Do you ever have a thought that sounds like a good idea at the time, and then it kind of backfires on you? In my last post I told you that I was thinking about switching the monthly posts from the end of the month to the middle of the month. The reason being is that I go through our finances at the end of the month, which can be a lengthy process with our various bank accounts, credit card accounts, mortgage, car payment, etc. I am a little bit—okay maybe a lot—OCD with our finances. I use Quicken to track all of our income and expenses. Everything gets categorized. It’s a very tedious process, but it does make things a bit easier when it comes time to do taxes. Especially with the medical expenses and Stacy’s various jobs where she doesn’t have income taxes taken out.
The plan was to skip writing a post at the end of February and instead hold off until mid-March. So here we are almost halfway through March, and as I sat down to write this, I had an “oh shit” moment. You see, March is Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, and to help raise awareness about cerebral palsy, Stacy posts daily facts on her and/or James’ Facebook page. I take those daily facts and compile them into two posts here…one in the middle of the month (usually around the 15th) and the other one on 31st. So now, in addition to writing this post, I will also need to get the first CP facts posts up on Wednesday.
Actually, now that I have reviewed everything that has happened since my last post on January 30th, it looks like I got lucky. There is really not much to talk about. I usually have enough to categorize stuff that has happened in the last month. This time I don’t so I really don’t know how to write this. Maybe I’ll just write it in chronological order.
Yeah, lets do that…
In early February Stacy decided to bathe James a little bit differently. Instead of using his usual bath chair that she wheels into the shower, she tried an inflatable bathtub to give him more of a soak. She was reminded of how difficult it was to get James in and out of the bathtub. He’s a little bit bigger (and heavier) than he was last time she bathed him in a tub. I think he weighs around 70 pounds now.
I don’t know where Stacy finds some of James’ shirts, like the one he wore for Valentine’s Day, but it’s got me thinking about a little side business to make some extra money. I have some ideas for shirts geared towards the special needs community.
It’s hard to tell in his Valentine’s picture above, but shortly after Stacy took that pic, she asked me when I am going to start shaving him.
I’m not sure if I want to start yet because I know once I start, I’m going to have to keep up with it. I don’t think it looks too bad yet, does it?
On February 16th we took James to see a new doctor to give him a once over. One of her specialties is cerebral palsy and we wanted to see if she had any recommendations on things we should be doing for James. She said that we were already doing everything she would recommend as far as therapies, but she did recommend that we increase the dose on one of his medications that he uses as a muscle relaxer.
I had a memory pop up on Facebook a few weeks ago that made me laugh a little bit. In February of 2017 we took James to Rush University Hospital for an overnight VEEG. There must have been a lot of illnesses flying around back then because we had James wear a mask. I guess you could say that he was wearing a mask before it was cool.
And that is all I’ve got to share. I don’t know what I was so worried about. I should have Part 1 of the Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month posts up on Wednesday. Stacy is also doing her annual Thirty-One party to raise money for the United Cerebral Palsy Center for Disability Services. Twenty percent of her commissions will be donated to this organization. If you’d like to help us support them, her online party can be found here. If you’d rather make a donation directly to the United Cerebral Palsy Center for Disability Services, their donation page can be found here. Make sure you donate in honor of James Fulkerson.
