speedmom4 Posted March 1, 2017 Share Posted March 1, 2017 Hello Hive, I'm really hoping those of you who have BTDT will chime in. Our ds who is currently in 10th grade will likely have brain surgery sometime in 2017. He has intractable epilepsy and we are currently in a pre-surgery phase of testing. We do not know for sure yet but so far the data is pointing in that direction. All of this has me quite anxious and thoughts of school year 2017-2018 give me heart palpitations. Currently I only have two kids homeschooling (the older two are in college away from home). My boys are doing all of their classes together. They are both in live online classes for every subject. They enjoy having all of their classes together and is great for discussions and projects. My plan was to continue with the live online classes for the rest of high school but in light of what the future might hold I need to rethink that. My first concern is that if he does have brain surgery the recovery will most likely be at least a couple of months and that's probably best case scenario. What I've heard is that typically during recovery they are very very tired and need a lot of rest. So it won't be similar to a recovery for surgery on another part of the body. Once he's even off of pain meds and home from the hospital the likelihood of having serious exhaustion is high. Also, the brain needs time to heal. The other issue is that currently we are staying local for surgery but that could change and we would be going out town a few hours away, even out of state, or across the country. We just don't know yet. He will likely need a lot of OT/PT afterwards to gain his strength back. There is also the potential for complications that could impede a normal recovery. So my thought is that we need a super flexible plan for next year. Our current Spanish teacher will be offering Spanish 2 next year in a live online class and she is willing to work with us through this situation. I'm thinking we will just do Geometry with Teaching Textbooks. For everything else I've been looking into the Unlimited Access with Homeschool Connections. It's pretty cheap and will give us the flexibility we may need. The classes won't be live but prerecorded. We can watch them when we can and work at our own pace. Using Homeschool Connections could also enable me to keep my younger son working on other classes while my older son recovers. They have a lot of neat history options that would appeal to him. That way I'm keeping him busy but also not leaving his brother behind. When he's recovered they can pick up where we left off and finish. What do you all think of that? What have you done during serious illnesses or other stressful times regarding high school? If you made it this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK_Mom4 Posted March 1, 2017 Share Posted March 1, 2017 Hugs, OP. Sounds like this may be a tough year. I think you need a plan that makes sure that the 9th grader doesn't lose a year of high school while his brother is recovering from surgery. The 10th grader is only going to be able to do what he can do IYKWIM - if 2017 ends up being a medical gap year for him, then it is what it is - health is more important. But I think you need to keep the younger one moving forward. With the exception of math, there is a lot of flexibility in the ordering of course work during the high school years. It should be possible to arrange a course of study for everything else that lets them work together in the future and still lets the younger keep working. All that - yes we have done homeschooling with fairly serious medical issues. I would definitely plan for materials for both kids that can be done on the road and with flexibility with regards to internet access - sometimes you can't make it work online. I would look for ebooks and asynchronous (not real time) courses. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedmom4 Posted March 1, 2017 Author Share Posted March 1, 2017 Hugs, OP. Sounds like this may be a tough year. I think you need a plan that makes sure that the 9th grader doesn't lose a year of high school while his brother is recovering from surgery. The 10th grader is only going to be able to do what he can do IYKWIM - if 2017 ends up being a medical gap year for him, then it is what it is - health is more important. But I think you need to keep the younger one moving forward. With the exception of math, there is a lot of flexibility in the ordering of course work during the high school years. It should be possible to arrange a course of study for everything else that lets them work together in the future and still lets the younger keep working. All that - yes we have done homeschooling with fairly serious medical issues. I would definitely plan for materials for both kids that can be done on the road and with flexibility with regards to internet access - sometimes you can't make it work online. I would look for ebooks and asynchronous (not real time) courses. Thank you! Once we have a surgery date my plan is to schedule our "summer" around it. I'm hoping that gives us enough time but I'm trying to plan around challenging scenarios. Thank you so much for your input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted March 1, 2017 Share Posted March 1, 2017 I think with the kid undergoing surgery, plan to lose at least a semester of school. You can do all your high school credits in three years' time, so don't stress too much. Delaying college for a semester or year isn't even a big deal. I know they LIKE all of their classes together, but there was always a limit to how long that system would last. I'd look at my high school schedule and arrange the classes of the kid not undergoing surgery so that they had lots of electives and bare minimum core classes. This way they'll have many, but probably not all, of their classes together the following year. The kid having surgery needs some time off. The other kid needs to continue progressing. If they're together in math then that will probably end, but most of the other subjects can work. Maybe talk to the kids and see what is most important to do together? If they insist upon chemistry together, maybe save that for later and give the other child a year of astronomy or marine biology during the gap year. He must have some interests his brother doesn't share. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedmom4 Posted March 1, 2017 Author Share Posted March 1, 2017 I think with the kid undergoing surgery, plan to lose at least a semester of school. You can do all your high school credits in three years' time, so don't stress too much. Delaying college for a semester or year isn't even a big deal. I know they LIKE all of their classes together, but there was always a limit to how long that system would last. I'd look at my high school schedule and arrange the classes of the kid not undergoing surgery so that they had lots of electives and bare minimum core classes. This way they'll have many, but probably not all, of their classes together the following year. The kid having surgery needs some time off. The other kid needs to continue progressing. If they're together in math then that will probably end, but most of the other subjects can work. Maybe talk to the kids and see what is most important to do together? If they insist upon chemistry together, maybe save that for later and give the other child a year of astronomy or marine biology during the gap year. He must have some interests his brother doesn't share. The bolded part of your reply is very helpful! Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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