We've had a rough couple of days here, but things seem to be simmering down a little. The chick is having a rough batch of confusion, but we're doing all we can. Had planned to pick up my sister for a couple of days summer visit here on Cape Cod, but with the chick having such a hard time we figured that might not be a good idea. Not knowing what, when, how makes planning things difficult at times. We're making the best of the situation, and next week she'll start a weekday set of groups and courses that might help strengthen her ability to address each complication in ways that work for her.

Had a back to back 2 hour meeting yesterday with two incredibly dedicated members of the team we've put together to get things as situated as they can be. The saddest part of all of this is knowing that everyone involved is trying as hard as they can to do as much as they can to help and knowing that there are still barriers that get in the way of doing what is needed. The system, in a multitude of ways, is set up in a fashion that is geared to wait for complete collapse instead of prevention. It's a system that is willing to take too many risks, and when fallout occurs, it's a system that has the perfect setup for nobody being responsible, as so many facets of the system failed that nobody can be fully responsible. Sadly, that is pretty much how the USA is set up in every way, from business to medical to social to public. It's so Atlas Shrugged it makes me laugh (and cry) sometimes.

The timeline of things that can go wrong is extended year after year, as child after child is misdiagnosed, misdiagnosed some more, and then tossed on this, taken off that, and when nothing helps, rediagnosed with a new misdiagnosis, and the cycle can just go on for so long before anything can make a difference. Even a correct diagnosis can still lead to years of struggle. I'm beginning to understand that sometimes even knowing exactly what is causing a situation can still take a long, long time to take care of. I thought that once you knew what was wrong with any given problem in life that the course would be easier and get better day by day... but as we've taken some time lately to do a 'focus on the positives' we are frustrated to find that not all that much has changed and in some ways things continue to get harder. We do believe, though, that in time things will smooth out and get less complicated and frustrating. While you're in it, though, on a day to day basis, it's sometimes excrutiatingly exhausting. Most of all, for the chick.

We're still waiting to read up on the FDA site about its findings with a product out of Canada called EMPowerplus. I found this website last year, after reading a long and interesting article in Discover magazine. We've considered this to be a last resort if nothing else helps with the situation, but we want to wait to see what the FDA findings are, just to be safe. Not that I hold that much respect for the FDA, but the studies they are doing on it currently in conjunction with the studies they have already done on it would make it something we could try with the chick's doctor if it does get FDA approval. I used to think anything vitamin/mineral/diet was a crock of hopeful nonsense, almost too basic a reason for such complicated conditions, but the more I've read up on this, the more sense it makes. Our foods really are overprocessed and the stuff that's put into them (preservatives, additives, chemicals) could very well be the cause for the increase in mental conditions that have baffled doctors for decades. Soil isn't replenished and cared for as it was in the past, which definitely plays a role in the food that grows there. Overworked farms that are pushed to meet demands for certain crops could be putting out the equivalent of plastic fruits and vegetables that look great to the eye in their visual perfection but have far less of the vitamins and minerals we got from them in decades gone by. If all that has caused the mental health crisis over the years is a vitamin/mineral deficiency, it could so easily be rectified and would also result in a bit of financial loss for the pharmeceutical companies that have created pills to mask over the symptoms but not the address the origin at all (which is why the pharmeceutical companies are going to be EMPowerplus's strongest opponents.) It's just a waiting game now, to see what the results of the double-blind studies are. Oddly, I can't find anything about EMPowerplus on the FDA site, but I do know it's in the process of being evaluated by the FDA or at the very least the studies have begun.

For now, we go along with most of everything taken care of from last year's horrible misdiagnosis by the most incompetent and sadistic doctor we've ever met. With a bad taste still lingering in our mouths from that incident, we've still somehow managed to sort out that doctor's critical mistakes, and are at the very least now working with a doctor who backs up everything he says with facts, test results and a more clinical evaluation. But the road to here was bumpy, and continues to have its own set of small detours.

We continue to do geocaching, and most likely will head to the beach later on today depending on how things are going. Hopefully the rest of the week is a little less tense. We have another (!!!) travel bug we found at the 3rd cache we went to and we've got to place him somewhere with a lot of tourists in the hope that some Canadian geocacher finds him... the travel bug's name is Nanuk and he came with a piece of paper that requested he somehow get up to Canada and Alaska. Here's a picture of Nanuk:




He's sitting on my desk right now, waiting for a new cache to climb into. We have a few printed out to find tomorrow. We've also got to get together some more small items to exchange with each cache, which I've come up with some pretty good ideas for.

All in all, I think this summer will be remembered by the kids mostly as the summer we started geocaching and the cool places we found the caches at. At least that's what I'm hoping for, because in the midst of all of these rough moments for the chick, there have been some great times that she was a part of and I figure that if we just keep going along here trying to do the best we can in spite of the circumstances and make some good, happy memories along the way, perhaps the fun times will make more of a difference for the hard times. It's either that or just sit around and worry what's going to happen next, and I just can't go that route. I want the 'what is going to happen next' to be something positive and interesting, and the kids have selected some really great caches to find. It's been even more fun than I anticipated it would be, and I already had a feeling before we even started doing it that it would be incredibly fun. :)

In closing, a poem by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings for Hoopy Frood, who has been so helpful to me the past few days as I send him emails that read more like chapter books:

I have found
a find
in you
and me

The we
can do it
we can get
through it

the never giveuppers
the computer geeks
with painted mouses
and glowing keyboards

the pool swimmers
and skimmers
and algae shockers
we make things clear

we are a cache
we exchange with each other
travel bugs and stories
our waypoint's the same

This is how it is
so this is how we go
we coordinated our gps
and just take it slow