Today we spent some time working desensitization with nerf swords. Zoralei has started to try to do more exercise every day. Driver's Education, Homework, Church Commitments, Choir Concerts, and Friends/Family obligations have made it difficult and nearly impossible most days for her to do her full hour of exercise in every day. Still, she had begun to lose any improvement she gained from the hospitalization and so she has tried to at least do 15 to 30 minutes of exercise a day in the past couple of weeks. However, she has done very little with desensitization and today was talking about how her pain in her arm was getting worse again. We got out nerf swords and wacked her arm for a good 10 minutes. She handled it like a pro. She did point out that if she was not so good at handling the pain, she would have been screaming very unpleasantly at the time we were hitting her arm.
The exercises really become the lifeline of progress. The hospital taught coping skills and except for her woman's time of the month, I have seen a lot of progress in how she handles everything. Unfortunately her issues with endometriosis are compounded by RND and so she does not want to deal with people much during that time. We missed the appointment with her gynecology doctor because of bad traffic, but I was very interested to see if she thought the RND was really more the culprit for the intense missing school kind of pain she is having during her menstrual cycle or if it really is the endometriosis coming back (I suspect both). It is not as clear cut about what is wrong and whether it is RND related as the doctor indicated it would be.
After the Christmas season, Zoralei is debating doing a sport or doing a school play. So far she is learning towards the school sport as a way to guarantee she gets the exercise, conditioning she needs daily as well as a gym credit for school, though she would rather be in the play. I think the more opportunities for exercise she can find that feels more enjoyable and less like a chore for exercise, the more likely she is to succeed. They said it could take a few more months after the hospital to be pain free, but we have definitely not made a whole lot of progress on that front.
Zoralei's in Driver's Education and I worry if she has a pain episode (sometimes she jars something or moves it wrong and it just really hurts) while driving if it will be safe. However, I know we cannot live our lives in fear of the RND, only find ways in which to not have the worst happen.
