Where did the time go? A lot of the days have been agonizingly long, while others slipped by. I am starting to have a day here and there where I don't think about anything smoking-related. A couple of nights ago, my daughter's meltdown nearly led to my own undoing. I'm grateful for the fact that my husband wasn't home yet. Otherwise, I may just have as easily gone to the gas station and bought a pack as I was so tempted to do. An afterthought once I backed away from the edge was that we had kickball the following day. The prospect of all that running with a chestfull of smoke didn't appeal one bit. Good or bad, what remains is the mindfulness of nicotine addiction and how it will not go away just because I'm not smoking anymore.
On to other happenings...
My trip to Washington DC is during the last full week of June. I'll be attending some of the scientific sessions and all of the family sessions for the UMDF Symposium. The big day of the event will be a trip to the Hill and speaking with my state senators to allocate funding to the NIH for research on Mitochondrial Disease. It's an exciting prospect and a personal challenge to do something like this.
I've secured another guest lecture with a nursing class at the same college. That has me enthused about refining the material and feeling even more confident about the presentation. IEP time is up again and we'll be setting up next year's supports and services for our son. I'll also be training the teachers and aide that he will have, so that will serve as another teaching opportunity. Somewhere down the road, I'm tempted to do a community education course on the dynamics of having a child with special needs.
