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Amy Gen

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Everything posted by Amy Gen

  1. I understand how nervous you are. I have been letting my kids do a ton of outside activities with their friends this summer. Yesterday, we went to the beach with 18 kids and their families. I wasn’t too worried because all of the teens and parents are vaccinated and there were only 4 kids under 12, but mostly, I wasn’t worried because it was outside and not crowded at all. Next month, we are traveling to SoCal with another family to go on college tours. Our friends want to spend a day at Disney. I am going to tell them that they can take my 14 year old to Disney for the day, and if Dh wants to go, he can, but I’m going to spend that day visiting family with my 11 year old, because I just don’t want either of us around that many people. As far as anxiety goes, I have a little bit of experience with that. Buspar plus Gabapentin was working miracles for mine, but the Gabapentin started giving me vertigo and I had to taper off of it. My doctor put me on a low dose of beta blocker to stop slow my heart rate and stop the physical effects of the panic. I was doubtful about this, but it does seem to help and it isn’t changing affecting my brain in any sort of way. 5 out of 5 of my kids suffer from anxiety and they run the whole gamut of treatment. My son is on 3 antidepressants and takes benzodiazepines 3 times a day. His psychiatrist says he it the exact patient that these drugs were designed for. My oldest resists medication of any kind and her anxiety recently started edging on mania and she was unable to sleep or focus for days at a time. The first thing I had her do is get on a good Thorne multi vitamin. Then I had her add D3 and time released B complex and also both magnesium Glycinate and magnesium L-Threonate. Those started giving her noticeable relief very quickly. She feels so much better and was able to drive to Chicago yesterday even though driving anxiety usually keeps her from having the freedom she wants. Additionally, I had her try both L-tryptophan and Valerian as needed when she feels the intrusive thoughts or the physical symptoms of panic. I’ll have to ask her which one works better for her. I understand not wanting to take anything that alters your brain, or numbs you out, but it is definitely worth giving these vitamins and supplements a try for a couple of months. For some reason, I have a more difficult relationship with one of my kids than with the 4 others combined. I’ve recently seen how most of the issue has been 22 years of both of us having untreated anxiety and how the disorders just fed off of each other. I wish that I had gotten both of us help when she was your daughter’s age, but I didn’t recognize that as the problem back then. In any case, I made a commitment to her now to work on my own issues and to help her get the support she needs for hers and to recognize when the anxiety is the issue instead of interpreting her behavior as character flaws. I want to have a better relationship with her, and so I’m willing to make changes in myself and my responses.
  2. Of the total population, about 59.6% have gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and about 47% (17,526 people) have been fully vaccinated. Of the population over 12, 69.7% have gotten at least one dose and 55% have been fully vaccinated.
  3. I had to put to sleep our almost 15 year old Pyr this month. The grief felt almost unbearable. My younger children have no memories of not having him to watch over them. I thanked him for being a better mother than I can ever hope to be. I’m glad you have a new puppy.
  4. My son broke his foot, so this week, I have been to 2 different doctors and one hospital (for x-rays). They all asked for us to wait in the car and call the front desk to let them know we had arrived. Then someone brought paper work for us to fill out in the car. They didn’t let us in the building until someone was able to lead us directly to a room. Everyone was masked. At the grocery store, I think about 50% are masked. I think there is a strong possibility we will be locked down again in the fall, so I’m letting my kids much more than usual while we still can, but all socializing is outside and the teens are all vaccinated. Next week, we have both a beach trip and an open water swim on the schedule. My 11 year old isn’t eligible to be vaccinated yet, so we are still being very careful. We don’t plan to return to in person church until January when everyone in the family will be vaccinated.
  5. I’ve loved something about every place I’ve lived. Galveston, where I was born has the beautiful Victorian houses and the beach, even though people who didn’t grow up there have nothing but distant for the seaweed, and gray sand. Clear Lake City, where we moved when my dad worked at NASA grad great schools and a neighborhood where kids played outside until the streetlights came on and every weekend was a party at a different neighbor’s house. Houston Heights where we moved when my parents got a divorce, had again those Victorian houses and so much more exposure to other cultures than the then all white Clear Lake. Montrose area of Houston where we moved when I was in high school, had walkability, an active LGBTQ community, magnet schools and a vibrant art scene. Rural Louisiana had my extended family and my first church family. This is where I was baptized and met my future husband. Austin, where I transferred had an amazing music scene, great food and a university which will always be my happy place of learning. Suburban NW Houston, where we moved when our oldest was born had a low crime rate, low cost of living and plentiful jobs. This is where we were able to have a great lifestyle with 5 kids on one income. New Orleans had again the food and the architecture and we went to church at the Episcopal Cathedral which was so special. Our kids went to the most amazing private school there. If we hadn’t left, I never would have become a homeschooler. Rural property, NW of Houston is where my kids owned horses and raised goats and won jackets ant trophies at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. We got to live a life most people only dream of. At the community college there, my autism kid found mentors and advocates who are still in her life 8 years later. Where I live now is my very, very favorite, but do I think that about every place I live? Vallejo California, where we live now, has such a bad reputation that when I tell people I love living here, they look at me like I’m crazy and say, “You do????” The weather is absolutely perfect. The architecture is to die for. That is why we moved here, for a house, but the reason why we stay is the the people. It is a high crime area and the cost of living is only considered reasonable compared to the rest of the Bay Area. We live downtown where we can walk to the farmers market or the book store where when my kid requested a book that was out of print, the owner loaned her her own signed copy from her childhood. We can walk to a ferry that takes us right to San Francisco for shopping and plays. We go to an amazing Filipino church, my kids have the world’s best friend group. I spent all day with them, yesterday at Six Flags and today, I need to text all of their mothers to tell them how much I appreciate the sensitive, funny, enjoyable, intelligent children they are raising. We hope to stay here 6 more years until our youngest goes off to college, because we want the girls and their friends to be each other’s bridesmaids and godmothers. When my kids complain, I remind them to enjoy what we have right here, right now because one day this phase will be over and we will miss parts of it which we can never get back. For me, what I end up loving about a place is the very last thing I expected. For example, we moved here for a specific house and a job and a ton of money. We ended up not wanting the house. The company filed for bankruptcy and the money dried up, yet somehow we are still so grateful that we came because the people have become so important that the later now seems trivial.
  6. I think that she might have meant this. https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=212741 She works in a nursing home, so I think it is very reasonable for her to continue masking so that she doesn’t bring even a cold or the flu in to the facility. She just told me that the old people watch the news all day long, so she hears the news when she is taking care of them, and she heard about a new concerning virus from India. I assumed it was news program fear mongering, but I did google it when I came home and I found this.
  7. I looked it up afterwards and wondered if she meant some new brain-eating virus. I asked if she meant the variant and she said no, but English is not her native language so we might have been talking past each other.
  8. I went to the neighborhood pet store today. Dd and I masked. The owner did not. She is fully vaccinated. I know because I made her second appointment. She was stuck working at the store, and I said, “Let me run down to the pharmacy and see if they have an opening.” And they did. No one was masked pumping gas at Costco, but everyone was inside the store. Also our pool no longer requires people to mask on the pool deck but they still have to, walking through the building to get to the pool. Also, a friend came to talk to me through my window when I was parked. She was masked. She said even though we are all vaccinated, there is a new virus from India that we should be careful about. Her kids are coming to my house this weekend, I think that was her way of telling me that they will be masked while they are here.
  9. Gay sin, Yikes! We are Episcopalian and the friend’s family is Lutheran, so I’m pretty sure they didn’t cover anything like that at the gathering. When I asked Dd what they talked about. She said, “Mom, I can tune anything out for 5 hours.” So if they covered it, she fortunately wasn’t paying attention. LOL.
  10. Good to know. From my perspective it would be completely insulting to invite an atheist kid to a church function. It seems like saying they need to change or something offensive like that.
  11. The secrecy is what makes me uncomfortable. And the other girl absolutely has school friend parties without inviting either my daughter or the friend who actually goes to school with her, so it is a weird dynamic that I don’t understand. My daughter has a standing Wednesday afternoon date with friends that doesn’t include either of these girls and no one gets their feelings hurt. In a way, I think our swim coach has inadvertently contributed to the problem. Her heart is in the right place, but she pushes inclusivity a little too far. A couple of years ago she overreached and tried to control what the kids text to each other on their own time and even who got invited to birthday parties. I had a major confrontation with her over that and reminded her of parties I’d seen her at that the whole team was not invited to. Additionally, she has to always be friendly and respectful to the other coaches, but she isn’t obligated to invite them over on her birthday, and I sure wasn’t going to allow her to require of kids what even adults aren’t willing to do, so unless she sees something inappropriate happening at the pool, she needs to stay out of it. Nevertheless, her attitude has seeped into the kids because year after year, kids that are in school spend more of their waking hours with our coach than with their families. By that, I mean the attitude that you are doing something wrong anytime you do anything with just the people you prefer. And I can see her point. Her agenda is building a team, and I’m thinking more of individual kids. My Dd is super self confident and her friend is a little shy. I think her parents may be hoping Dd inspires her to be a little more assertive. I’m actually closer to the friend’s dad than to her mom, and he backed me 100% when I threw the fit about birthday parties and the kids’ private text conversations. So I’m going to use that as context for talking to him about why I’m not comfortable with the sneaking around. I think in the end, they are just really nice people who have taught their kid to never hurt someone’s feelings if there is any way to avoid it.
  12. That is helpful to know. We can easily deal with it for another 3 years. I think I was too oblivious to know this was going on when I was a teenager. I had a bunch of male friends who were my constants, and 2 close girlfriends. The three of us sometimes hung out together, but it seemed like one or the other was mad at me at any given time. So having 2 friends worked out well for me, because I just hung out with whomever wasn’t mad at the moment. LOL. There were probably a bunch of social expectations that just flew over my head, so I’m really not in any position to give Dd advice.
  13. My 14 year old has always been homeschooled and she club swims so her whole friend group is on the team. Kids are always getting moved up, and sadly sometimes moved down between the groups and that affects who she sees every day and how much time they have to socialize. She has a pretty big group of friends but when kids move up or down, she gets closer to some and spends less time with others. She spends most of her time with the boys in her age group even though there is nothing romantic going on with any of them. They just have fun and act silly like the time they walked to the 99 cent store together and bought matching sombreros and sunglasses that they wear to practice. About 6 months ago, Dd was moved to the highest group. Since then, she has gotten increasingly close to the fastest girl on the team. The other girl’s parents are thrilled that they are so compatible and often plan shopping trips or fun outings for them, and even want us to take trips together to look at colleges in case the girls decide to attend the same school. But there is a catch. The friend doesn’t feel she is allowed to do anything with out including the second fastest girl on the team. My daughter does not have times anywhere approaching the times of these two girls. Friend doesn’t share any interests with the other girl other than swim and the families have very different values, but for the last 8 years they have been together all of the time. They even go to school together and other girl considers friend her best friend. Dd invites both girls to her parties and talks to both girls on deck, but when she and her friend plan something that just interests them outside of swim, friend says she “has” to invite the other girl. Dd doesn’t really care, but she says that if they don’t, other girl will punish the friend who is much more sensitive than my Dd is. So here is a situation that made me uncomfortable. The 2 girls planned a day of thrifting. The other girl’s mother has told me that her daughter won’t wear anything used. They don’t really want to invite her, so they say, “We are going to do something, we haven’t decided what yet.” And put off telling her, stating openly that they hope she makes other plans by the time they tell her. This, I feel, is much worse than just planning an outing and not mentioning it. I tried to tell my daughter that it is unrealistic to expect to get invited to everything and it is emotional manipulation to punish people for not doing what you want them to do. DD’s best friend is one of the boys. I asked if he gets his feelings hurt when she does things without him. He absolutely does not. Jump ahead to last Saturday friend’s family invited Dd to an all day church youth gathering out of town. The other girl and her family are atheists, so there is no way it would be appropriate to have invited her. As teenagers do, Dd accidentally took home her friend’s necklace and one of her shoes. While friend has one of DD’s shoes and her swim suit. But they can’t exchange belongings right now, at practice because people will know that they did something together without including the other girls. We parents need to make a separate trip to do this. I don’t dislike the other girl, and I don’t dislike her parents. I just don’t think it the girls are doing anything wrong in socializing with just each other every once in awhile. Am I wrong in feeling like this is an unhealthy dynamic? I get all triggery when I hear about teenage girls getting punished when they don’t comply to unreasonable demands. I also don’t like hiding and sneaking. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, why do you need to hide it. At 14, of course, I’m going to keep letting them make their own decisions, case by case, but I’ll keep telling Dd in private what my concerns are. I’ll admit that I’m not the best at these situations because even people who are trying have a hard time hurting my feelings so I’m not always sensitive when maybe I should be.
  14. My future DIL was talking to me yesterday about conflict between her mother and my son. In this case, her mother is adamant that they buy a condo rather than rent an apartment. She understands that her mother has insecurities in her past that make her think that this will give them security. I pointed out that plenty of people who buy in a seller’s market end up with less financial security than if they had rented. So we can understand why she wants what she wants, but the bottom line is that she and Ds are both 25. They need to do what THEY both agree on, not what mom and daughter agree on. I encourage them to focus on listening to each other and forget what relatives might expect. There comes a time when adult kids really need to just do what works for them and ignore parental attempts at interference. If I were in OPs position, I would be watching closely to see if her daughter’s boyfriend is ready to do this. If he isn’t, he might not be ready for marriage.
  15. Ok. Good to know. The adults in my family all had Moderna and since none of us had side effects, I’m probably just biased with no cause.
  16. Apologies in advance if this is not the appropriate place to ask this. My 14 year old is the last of her friend group to get vaccinated. Yesterday, I read that Moderna might be available to over 12 year olds soon. I asked my pharmacist if I should just wait until next month and see if I can get her a Moderna shot instead of Pfizer. He told me that they are so similar, and side effects are so individual that the best vaccine is the first one you can get. So I got her an appointment to get her first shot at noon on Saturday. As soon as I got home, I realized she will be gone all day Saturday and I had to call and cancel. Dd said she is fine getting it whenever. I showed her how to sign up online. Does anyone think there is enough of a difference between the vaccines to choose one over the other?
  17. I’ve eaten low carb for decades, but when I was going through chemo, all I could keep down was food like bagels or crackers. Sometimes, on good day, I would enjoy a salad with a little chicken on top. My oncologist told me not to worry about the lack of nutrition. She gave me iron infusions when my red blood count got low. She just wanted me to eat anything I could keep down. I know your mom is getting different chemo drugs than I did, but I wanted to mention a couple of things that helped me the most. Regular anti nausea drugs were not effective, so I was able to get a drug called Emend with my infusion. 48 hours later, I went back and got an extra bag of fluids with more Emend. That was really what made the whole experience tolerable for me. My insurance wouldn’t pay for Emend on the first treatment. My oncologist had to say that less expensive medications weren’t working. Hopefully your mom won’t need it, but you can ask for it if she needs something more than the standard protocol.
  18. My googling indicates that it isn’t related to any vaccines but to anxiety and patches of numbness can be a symptom of an panic attack.
  19. My son’s girlfriend got a hepatitis vaccine 2 years ago. She thinks it might have been administered incorrectly because it made an immediate lump and created a bruise/discoloration that never went away. She made sure to get her COVID vaccines in the other arm. She got her second Pfizer shot 2 weeks ago. This morning the area around the hepatitis vaccine feels numb. I can see an area around the bruise that looks slightly discolored and it looks like it might be a little swollen. The underside of this arm feels completely normal, so I know it isn’t the kind of numbness that is from a heart attack or anything. If she was my kid, I’d have her seeing the doctor today, but she says her doctor takes weeks to get in to see for non emergencies. I’m going to start googling, but I thought I’d ask here in case anyone has experience with something like this.
  20. Although I’m Episcopalian, my husband is Catholic, and we attended Catholic Church together for about a decade. I’ve been trying to reconcile what I knew and experienced in the Catholic Church (basically, a very strong devotion to living a life of sacrifice) with what I’m hearing from my current Catholic friends. It really isn’t even an exaggeration to say they believe they are more Catholic than the pope. But your post did connect the dots I wasn’t connecting. My current Catholic friends are almost all converts. And the ones who are not, are much more in favor of masking and vaccinating.
  21. I had post menopausal bleeding between moderna doses. Now I get to have an endometrial biopsy done.
  22. Here, the school just needs to sign a work permit for 14 and 15 year olds to work during school hours.
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