Derailed a Bit

This has been a rough week. Kids in physical and emotional pain. Dog difficulties. Oh, yeah...and then there's work. So this blog entry will not be about my knitting, which I have done nothing on this week, but instead about the rest of my life at the moment.

Oldest stepdaughter has been in and out of the hospital three times in the last week+ for stomach problems. Once for testing and twice because she was in too much pain. She's having trouble keeping anything solid down. The doctors have ruled out gall stones as the cause, but beyond that, we're waiting on test results.

Youngest stepson has been diagnosed with non-verbal learning disorder. This means that his verbal skills are off the charts, but his non-verbal skills are wimpy. Think Hulk and Bruce Banner. He has trouble processing chaotic situations, organizing any aspect of his life, and reading social cues, including facial expressions. I always knew the boy loved words; I just didn't know that everything else was so overwhelming for him. He's handling it as well as I think he can, but he's skipped classes, and on Thursday he failed to go to the office when sent and failed to come home or tell us where he was. Add to this that he has a fascination with violence lately. We're trying to ratchet things down here until he sees his doctors on Tuesday.

Youngest stepdaughter told us this morning that she just found out a friend from high school died of cancer recently. I'm feeling for her as she's grieving and facing mortality. I think she needs lots of someones to hug her, and I hope she gathers her friends around her instead of trying to do this pain solo.

And Jack. Jack is a (roughly)12-13-year-old German Shepard mix we got from a shelter about 10 years ago. He's getting old, and for months now, he has had a tumor on his chest--almost certainly a fat tumor, which the vet said was likely, even without testing. It hasn't seemed to cause Jack any discomfort, but it would cost about $1500 to remove, which is more than we're going to be able to spend, particularly with six kids in need of various kinds of support. Besides, he can't stand the vet and is seriously depressed several days after just a bath. I'm not sure he'd survive surgery. This week, probably because he scratched it, the tumor started bleeding. It's also hot to the touch. So we're worrying. We know what the vet will tell us, but we're not going to have the tumor removed. And he's too active still to think about letting him go. So we'll deal.

Oh, yeah. And I'm up to a full page, two-columns and notes in the margins, of a to-do list for work.

So knitting and learning pattern design hasn't been on my mind this week. Here's hoping the coming week is better.