I love this time of year. The weather cools off a little, but not too much. You can go outside without melting. When you get in your car, you don’t burn yourself with the metal from the seat belt. Fall is definitely my favorite season. Casey really likes this time of year too. She has been having a rough time with the weather going up and down so much, but she is adjusting and doing okay.
On Halloween Casey made her rounds visiting all of her doctors’ offices. She has been doing this every year for a while now. It’s a special day for her, and one that we look forward to all year. She gets all dressed up and they get to see her as a visitor instead of a patient. Her doctors and their staff really look forward to seeing her come by. We make little goodie bags and deliver them with a little note thanking everyone for all that they do for Casey each year. They usually have stickers and other fun stuff that she gets to take home in her trick-or-treat bag.
Our new neighborhood had a block party Halloween evening. We were really excited about going, but Casey had been having a rough few weeks so the trip to the doctors was all she was up for that day. We tried to get her ready to go to the party and instead we had a full melt down and a very upset little girl. So I sat with her and Tim handled the trick-or-treat traffic. He went all out with a spider theme on the house this year. He did a great job and it was a huge hit with the neighborhood. Some of the dads and kids in the neighborhood had to come in and check out his set up. He used our projector and some film on the windows to make it look as though our walls were crawling with big spiders. It was pretty cool, and much more creative than I could ever come up with. Hopefully next year we can make it to the party too. We did get to meet a lot of the neighbors when they came by, so that was nice.
After Halloween my mom and her husband (Cappy and Grandpa John) came in to town so that we could move my grandpa (GP) to a new assisted living facility closer to us. The move went pretty well. It was much easier than moving him into assisted living a couple of years ago for sure. The new place is much bigger and more active. This week they have a theme week of ‘Country Western’. They invited Casey to come over today while they had miniature ponies visiting. Casey and GP had a great time. They had 2 ponies. The bigger one Casey didn’t seem to care much about, but the little one and her hit it off. The little one came over and laid her head on Casey’s lap. Casey was able to pet the ponies head. The pony did not want to leave Casey’s side. They had to pull her away. When we were leaving the building the pony was by the front door. It came right back to Casey and gave her some more snuggles. I think it’s safe to say Casey made a new friend today. This girl loves her ponies.
Last week Casey saw GI. She is up to 37.5 pounds, as of a week ago- probably closer to 38 now. It took us so long to get some weight on her. I’m glad she is finally getting some weight, but we have to be careful that it is not too much too fast. Picking her up and carrying her is getting much harder now too.
Her new teacher and therapists are working out pretty good. They come to the house a few times a week. Some days Casey does better than others, but the teacher is really good and patient with her.
We switched nursing agencies in the past couple of weeks as well. Luckily all of Casey’s nurses were able to get on with the new agency so that we did not lose our nurses. We were having a lot of issues with the scheduler and administration at the previous agency and just could not deal with it any longer. The change has been pretty good so far. We are still learning who to call for what, but we’re getting there.
As always, we hope everyone is doing well and enjoying this wonderful fall weather. We will post more soon.