I've been away far too long. Since no one seemed to be coming here, I felt no need to update the blog. Short Facebook posts seemed like adequate updates on Bram. However, lately, Facebook has felt far too confining. I rarely post there anymore. When I do, the post rarely reflects my viewpoint on anything. My news feed is filled with posts asking me to share some inane meme if I love God, my country, my son, my daughter, my mother, my father, my dogs, or my cats. Beyond that, I see posts sharing some article or blog condemning some group of people that do not share the beliefs of the Facebook poster.
When I am on Facebook, I spend most of my time biting my tongue and shaking my head, for no matter how gently you try to point out the shortcomings or one-sidedness of a shared article or blog, someone is going to jump all over your comment. The next thing you know, you've been sucked into some argument over some asinine topic you would normally not even think about most days. It's generally not worth commenting.
I do enjoy the photos and good news my friends share. I even enjoy the sharing of their frustrations. However, everything else about Facebook leaves me cold. What's the solution? Hide people from your feed who post those one-sided articles? I've tried that. When it's an actual friend or relative, it feels a little bit like shunning. When it's an acquaintance, you forget about them, that they're even one of your FB friends. Then when something sad happens in their life and you learn about it from another FB friend's post, you feel guilty that you hid their posts and forgot about their very existence.
So what is a girl to do? Abandon Facebook completely? I want to. I'd like to go back to a time when we actually talked to our family and friends instead of having a conversation via Facebook or text. I'd like to receive phone calls on my birthday instead of posts on Facebook. Unfortunately, I am not the best person to organize this movement. Hell, I'm not the best person to organize an address book. (For millennials, I'm referring to a physical book we oldtimers used to keep to store addresses, phone numbers, and birthdays. We actually wrote them down in a little notebook.) Seriously, I have zero organizational skills. I have no hope of organizing a movement, but I may try to organize an address book - a physical one. I'd like to take back some of the responsibility of remembering the birthdays of my friends and family. I may go buy a package of stamps and some birthday cards and start mailing out cards on birthdays. I may fail miserably because I am extremely forgetful, but I am still going to try. Perhaps if I make the effort, other people will start making an effort as well. Who knows? Maybe my little effort WILL start a movement. Probably not.
Anyway, as you can see this blog will now be more than a blog that updates people on Bram. It will be a place where I post any random thought or feeling I feel like sharing. This blog is my new safe place. My posts can't assault anyone by showing up in their news feed unexpectedly. If you're here reading it, you made an effort to find the blog. If you don't like what I'm posting, you should stop looking up the blog and reading my posts. If you like the blog, then please continue reading. I'll do my best to post regularly. However, please recall that I am rather forgetful (I prefer the term absentminded).
If you stopped by to get an update on Bram, never fear. Bram is doing well. He is now six and a half years cancer free. Bram will be nine in June and is now in the third grade. While he is lucky in that he has suffered fewer side effects than other AT/RT survivors, he has not escaped completely unscathed. To start, he has to take human growth hormone in order to grow. It was rather nerve-racking to start him on the growth hormone as, in theory, it can cause any remaining tumor cells to grow. However, Bram has been on the HGH for a couple of years now. The endocrinologist said that if there had been any remaining tumor cells, they would have grown at the start of the HGH treatment. Bram is now 49 inches tall, not bad for a kid with a busted pituitary gland.
The other side effects are playing out at school. Bram is struggling a bit. He is in intensive reading and math rotations at school and has just now started after school tutorials. It seems odd to me that an A-B honor roll student requires so much intervention. My remark is intended as commentary on the meaningless nature of grades, not a suggestion that my son does not require intervention. In all honesty, if it weren't for the STAAR test, I doubt Bram would be in reading intervention. He passed the reading benchmark and would probably have sailed through an old TAKS test, but the STAAR test questions are designed to trip up students who read questions quickly or a little carelessly. The state likes to include little game-changer words that alter the meaning of the question. I warn my students that they need to carefully analyze each question and each answer statement before choosing an answer.
Now, math is another matter. Bram struggles with math because it requires a great deal of concentration. Once he learns a new concept Bram still struggles because he has a hard time staying focused and remembering to check his work. The multi-step problems offer him a real challenge. The devil is in the details. It is a struggle, but he can do it. I'm trying to take some of the pressure off of his memory by getting some accommodations added. He now has an unnumbered number line (he numbers it himself) to assist him with addition and subtraction and a multiplication table. He can use them on tests, but he can also use them on lessons where the objective is not mastering his math facts. Recall and processing speed (needed in learning new concepts) have been affected by the radiation treatment he received. Despite these challenges, Bram is doing well in school, and I am very proud of him. His next MRI will be in July. I will be sure to post an update when we get the results. I hope to post numerous times before then. Thank you for stopping by.
