her classmates and see her teacher on the computer. Lunch will be at home and recess will be held in the backyard.

She knows people are getting sick and that’s why we have to stay home most of the time. She knows we wear a mask over our faces when we do go out because we don’t want to get other people sick. Since she has no idea what she’s missing, I think this is a pretty good year for virtual school.

So tonight, we will talk more about kindergarten and what will happen tomorrow. We will tell her about how she’s going to learn so much and see new friends on the computer. How one day, she will get to see them at school. She’s going to learn to read, how to write, and how to do math.

She’s also learning to be flexible. This is not how I pictured her first day of kindergarten. But this is what her first day will be. I am not going to waste time wishing it was different. I am going to enjoy the fact that my 1 pound 14 ounce Preemie is about to start school just like every other five year old. She’s making new friends just like everyone else. She’s learning new things like everyone else. She’s learning to adapt and roll with changes. Things don’t always turn out how you think they will, but the way you think something will turn out can change what happens. She’s learning that a positive attitude is a good thing to have.

To all the kids starting school (and their parents and teachers): we will get through this together.

Back to School…?

Our local school district gave two options for this year’s school year: 100% virtual or 100% in person. After weeks of debating the merits of all the options we heard about around the country and after one week of carefully considering the actual options presented by the school, we made the decision to keep Little Miss Minion home this semester for virtual kindergarten. I am in no way saying that this is the best choice. All the options suck, for everyone. Everyone wants the best for their kids, and I fully acknowledge that we are lucky to have this option. So I write this post with the disclaimer that it contains my personal opinions and observations about our particular situation.

To the parents who are sending their kids back to school in person—you made a great choice.

To the parents who are keeping your kids home to go virtual—you made a great choice.

To the parents who are pulling their kids from the districts and doing homeschool on their own—you made a great choice.

Little Miss Minion’s pediatrician said that her lungs have likely matured to where they should be, given her respiratory illness history over the past two years. I don’t want to test this theory, but two winters ago, she had a runny nose that lasted approximately 12 hours and gave the bug to me, where it turned into a double ear infection, bronchitis, infection-induced asthma, and almost pneumonia. So clearly her lungs work better than mine on certain things. 😂 The doctor also said that she recommends mask wearing, frequent hand washing, and social distancing wherever possible to reduce the chances of catching or spreading the virus.

The fact remains that the county we live in is seeing a large uptick in cases. The schools have developed a rigorous list of precautions that will be put into place to prevent transmission. The combination of these two facts is going to make (in my opinion) a very unstable situation for consistent education. Between students being sent home for every runny nose, fever, cough, sore throat, headache, stomachache, and generally not feeling well, the teachers and staff will also be held to the same standard. Any symptoms will require a 72 hour quarantine at home after the symptoms are gone without medication. So if a student is sent home on Monday for a fever and the fever disappears the moment they exit school property, that student is not allowed back until Friday. Same thing for teachers. It is only a matter of time before there are either not enough staff to cover the students or not enough students to justify staying open.

The way we saw it, it was not so much a question of virtual or in person. It was a question of her being home from the start, with a consistent schedule and organized setup, or going to school for a few weeks, then getting sent home for a few days, then going back with a new teacher, then being sent home again, and then having to continually arrange a space and provide structure.

We are incredibly lucky that I was already planning on being home for nursing school. We were able to create a space in our basement for a shared classroom. One side is the Minion Kindergarten Academy and the other is Virtual Nursing School. The kindergarten side looks pretty good so far. The nursing side needs a little work—I had been planning on working in our office. I do have an amazing computer shelf that Mr Minion made for me to set my computer on during class. I also made a tea table area over by Miss Minion’s playroom. I’m going to move one of our kettles down there, along with a selection of tea, cups and saucers, and space for a thermos of ice—Miss Minion doesn’t like to wait for her tea to cool.

We are also incredibly lucky to have Mr Minion’s parents able to assist. With him at work, and my clinicals schedule still up in the air, they will be able to take her on those days and continue her virtual school at their house, since school goes wherever her computer goes.

We’ve had a lot of “it shouldn’t have gone this way” in our lives with Little Miss Minion. From her complicated birth, to her infection in the NICU, to her hydrocephalus, to coming home and not being able to have her around people…the list goes on. We are used to it by now, but that doesn’t make it easier.

Summer Update

It has been an interesting summer here at the Minion House. We’ve had lots of walks, lots of time “at the pool” in the backyard (kiddie pool), gardening, tomato picking, and more recently, our area has had an explosion of Covid cases for reasons I can’t get into without wanting to throw my computer through the nearest window. This recent burst of activity has thrown a wrench into the local school district’s reopening plans, and is also impacting my nursing program’s plans.

The official plan for Little Miss Minion’s school won’t be coming out until this week and we will have one week to choose which option we want to do. It sounds like there will be an all in person plan, a hybrid plan, and an all virtual plan. The district has not mentioned what the protocols will be for transportation of kids, eating lunch, bathrooms, masks, etc., but these will hopefully be addressed in the official plan. I’m curious to know what the procedures for a sick child will look like as well, since children do tend to be germ factories even when there is not a global pandemic happening. And does Little Miss Minion still have preemie lungs and a depressed immune system? I don’t want to use this disease as the test.

My school is also altering the plans, but I don’t have a clear picture of what that will look like yet. They have mentioned livestreaming lectures with the option to come in person, virtual labs with in person check off days for skills, and generally trying to give everyone the option to go online where possible. It sounds like clinical days will remain the same, but the partner hospitals have to agree and I don’t know if many of the local ones have enough PPE for their employees, let alone a bunch of students who can’t really do much in terms of patient care. They hope to have more information released this week as well.

Soapbox Moment

As a preemie mom, this pandemic is bringing back much of the same feelings that I had when we were in isolation after Little Miss Minion got out of the NICU. The silver lining of this whole situation is that our household is uniquely prepared for hunkering down, away from germs. We are used to not going to the store as a family. We don’t usually congregate in large groups of people. I have a weekly disinfecting schedule for our house. I did these things because I wanted to keep my child healthy and out of the hospital.

When I hear stories about how people are completely disregarding the recommended safety procedures because they think it is a hoax to take down a certain president, I see red. They clearly haven’t had anyone they know get sick from it (I have). They don’t know of anyone who has died from it (I do). The fact that people are refusing to wear a mask is just absolutely astonishing to me. Masks do nothing for the person wearing them, at least the ones that non-healthcare people have. The average mask is meant to contain droplets that could contain the virus. If I do wear a mask, I am keeping my droplets from coming out into the general area around me. If you are not wearing a mask, your droplets can spray all over the place and become a source of infection for other people. People who are not wearing a mask are essentially saying that they don’t care about spreading disease. They don’t care about YOU.

Some tips for reducing your exposure from a Preemie Mom who has been there:

1. If you have to go out, WEAR A MASK! There are very few legitimate reasons for not wearing one. If my five year old can wear one, so can you. If you can’t wear one, STAY HOME.
2. Stay home unless you have to go out. Please note that there is a difference between HAVE TO and WANT TO. You have to buy groceries. You don’t have to browse the sale shelves or make multiple stops because the store is out of your favorite brand of cereal. Deal with it. If you can order something online, do it. Most places have free shipping.
3. If you do have to go out, make it a quick, solo trip. You don’t need your whole family to come with you. You don’t need your spouse to come with you to the grocery store. Make a list. Get in and get out. Get everything at one place, even if this means you have to do without your favorite brand or a sale item from another store.
4. Just because you are “out” doesn’t mean that this experience counts as one exposure. Every store you set foot into is another chance to spread the virus if you are asymptomatic, or to become infected. If you don’t NEED it, do without.
5. Be smart about your surroundings. If many other people around you in the store are not wearing a mask, get out of the store.
6. If you have ANY symptoms of illness, STAY HOME. I’m always infuriated by how many people have told me “its just allergies” and then they turn out to have a cold or the flu, especially when we were isolating with Little Miss Minion.
7. When you get home, take your shoes off. Launder your mask. Wash your hands with soap. Don’t rely on hand sanitizer unless you don’t have access to soap and water. Soap is better.

The thing that makes me the most angry about this whole thing is the secondary toll that the surges are taking. Irresponsible behavior and the refusal to wear masks leads to a rise in cases, which leads to a rise in hospital beds being occupied. If all the ICU beds in an city are full of Covid patients, there is no room for the pedestrian who got hit by a car on their walk to the bus stop. There is no room for the person who is having a heart attack. There is no room for the cancer patient who is having a reaction to an unrelated virus because their immune system is already shot.

For Little Miss Minion’s last shunt surgery, we waited in the ER for several hours before a bed in the PICU opened up. And it turned out that it wasn’t even a true PICU bed, it was an overflow area that is usually reserved for pediatric cardiac patients. And that wasn’t during a pandemic. If pediatric cases increase, which they probably will if schools reopen without proper protocol, there might not be beds available for unrelated things like shunt surgeries.

Stay safe and healthy!

Don’t forget your mask!

Little Miss Minion: Volume 5

Yesterday was Little Miss Minion’s fifth birthday! I can’t believe it has already been five whole years since she was born.

Since we couldn’t have a regular party like we normally would have, the plan was to have a Yes Day and try to meet up with people on Zoom to sing happy birthday. Mr Minion took the day off from work and went out to get donuts for breakfast. After that, she got herself dressed in her Snow White dress and watched tv. She got bored of Snow White after a while and decided to be a pirate princess instead. About an hour later, it was time for Snow White again. Around noon, we had a special visitor—Nurse J from the NICU!

Little Miss Minion had requested a steak dinner, so we happily obliged and Mr Minion grilled some of the best steaks I’ve ever had. After dinner, we fired up the computer and Zoomed with friends and family to wish her a happy birthday and sing before she blew out her candles.

After cake and such a busy day, she was full of energy (and sugar), so we went for a walk in full Snow White regalia, plus a new Frozen baseball hat. I’m sure the neighborhood wasn’t expecting a Royal parade. 🙂

Today was a rude awakening, as Princess Minion realized that it was no longer her birthday and she had to do her normal daily things, like pick up after herself and not have cake for lunch. She’s so deprived.