I have been amazed at the changes I have seen as a result of the program. The first weekend had some sullenness, tiredness, and generally just frustrated to get back in the habit of chores and expectations without a nurse bringing soda at the ring of a button. Of course, missing people you met there and having a bunch of makeup work did not help!
But as things settled into a routine, there were things that were distinctly different from before Zoralei went into the program.
Three weeks of makeup homework is a lot, especially with Honors classes. When Zoralei had endometriosis and missed months of school, the makeup period was excruciating. There were a lot of tears on her part and nagging on mine. And yet, there has been none of that. She has become so productive at using her time and not complaining about her work load. She had a moment where she complained of some constipation, rubbing her belly and looking for sympathy. We suggested miralax and she went off to do more homework. No fanfare. No accusations of not caring about her ailment. No avoidance of the assignment because her stomach hurt. I was completely impressed. She comes home from school and gets to it. There is so much less drama than there was before.
She has been a lot more respectful. Previous to going the program, Zoralei was a big arguer. She would argue or negotiate just about anything. It created a lot of contention at times as we had to be firm in what she was asked to do, but she wanted to find a way out of it. She is not doing that. Sure, she will state her thoughts about something, but it does not take a half hour to get to the point where she agrees to do it. The conversations go smoother and quicker.
Zoralei is not a big exercise person. Sure, she loves to play basketball with a friend, but will avoid a video workout or going to the gym. Now she has to exercise daily and there isn't always an opportunity to go be active with friends. Each day she gets her exercise done and does what she needs to do for desensitization. It has been a struggle to fit in an hour and a half a day. Yet, Zoralei has done it. Once or twice, she admitted that she dislikes it. It feels like a burden. It isn't exactly fun. But she is stronger, showing how she can now almost do a handstand and other such feats. She puts first things first so much better than before. This was a struggle before she left. Zoralei is very social and sometimes that is the the thing that takes precedent and other things fall to the wayside or are only accomplished by sacrificing sleep, which inevitably results in moodiness. But Zoralei makes use of her time, watching a lot less tv.
Now that said, she had Friday off of school and between Friday and Saturday, she had 4 different social engagements. She does not know how to stay home very well still and we did have to have a talk about striking a better balance. Between trying to do the teenage thing with each of her friends and doing homework/home exercise program, Zoralei is very busy and the cost really has been time with us. We do not see her a lot and we are trying to ask her to make some time for us. She is only 15 and family is important. So despite these amazing changes I have seen, she is still very much a teenager.
I have seen an increase in compassion. The kids Zoralei met at the hospital left an impact. There were four of them who became very close to each other. They all came together on Friday to visit with the one girl who was still at the hospital. One of the girls had to travel an hour to get there. These kids have truly left an impact. She talks about them all the time. She arranged for them to all come together, so the one would not feel left behind. Zoralei has always been good about doing things for her friends, attending church service projects, but I have not seen her go through so much effort or talk so much about the struggles of others, rather than just talking about what she is experiencing in her own body. It has been a mother's dream come true. I love the depth of her caring. I love how she is making time to give, rather than only focusing on the work she needs to get done or going to a movie/play basketball with friends. She is choicing instead to uplift someone, not just to have fun with them and I feel blessed to see the difference she is making. I feel blessed to see the difference that they made for her.
Zoralei still struggles to want to talk about emotions. She will tell you how she feels, but it is ever a one sentence conversation, though it can be rather blunt and sometimes hurtful. She does not want to delve into another's emotions and she does not want questions about her own feelings. This has not really changed. What has changed is that I do not feel like she is expressing her emotions via lashing out with frustration or anger and yet then refusing to talk about them or address them in a productive manner. She will state how she feels and sometimes she needs a minute to deal with a change in plan, but there is no drama coming. There would have been a lot of anger before. An example of something small, that was very big. Zoralei had to go to a party for a friend. We are a one car family. We were taking the kids swimming and found that we were late for the swimming in picking people up. Zoralei, of course, was already a half hour late. We made the decision that if we wanted any time to swim that we needed to drop mom and kids off at the pool first and Zoralei would be last to be dropped off. It made her at least an hour late, slightly more. Zoralei sighed at the change, but said absolutely nothing. She accepted it gracefully. She did not make comments, snap at us, remark that why did we have to go swimming or anything like that. She simply let us make the change. This small thing isn't small at all. The maturity I have seen in Zoralei has become even more pronounced. She has always seemed older, being the oldest of six at home, but she never has been particularly flexible or go with the flow kind of person. Her sigh told me she wished it could be different, but she did not try to punish us for making the change.
As for pain, I know it stills hurts Zoralei. But I only know this because I have asked. There are no pain behaviors at all. Zoralei no longer focuses on the pain. Between the endometriosis and the RND, Zoralei has been in intense pain for over two years, and this is the first glimpse we see of a girl without pain. There is just no way to know it hurts except by what she tells us.
I have always believed my daughter to be better than I in many ways, but now I see the rough edges that she did have, smoothed out. I do not see a child trying to figure out how to become an adult, I truly can see the person she is going to be as an adult. Truly, three weeks made an incredible difference.
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