A few months ago, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. As we try out various treatment options, it's become evident that I fall on the severe end of the spectrum and that I may also fall in that 15% who don't respond to meds. I was hospitalized last week after my symptoms got out of control, and we realized that I need a lot more bedrest than I'm currently getting. I did slow down a lot this semester -- I've been homeschooling my daughter, who just turned 6, and my son, who is 4. We pulled out of all co-ops, limited my driving to within 20 minutes of our house, cut down on playgroups and activities, and did more at home (for the first time ever we were actually HOMEschooling!). This has been fine with ds, who's pretty happy if we only go out a couple times a week, but dd clearly needs more social stimulation than she's gotten the last few months. DH wants me to seriously consider putting the kids in public school for the spring semester. Which starts in just over two weeks. Where's the tearing out the hair smiley?!
His reasons are sound. I landed my butt in the hospital last week and he's rightfully freaked out and clearly I do need more downtime than I've been getting. And dd needs way more social stimulation than she's been getting this semester. We tried out a quieter schedule with more days at home and it's just not working for her. I get that. Maybe I'm just being stubborn, but I still don't think public school is the best thing for the kids, even if it would provide me with several hours of bed rest each day. I have concerns about putting ds in that setting at all. He has SPD and we went through the IEP process with the local school system last year and they weren't able to meet his needs. He's come a long way in the past year, but I just don't know if he'll enjoy the experience. I also have concerns about putting dd into first grade mid-year, with social groups already established. There are pros and cons to any choice we make here, but I'm trying really hard to find other options.
If we can find the money and if they are willing to accept a new student or two mid-year, there's an option called The Learning Collective in our town that would be a good fit for where the kids are at right now, I think. They know a lot of the kids there already and I like how the cooperative has developed over the past year. It's basically drop-off homeschooling -- they've hired a teacher who runs a multi-age group three times a week, with a lot of Montessori and Waldorf influence on the curriculum. Two big ifs, though -- the money and the space in the program. I could also put dd in our local homeschooling co-op on Wednesdays, and we have a volunteer mother's helper on Mondays. That would provide social interaction for dd five days a week and have her out of the house without me three days a week, so I would get some rest time. DS could possibly go to both programs, too. So there are definitely options.
A lot of it depends on how I respond to my new med regimen, and I'm not going to know that for another two or three weeks. That really puts us past the deadline for registering for anything. And sometime in the next month or two, I'm going in for outpatient surgery to do some muscle biopsies. Depending on how many biopsies they do and where they are, I might end up on crutches for a week or so. Gack.
I wish I knew when I'm having the biopsies done, when the med changes will fully kick in, how I respond, etc., so that we can go ahead and make plans for the next semester and feel like we've made the best decision for our family. Right now anything we decide is based on guesswork and that's kind of scary. I really want to continue homeschooling, but we need to change our approach pretty drastically if we do, because this isn't working right now.
Thoughts?
Edited by earthmama369 - 12/18/10 at 4:30pm
