The Really Big Catch Up!

Oh wow. It has been a while. You know when you are putting something off for weeks on end and finally it gets to the point where you feel like if you don’t start, you never will? I am there. If I don’t do this now, I never will. The hole I have dug is so deep it will take some time to dig myself out.

Where to begin? How about June-July! As seen in my last post, in June I flew to Washington in June and spent five weeks with my family. Eric bravely stuck it out in Kunming and tutored three students 4 days a week. He is a good guy, I know. While home I had the opportunity to see so many of you. The process of catching up face to face and spending time with you was so good to the soul. I flew back home in July and Eric and I were able to spend a few weeks doing projects around the house and hanging around Kunming.

Eric had one week off this summer and he was so looking forward to it. We had big plans to stay home for a few days just relaxing and then further explore the city in which we live. Life had other plans for us. On Monday, 29 July Eric had a seizure and we flew to Bangkok for better healthcare and in-depth testing. We spent most of our week at Bumrungrad International Hospital. Our friend, Michelle, flew down there with us and was so crucial to our well being. She was the one thinking clearly on Monday when we traveled there, she was the one who knew where to go, and how to do it. She was the one who made sure we had everything we needed. She was the one who went out and explored the city with me when all Eric wanted/needed was sleep in his hospital room. She was truly an answer to pr*yer.

After all of the testing, poking, and prodding, we discovered that Eric has an epileptic wave in his brain that for whatever reason acted up that Monday morning. The doctor stopped short of saying he has epilepsy, but he put Eric on epilepsy medication that he now takes faithfully twice a day.

Eric was set free from the hospital on Thursday afternoon and we were able to spend one night in Bangkok together outside the four walls of his hospital room. Good friends of ours from KIA happened to be in the city that week so we met up with them and asked them, “What things does Eric need to do in the next 6-8 hours to fully experience Bangkok?” Answer:

1.  Order a Thai iced tea from a tea cart. Check

2.  Ride the sky train. Check

3.  Eat mango sticky rice ordered from a street vendor. Check

4.  Walk through a night market. Check

5.  Eat Massaman curry on the sidewalk. Check

6.  See a rat and a cockroach while eating above meal. Check, check

7.  Drink fresh squeezed orange juice. Check

8.  Get a Thai massage. Check

G*d is good all the time. We didn’t plan on spending the week in Bangkok and Eric certainly didn’t love spending four days in the hospital, but overall he is healthy and thriving, even on his medication and we got to have one really fun afternoon/night in a city he’s never visited.

Moving forward- Eric is supposed to get a three month check up and a six month check up, but we may forgo both in favor of a five month check up in Seattle with a neurologist. We want a second opinion and a trip home for Christmas will give us that opportunity. Again, G*d is good. We get to see family at the most magical time of year and get to have the reassurance of a second opinion.

We flew back to Kunming on Friday and had a relaxing weekend before our KIA staff orientation began on Monday morning. It was during orientation week that it fully dawned on us how far we’ve come in a year’s time. We are familiar with the processes, we know who to go to, and how to get tasks accomplished. We understand the system. What an amazing feeling!

We are mid-way through the fourth week of school and things seem to be running smoothly. We have some new students so it took a bit to learn faces and names, but now things have pretty much gone into routine mode. Eric is spending most of his time outside of the classroom preparing for his AP World History course. Because of the specific benchmarks his students need to meet he has to put extra time and care into his curriculum. He is careful to add fun elements into his lessons- short videos, re-mixed songs, photos, etc. allowing his students to really engage in the lesson. If I could, I would take his class!

This past spring I was informed that I would be taking on extra responsibilities this school year with our grading program and database information; I have assumed this role and it seems to almost be going smoothly, but as with most learning curves, I am pretty sure I don’t even know all the things I don’t know yet. I enjoy the added responsibility, but I can’t say I actually love what I am doing.

This pretty much catches us up! I promise to be better with updates!