Foster Further

We are approaching the end of the hardest year our family has endured since, well, it's very first one. (In our first year of marriage Theo and I coped with the death of his mother a week before our wedding; an unplanned, high-risk pregnancy; two moves; and struggling to live on one salary that didn't cover both rent and groceries. Besides being newly married and having no clue how to actually live together. Really nothing we'll ever face will be harder than that year. Honestly.) But, back to present day. Things are winding down. 1) The house painters are gone. Eight days of "final touch-ups that will just take a few hours". Eight days of watching them patch a spot sloppily with putty so the putty got on the green trim. Then repainting the green trim to cover the putty. Then repainting the yellow house paint where they slopped the green trim paint. True story. Now multiply by every inch of a two-story house with a porch, chimney, and 19 windows and three ext...

We're still in the process of having testing done to figure out what is going on, neurologically, with Jane. Meanwhile, there was another seizure-like incident that I got on video. I've shown it to a few friends and family members in the medical field and the suspicion is that she may actually be having catatonic episodes. When most people hear "catatonic" they think frozen or in a coma but those are just some of the manifestations. It can also include body contortions and facial grimacing that look like a seizure. The key difference is that speaking to or touching someone in a seizure will not bring them out of it whereas it's possible to bring someone out of these kinds of catatonic episodes. While catatonic episodes are associated with schizophrenia they can also be caused by past trauma. Given that the girls' mother has a history of mental health disorders and that we know they witnessed and experienced trauma, both causes are within the realm of pos...