Let Me Update You

Hello to all of my followers,
It will probably be impossible for me to detail all of the things that have happened between May and now but I will do my best to update you since it has been a long time since I made a post. In May my visit to the neuropsychologist was a total bust. The guy basically told me that my symptoms sounded like ADD and while I know that ACC can look like ADD in a way, I've been down that road before and the medication I tried had no significant impact on my ability to focus. So that was a major waste of time and money. Concurrently to this journey of ACC I was also facing other medical issues. Medical issues that took me to University of Pennsylvania Hospital, in the great city of Philadelphia, which I now call my home (more on that later). I spent the summer getting radiation treatment at Penn, living with a host family and going home on the weekends.

After my unsuccessful trip to the neuropsychologist in Raleigh it was recommended that I find a neuropsychologist through Penn, after all they were the ones who discovered the diagnosis. So I did, and she was amazing and thanks to her I am getting some support. Through a series of other crazy events unrelated to my ACC diagnosis I managed to find myself leaving North Carolina behind in August and moving back to Pennsylvania where my family and most of my closest friends are and starting my life over in Philadelphia. It has been a challenge and some of those challenges are related to the ACC diagnosis. Making friends has been hard, starting a new job has been hard and in some ways devastating as I faced similar challenges to before but, I have started having "cognitive rehab therapy" every other week for about 2 sessions now. We have been working on strategies for helping me stay organized and able to focus on a task through completion. I've only done about 2 sessions but I can see how much it is helping me and it just shows me even more how much early intervention is so important. If my parents and I knew then about my ACC I could have gotten more services from preschool and I'd already have the strategies I needed. Instead, I am learning them now which, at least I'm learning them and I do truly believe knowledge is power but sometimes I wish so badly that my journey wasn't like this and that I knew sooner.

While work has been a struggle I found myself today celebrating that I had the best day yet, our day had a flow like I was an old veteran teacher with no problem running the class. It was such a rush knowing that I had everything under control and I know that this will help me push myself to keep it going.

I have my whole life not let my struggles get me down, in school or in life if I set out to do something I did it. I went to college and not only did I graduate I was on the deans list several semesters and graduated with honors. This was not because I took the easy road, I busted my butt but even before I knew what it was called, I knew I had to work harder but when I wanted something, come hell or high water I did it! I will not let the ACC diagnosis stop me and today's great day in the classroom proved to me that I can do it and I want it so I'm determined that this is my year to make it happen! Now you are all caught up and I will try to remember to update this blog more! :-)