What Ya Doing? 5/1/06

The title of this post is again Billy Ray's favorite question that we hear all day everyday almost as much as "where are we going". I thought I would try to catch you up on what we have been doing.

It seems as if the last two weeks have run together. It started with the San Francisco trip that I wrote about in a prior post. We were home for four days, part of which included taking Billy Ray to the doctor in Bend on Tuesday and trying to clean as much of the house as possible before the Bend Bulletin reporter and her photographer arrived on Wednesday. Not to mention finalizing the Power Point for my presentation and finalizing preparation for the Arc of Oregon conference.

We left Thursday a.m. and went to Portland where we picked up my parents and drove to meet my mother-in-law and Larry's daughter, Lori for lunch. We hadn't seen Lori for a long time since she lives in Indiana. Then after we returned my parents to their apartment we headed for Hood River for The Arc of Oregon conference.

It was a wonderful conference. I enjoyed the sessions I attended especially the keynote speaker, Cathy Ficker Terrill. I wrote about her presentation on my Amazon Blog today. It was about social capital and very interesting. I also enjoyed the interaction with those in my own session. We had a few parents but mostly self advocates. I love hearing the perspective of self advocates - it is so refreshing and enlightening.

We had a gorgeous view of the river and the Hood River Bridge from our room at the Hood River Inn. There were a pair of Canadian Geese who visited daily and seemed to enjoy watching us as we enjoyed watching them.

We are home for several weeks but we do have some events going on in Bend this week. If you are reading this on Bend Blogs be sure to check the Bend Bulletin tomorrow (Tuesday) for the article by Alandra Johnson on Parenting Your Complex Child and Billy Ray. They took lots of photos and I'm anxious to see what they will use.

Then on Friday I will get up early and appear on Good Morning Central Oregon, Channel 11, at 6:58 a.m. The interview will be repeated several times throughout the day including the PM Edition of Good Morning Central Oregon.

Billy Ray handled our absence better this last week than the prior week. He seems to be improving physically gradually. Yesterday was his first day off the meds that are believed to have caused the Pancreatitis. Apparently it will take a few more weeks for him to be back to normal but he is requiring less pain meds already. He does have a cold which doesn't help a whole lot.

Last night he started laughing and said "I pay you back". I asked him if he meant for leaving him. We always joke that he is so good for support staff but saves all his noise for us. He laughed and agreed though he didn't give us too much trouble. He was actually in a pretty good mood.

Anyway we are home and I will try to get back on schedule with my blog posts soon.

Until next time,
Peggy Lou Morgan
Amazon Blog
www.parentingyourcomplexchild.com
www.lighthouseparents.com
Yahoo Group