First Day of School

After two days of antibiotics, Benadryl, Zyrtec, ice, and a lot of Neosporin, Jake's swelling was down enough for him to go to school today. He's still got some pretty nasty scabs from the bites that are healing and a little swelling on his check, but he wanted to go to school so badly that we sent him. We were so proud of him wanting to go back more than being worried about some residual swelling and scabs.

I have to be honest, dropping him off this morning (even though it was only for an hour) was about as emotional for me as his first day of kindergarten. Todd or I have been with him pretty much 24 hours a day for the past two months, and to just walk away and leave him was not easy. Had I not been as confident in the staff at the school, I don't know if I could have left. We have been very impressed so far with how dedicated they are to make sure he has the best possible experience this year, and gets the services he needs. He had a great first day and was really excited to see his classmates and teacher. He'll go for two hours tomorrow and for the next little while. It's a pretty intense couple of hours academically, so we'll see how it goes before adding more.

Jake going to school will require a whole host of things for him to deal with, many he may not even be aware yet as "issues." He'll be dealing with fatigue, both mental and physical; discovering his physical limitations while he's still recovering; social and emotional issues; frustration with things he used to do that don't come as easily; and who knows what else.

So much focus has been on Jake's physical recovery the past two months, we hadn't dealt with much of his mental/cognitive issues until the past few weeks when we started getting reports from testing the hospital was doing. There are areas that he scored remarkably well and others where he's got some work to do, simply due to the fact that his brain is healing. Reading the nuero-psychological evaluation in black and white took awhile to digest. At times it seemed like all of this was just too much for him to deal with when looking at the big picture of everything he has to overcome. I also got very protective and wasn't ready to share these things that might not be obvious on the surface. After giving it all time to sink in, we decided to take it as a piece of the puzzle of where he is today, not where he will end up. When we look at how far he's come physically in just a few months with intense therapy, we are confident he can also overcome the cognitive issues with the same kind of work.

Like so much of his overall recovery, we just don't know how much of this will be regained. We do know that we are committed to helping him any way we can to work towards a full recovery, and it will most likely take a long time. We also know there are a lot of people and resources on his team to help him every way they can, which we are so very thankful for. And most important, we know he has proven to be hard-working, will persevere, and will do everything in his power to overcome the challenges that lie before him.