Ugggh--the sinus crud attacks!

It's official--I've missed an entire week of work due to the sinus crud. And sadly, for much of it, I couldn't get my favorite sub...so who knows what happened while I was out...

It's been quite awhile since I've been this sick--I don't think I've been knocked out this bad since my first year here in Portland. Cedar brought home some awful thing from daycare that I thought was just another "congregate situation" cold--but it took him a week to recover from it, which I thought was rather odd (he usually bounces back after a couple of days, but not this time). Then after staying home with him for about a week, and being coughed on enough, I caught it too.

It turns out that what he had was really the flu. Poor thing--no wonder he was so miserable. I haven't been knocked flat like that in quite awhile. I had a raging fever, the aches, migraines, super-sore throat--the whole nine yards. I even lost hearing in my left ear, which is now just doing a dull tinnitus ring. Then the sinus crud set in...I finally broke down and went to the doctor last night. I would have probably gone earlier but I've been stuck at home with no car and no phone. Now I have a bunch of exciting drugs to throw at the raging torrent of yellow-green snot that JUST WON'T QUIT.

I'm sad that I've totally missed out on the last full week with the seniors. If I go back, I'll only get a day or two before they're off doing whatever it is that they do when they're not at school with us. Our little classroom is gonna be real lonely after we lose 60% of our students...and since *Bob is also a senior, he's gonna pass out of my life pretty soon. I'm kind of sad about that because he's a pretty likable guy and I've grown rather fond of working with him over the course of the year.

The end of the year is a time for educators to get nostalgic anyway, but especially so when you're teaching seniors. It's kind of bittersweet though when you work in Special Ed because graduation is often "the end-of-the-line" in a very real sense. On one hand, you are very proud of your students for how far they've come and how much progress they've made, but on the other hand, it also means for many that life is about to change profoundly--and not always for the best.

Thankfully it looks like most of our seniors are going to be participating in the adult transition program, so they'll get a few more years of predictable routines, structured environments, community outings, vocational training, and structured non-threatening social opportunities...things that people with autism tend to really like in their world.

After that, though, who knows. The world of adult services can be rather grim because the entitlement factor is gone (if you want it, you gotta be willing to pay), the options are pretty limited, and there's a great mismatch between demand and supply...