Gary update

Well, the latest is they think...emphasis on the word think...that Gary's bleeding has stopped. The doctors are worried about blood clots so he's being sent for a CT scan. Last night he had run out of the painkillers that the nurses would bring him. When Kim went to tell the nurses he needed more pain pills, they said he'd have to wait because they were changing shifts. Gary was in so much pain, he took his own pills that he had brought from home. It probably saved his insurance a couple of hundred dollars! Hopefully his doctors will find out what they can do for him soon...and figure out once and for all where the cancer is and how far it has spread.

School is going well. My students are very nice, but chatty. I must get better at sticking to the rules that they created. I use a whole banking system and they get 'fined' for disobeying a rule. They have to have a certain amount of money by the end of the week to participate in Fun Friday (a 15 minute session at the end of each week where the kids can play games, use math manipulatives, etc.). Each time one of them interrupts without raising their hand, they lose money--this is the one I'm really bad at catching! I don't know why, but I feel bad taking money away--it's not even real money...the amounts are written on colored popsicle sticks!

Pain has subsided for the most part. I've been diligent in keeping up my exercises at home with these stretchy bands that I got from the physical therapist Gary (so many Gary's lately), along with leg lifts to keep the knees going away from replacements! I do have to say my worst days are Sundays and Wednesdays; Sunday worse than Weds. By those days, I have been without treatment for 2-3 days and I can soooo feel it. I still have many Percocet pills left over just in case of a really bad night--like the night of the last Mets game to which we went (really proper English, thanks to Ali).

The board of education was granted money by one of the local congressmen, Caesar Trunzo, to keep arts and club activities funded for this year. The danger in doing so is that next year, that money will have to be appropriated for in the budget...making the budget go up by that much more. One of the board members said that to get a tax cap of 4 1/2% would cut our current budget by about $5,000,000! This is what happened to California schools and now they have no art, gym, or physical education. The general ed teacher has to incorporate it into the school day! This is NOT what NY should follow--it's disasterous--Imagine ME teaching phys. ed???? Art and music I could do just fine though. The danger is that those extra subjects probably get pushed by the wayside because of lack of time, or lack of the educational wherewithall to teach it. Something's gotta give!