These days

 Reading back over all these entries today I am struck by what an amazing transformation this sweet girl has made. 

Maine 2024

When Katie thinks about some of her early school years she struggles with a lot of shame.  She's so upset with herself for being "difficult", even though there was nothing she could have done about it.  SPD is not something we ever would have asked for, but it's made her into the compassionate young woman she is today, and I wouldn't change that. 

She's currently living her best life working at Build-A-Bear workshop and Spencer's in the mall.  She's awesome with the kids and is completely comfortable having a unique style and energy all her own.  Singing show tunes at the top of her voice, watching Dr Who, and making plans to live abroad in Ireland.  

"For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me the desire of my heart."

    1 Samuel 1:27

She made it!

 At times over the years it felt like this day never come, but in May 2023 my beautiful baby was a Graduate of Irondale High School!  

She hand-painted the graduation cap

A little overwhelmed

CosPlay and Prom

              

Katie is a skilled wig and make-up artist and enjoys Cosplaying lots of characters. 

No ordinary dress would do for Katie for Prom, she fell in love with this one and had to order it from Japan!

The other Hero of the story

 Katie's success in high school was down to a LOT of therapy, and this amazing lady.  Claudia Powers was Katie's SpEd case manager and handled everything to do with her IEP.  

Her room was a bastion of calm in the chaos for Katie, who was allowed to go there at almost any time she needed, to calm herself and get her body regulated again when she started to get overwhelmed.  Claudia advocated for Katie's every need and made my job as the parent so much easier in those final years.  Thank you so much Claudia!  I hope you're enjoying your well earned retirement!

Italia!

 Katie was blessed to be able to go on a Choir trip to Italy her Junior year. 

        International travel without Mom was unimaginable just a few years ago, but this young lady has done some hard work and was able to have an amazing time!

 

CHOIR!

 I feel like after so many years of difficult posts, the fact that things eventually turned around and went well should be celebrated, so these few catch-up posts are going to be full of that!

Choir was the saving grace of Katie's high school experience, thanks in enormous part to Irondale's awesome director, Jason Etten. 

 Finally Katie experienced the daily affirmation of a positive male role model who saw her through all the ups and downs.

Awkward Middle School Years

  

NETS day treatment 

It has been years since I've updated anything about our journey, and the story feels unfinished.  Things have turned out much better than anyone probably would have expected from reading the story so far. 

Hayes Elementary was not quite the answer to our prayers that I had initially hoped it would be.  A poor staffing match led to some trauma Kate still struggles with today.

Unfortunately, the change to Vyvanse was a HUGE mistake. Vyvanse is a derivative of Adderall, which had been so bad for her in the beginning.  It caused behavior I couldn't imagine in my sweet baby girl, and thus a very tough year. Thank you Dr PJ Johnson for finally coming into our lives and getting us on the right track!

Middle School is never easy for the best of us, but it was especially tough for Katie.  If I am completely honest, based purely on academics, she should probably have failed the 7th grade.  But that would have devasted her, and no one doubted she had the aptitude to continue, she just couldn't regulate her emotions.  This led to a full year spent in a Day Treatment program in Mounds View, through NYFS.

With the help of a lot of therapy, we looked forward to a fresh start as she entered Irondale High School as a freshman in 2019. 

13th Birthday party

Escalating Behaviors?

Kate had a couple more incidents with some classmates when that same girls continued to complain to the teacher when Katie did silly things.  There were a couple days of tension, but Ms Margot helped her work it out. 

Then things were quiet for quite a while.  I got a new job at a crisis residence in Coon Rapids for adults going through mental health crises.

At the beginning of this month I got an email from Mrs Phillips saying  she'd like to speak with me and asking for a good time to call, and also saying that she was seeing some different and escalating behaviors lately, so if I still wanted the SpEd eval they were ready to go ahead with it now.

When I talked with Mrs Phillips she wanted to know if I was aware of Katie's imaginary friend, Rose.  Now, Katie has always had a plethora of imaginary friends that come and go, most of whom are associated with her multitude of stuffed animals, but there has never been one significant stand out among them.  Seems like I've heard of Rose before (Rose is Katie's middle name), but she's never been anyone special.  Apparently she had become so at school, however.

Katie had begun to sign her papers "Katie and Rose", and when Mrs Phillips was assigning them each partners for a classroom assignment, Katie told her she didn't need a partner because she already had Rose.

(Update 2025: For some reason this post was never finalized/published. Thankfully Rose didn't last long. Now Katie talks to Snap Chat followers instead of her imaginary friends.  I guess she was ahead of her time!)