Swine Flu

It happened today. I had my temporary moment of panic over swine flu. On the way to work I was listening to the radio and they read an email from a doctor in central Texas who had just been to a briefing by the WHO. They read all the doom and gloom facts about how we're all going to catch it. It was kind of scary... let me share a few.

**While only about 10-15% of people who are exposed to regular flu actually get it, almost ALL of people exposed to swine flu will become sick because there is virtually no herd immunity.

**When you're exposed you can be contagious for up to 11 days, including two days before you even show symptoms. Let's see how many people you can infect.

**The current number of reported cases is a drastic underestimation because the CDC doesn't officially confirm a case until three days after it was confirmed by blood test in the doctor's office.

At this point I'm almost to work, waiting at the light on the feeder and I notice the guy in the car in front of me is lighting a pipe. I reflect for a moment, thinking how strange it is these days to see a pipe smoker, and then the light turns green. We start to move and I realize I can actually smell his smoke all the way from his car into mine. Which means little particles of the air he's breathing in his car, I am now breathing in mine. And I wonder, in our world of germ-phobics (which I am SO not), and hand-sanitizers, and sterile cleanliness, just how much air gets recycled from lung to lung. And I hope he doesn't have swine flu.

Frustration at Work

About a month ago, I saw a 9 year old kid that was hands-down the most difficult evaluation I've ever done. I've never had to write in a report that test scores were invalid because of behavior, until this kid. Granted he has some additional psych diagnoses that complicate things, but it was hard. He was under the table, yelling at me, yelling at his mom, refusing, losing attention, trying to get me off task, etc. You name it... this kid was an expert at manipulating. I also observed his self-contained classroom which was an experience I'd never had and don't really want to repeat. The only child in his class for most of the day, his two teachers had incredible difficulty getting him to complete the most basic of work. It was even worse when the other two kids came in. I almost had to help the teachers break up a fight and I was only there an hour. I can't even imagine dealing with that on a daily basis. It takes a very special kind of person.

So today I received a call from the school district assessment coordinator who said there was some confusion about my report. She and her supervisor couldn't tell from my description of his behavior (name calling, cursing, threats to hit teachers, threats to kill students, fighting, trying to throw computers on the floor) why I recommended a functional behavior evaluation. Wow. Really?

They also couldn't understand why I recommended he continue speech-language therapy when I claimed his scores were invalid. And then there were the really fun ones... they didn't understand why there were two dates (one for testing and one for class observation), and couldn't figure out the prognosis (even after she read it to me over the phone). I wasn't even sure how to respond to that.

So my biggest frustration is that this kid (and many others not half as bad) is not going to get services from the school. I completely understand that he's a pain in the ass to work with and he hasn't made an inch of progress in the last 2 years because he refuses to participate in therapy. But that doesn't mean he doesn't need it. Clearly their system is not working for them and some serious changes need to be made in his behavioral plan. I know there are plans to involve lawyers but I'm not sure how successful that usually is. Even if the family wins, does the child really?

Feels like a Sunday

What have I done today?

I spent 3 hours at the AT&T store trying to get Uverse. It's beyond me why everything is so much more complicated than you'd expect. The initial trouble was an error saying the Uverse service was not compatible with our existing service (the DSL maybe?). Then we needed the account number from our DSL account because it's separate from our wireless account (again with the extra-complicated). So the DSL had to be canceled, but not until the new internet is installed, which was a feat in itself. Then once it was all said and done (we thought), the guy realized that the original order which he thought had not gone through, in fact had. But he could not cancel it. So now we have two orders for Uverse. He was supposed to get back to us when he got it worked out, but he has yet to call. What's worse is Huy and Heather came in to order Uverse too and it took them all of 15 minutes.

I weeded one tiny portion of the backyard and then decided it was too windy and hot. Many many many more weeds await me. I could get weed killer but that seems the easy way out.

I watched the draft. For 5 hours. Ok I didn't really watch for all that time, it was just on. But it still feels like 5 hours of my life that I'm never getting back. I did set up a Facebook profile and then promptly decided I liked Twitter better because I couldn't figure out how to respond to Suzanne when she messaged (facebooked? texted?) me. I read blogs including Shannan and Brad's, Mark Cuban's, Robert Rummel-Hudson's, and Stacie Smith's. I cried at the last one. So now that we've waited 5 long hours for the Cowboy's first pick, they have traded it away. Nice job Jerry.

Time to catch up on the DVR since hopefully we'll be getting rid of it on Friday! Here's to hoping the AT&T guy calls tomorrow...