Waiting, Training, & Hysterectomy
Waiting has always been a struggle for me. I've never been the most patient person though I do pray for help in becoming more patient.
Our case worker emailed yesterday to let us know she started to review our homestudy. The Home Study agent gave her our home study back on the 7th. I do not know how long it will take our case worker to review it before she finally sends it to the state. I also do not know how long it will take the state to review it and give us an approval or denial. Please pray with me for patience. We started this process in May, we are in our thirties, and we've already been told it will take approximately a year or more for matching and placement. We want our forever family and just need patience to make it there.
In the meantime, we have more training to do. Because we are going with the Legal Risk Adoption route we have additional training required on top of the normal fifteen hours per year. The letter we were given said we had to get TACT-2: Therapeutic Agression Control Techniques & PATH: Parents are Tender Healers. After over a month of trying to figure out what the acronyms stood for and where to get those trainings we finally got some answers. PATH training was replaced with IMPACT training, which we already completed. TACT-2 training was replaced with TBM: Therapeutic Behavior Management training. Our agency will send us an invite for their next training session on TBM once they lock down the location. We were told it is tentatively scheduled for January.
For our 2019 fifteen hours I am hoping to attend the Adoptive & Foster Parent Association of Georgia 46th Annual Education Conference. The conference has four workshop sessions with multiple choices of eduation per session. For each workshop session they ask you to pick two and put them in order with most desired first. If we do attend, we would like choose the following topics:
Workshop A:
(1) Let's Talk Adoption
(2) How Need Deprivation Impacts Ongoing Behavior
Workshop B:
(1) Post Adoption Services Through Adoption Assistance
(2) Creative Conflict Resolution
I want to do another one but I figured since we have already decided to adopt siblings we probably don't need that one. --> The Importance of Maintaining Sibling Connections
Workshop C:
(1) Preventing Adoption Disruptions: How to Prepare
(2) Developing Emotional Attachment
Workshop D:
(1) Know Your Capacity / Find Your Own Superpowers
(2) A Healthy Family Makes a Strong Family
Currently, I work that weekend so I will need to either ask off or see if someone will make a shift swap with me. I'm thinking if I do a weekend swap I can take their Valentine's weekend and they can take this weekend. We shall see if there are any takers.
While all this waiting and training is going on we are also dealing with more health issues. My procedure this past summer was effective in shrinking the tumor. Though it barely shrunk, at least it is no longer doubling in size every two months. However, when I had the followup MRI they found something alarming. My remaining ovary has grown quite large, is pressing on nerves, and looks suspicious for cancer.
Before he even told me about my ovary I knew something was wrong. I hadn't attributed it to my ovary because the pain presented in a different way. I had been having fairly severe low back / tailbone pain, right hip pain, pain & numbness going down my right leg. The day I had the MRI I was really feeling it. It was bad enough to make me considerably nauseated. I told Dr. Kang my symptoms and that is when he shared with me, and showed me, the scan of my ovary. He said he already forwarded the scan to my OBGYN and told me to call her and setup a surgical consult immediately. He is advising a hysterectomy.
This isn't the first time I've been told I needed a hysterectomy. However, this is the first time my ovary has caused this kind of pain. My left ovary had to be removed because it continued to swell and when they finally went in they had to cut through webs of scar tissue just to get to the ovary. Apparently, when an ovary swells then bursts and repeats over and over it causes a significant amount of scar tissue. I cannot imagine what they will see when they go in this time. Also, with the addition of fibroids my uterus is now suffering.
My surgical consult will be December 10th. Until then, please pray for the pain. I don't have much pain medication left and I really do not want to miss any work because of the pain. Right now I go throughout the day without any medication and just do my best to deal with the pain. At night I have to take some or I won't be able to fall asleep because of the pain. I'm also sleeping on a heating pad. That seems to help a good bit too.
Thank you all for your support. We are really blessed with such wonderful friends and family. I cannot say it enough. We look forward to the day we can share our forever family with all of you.
Our case worker emailed yesterday to let us know she started to review our homestudy. The Home Study agent gave her our home study back on the 7th. I do not know how long it will take our case worker to review it before she finally sends it to the state. I also do not know how long it will take the state to review it and give us an approval or denial. Please pray with me for patience. We started this process in May, we are in our thirties, and we've already been told it will take approximately a year or more for matching and placement. We want our forever family and just need patience to make it there.
In the meantime, we have more training to do. Because we are going with the Legal Risk Adoption route we have additional training required on top of the normal fifteen hours per year. The letter we were given said we had to get TACT-2: Therapeutic Agression Control Techniques & PATH: Parents are Tender Healers. After over a month of trying to figure out what the acronyms stood for and where to get those trainings we finally got some answers. PATH training was replaced with IMPACT training, which we already completed. TACT-2 training was replaced with TBM: Therapeutic Behavior Management training. Our agency will send us an invite for their next training session on TBM once they lock down the location. We were told it is tentatively scheduled for January.
For our 2019 fifteen hours I am hoping to attend the Adoptive & Foster Parent Association of Georgia 46th Annual Education Conference. The conference has four workshop sessions with multiple choices of eduation per session. For each workshop session they ask you to pick two and put them in order with most desired first. If we do attend, we would like choose the following topics:
Workshop A:
(1) Let's Talk Adoption
(2) How Need Deprivation Impacts Ongoing Behavior
Workshop B:
(1) Post Adoption Services Through Adoption Assistance
(2) Creative Conflict Resolution
I want to do another one but I figured since we have already decided to adopt siblings we probably don't need that one. --> The Importance of Maintaining Sibling Connections
Workshop C:
(1) Preventing Adoption Disruptions: How to Prepare
(2) Developing Emotional Attachment
Workshop D:
(1) Know Your Capacity / Find Your Own Superpowers
(2) A Healthy Family Makes a Strong Family
Currently, I work that weekend so I will need to either ask off or see if someone will make a shift swap with me. I'm thinking if I do a weekend swap I can take their Valentine's weekend and they can take this weekend. We shall see if there are any takers.
While all this waiting and training is going on we are also dealing with more health issues. My procedure this past summer was effective in shrinking the tumor. Though it barely shrunk, at least it is no longer doubling in size every two months. However, when I had the followup MRI they found something alarming. My remaining ovary has grown quite large, is pressing on nerves, and looks suspicious for cancer.
Before he even told me about my ovary I knew something was wrong. I hadn't attributed it to my ovary because the pain presented in a different way. I had been having fairly severe low back / tailbone pain, right hip pain, pain & numbness going down my right leg. The day I had the MRI I was really feeling it. It was bad enough to make me considerably nauseated. I told Dr. Kang my symptoms and that is when he shared with me, and showed me, the scan of my ovary. He said he already forwarded the scan to my OBGYN and told me to call her and setup a surgical consult immediately. He is advising a hysterectomy.
This isn't the first time I've been told I needed a hysterectomy. However, this is the first time my ovary has caused this kind of pain. My left ovary had to be removed because it continued to swell and when they finally went in they had to cut through webs of scar tissue just to get to the ovary. Apparently, when an ovary swells then bursts and repeats over and over it causes a significant amount of scar tissue. I cannot imagine what they will see when they go in this time. Also, with the addition of fibroids my uterus is now suffering.
My surgical consult will be December 10th. Until then, please pray for the pain. I don't have much pain medication left and I really do not want to miss any work because of the pain. Right now I go throughout the day without any medication and just do my best to deal with the pain. At night I have to take some or I won't be able to fall asleep because of the pain. I'm also sleeping on a heating pad. That seems to help a good bit too.
Thank you all for your support. We are really blessed with such wonderful friends and family. I cannot say it enough. We look forward to the day we can share our forever family with all of you.
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