Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Shana Tova!




Shana tova to you and all of your families! May this year bring joy and happiness to all of our lives and lots of time to enjoy it. We did a family photoshoot this summer, and these are the final photos. We are so blessed to be together and aren't taking a single moment of that for granted.

Sending our love to all of you!




















Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Shadow Approved and Assigned!

It is absolutely amazing to me that when something needs to be taken care of, the right person can get the job done immediately. Yehudit in the municipality should be running the country- I'm just saying.

Well, the Ministry of Education gave the approval for Tehilla to receive a medical shadow full time. She will even have the shadow for the tzaharon (afternoon extended hours)! This morning I got the call that we received approval, and two hours later, our medical shadow called to introduce herself!

She came over this afternoon to start learning about Tehilla and what her job is. She seems very nice and very soft spoken. She has taken first-aid courses, but she will be sent by the municipality for a more in-depth course.

May her job be completely boring!

Sunday, September 10, 2017

School Update and Doggy Woes

The update I expected to post was about how wonderful things were going for Tehilla at school. So, I'll start with that.



School is amazing. Tehilla loves school. Loves loves loves! After the first day of school, Tehilla said, "Can I go to big girl school every day?"
The teachers are overly paranoid about Tehilla. They came to me on Day 3 and said, " We let her go out to the play-yard and we made her drink every 5 minutes but she kept sweating and looked flushed. Maybe she shouldn't be allowed to play outside?"

I said, "It's 32 degrees outside. That's normal to sweat. She needs to drink but not that much. It's good you're paying attention."

The teacher asked that we all sit down and I explain to them in more detail how to care for her. We are doing that tonight.

Now for the crazy that went on this weekend. Tehilla, in general, is getting a lot better with Sammy. She is being more gentle and handling her better.  Over Shabbat, we had our first sleepover guests and it overwhelmed Sammy.
Shabbat afternoon, Sammy was hurt accidentally by a kid. She growled and went to lay down. Tehilla went up to her face and started bugging the heck out of her and grabbed Sammy's face. Sammy jumped up and bit Tehilla around her eye.

We immediately applied pressure, but because Tehilla takes aspirin, the bleeding carried on for over an hour. I finally called the on call doctor who immediately referred us to the ER.
While gathering a bag to take to the hospital, the bleeding stopped. We weighed Tehilla's trauma of the hospital against the situation and decided not to take her to the ER and to follow up after Shabbat with the doctor for antibiotics.
An hour later, Tehilla was playing outside and she tripped and hit her same eye on the light fixture. The cut opened and it started bleeding again. That was that- we were going to the ER, even though it stopped bleeding after a half hour.

We got there and the staff was wonderful. They understood right away to give Tehilla space and not trigger any trauma. They were playful and let me handle everything, including cleaning her wound.

They assessed and felt the cut was clotting nicely and didn't need glue or stitches. We showed them Sammy's up-to-date immunization records. She is one shot shy of being fully vaccinated. They wanted an eye specialist to double check her eye to make sure that there was no damage.
We waited hours for the eye specialist who was kind and wonderful but needed the do a full examination of her eyes. While putting drops in to dilate her pupils, Tehilla freaked out and he had to pull on her eyelid. The cut wripped open and blood went all over. We got that bleeding under control. Her eye exam was completed and thank G-d, her eyes were perfectly fine. We got home at 1:00 am.




I'm grateful that in Israel there are strict protocols for dogs. It's unfortunate that we were on the wrong side of things. We were told to report to the Ministry of Health, 8:00 am to insure that Tehilla is fully vaccinated.
We showed up and were asked where our dog was. We said that we weren't aware we had to bring her. The woman explained that because she is not a vaccinated dog, the dog had to be quarantined for 10 days and we would be charged 2000 nis. I simply said, "No."

They called for the doctor and I explained that Sammy is vaccinated and is getting her last shot this week. I explained why Sammy was provoked and is a puppy and this completely is not her behavior. I explained that the dog is a therapy dog for my other child and provides emotional assistance. That taking Samny away would cause extreme distress for my kid. And that this wasn't a stray dog and there was no real threat.

The doctor calmly listened while I went all Momma Dog and said, "I understand what you are saying and it makes sense. These are our protocols. What you are saying is you don't want to open a file and that you are taking full responsibility. That you will watch your dog for 10 days and if anything comes up you will immediately seek medical attention."

I said, "Yes. That is what I'm saying."
She said, "Okay. Delay her shot by 10 days." She then told the woman in charge that we refuse to file.

Tehilla is home resting after barely getting any sleep. She is totally fine and did not pause for a second to snuggle and squeeze Sammy. We had a long talk about giving Sammy space and we will be holding off on sleepover guests for some time.
Whew!

Friday, September 1, 2017

First Day of School

Ron and I are too happy for the first day of school. We have the stupidist smiles on our faces.

Tehilla started Kindergarten today! In a regular school! We don't have her medical shadow in place yet, and we aren't worried at all. Because she is entitled to it, we will get her a shadow, but the woman will be bored and helping the teachers with regular school stuff.

We were the first ones to arrive at school which gave me time to explain to one of the teachers about her heart. I explained that they had to watch that she doesn't dehydrate and that she can tire easily. To look for purple lips or nails or if anything looks off. And that a fall can make her bruise more severely. That she is totally fine and normal and needs to be treated as such.

I also prepared laminated cards for emergencies. It has all the details that a paramedic would need, with all her information and to take her to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. One card remains in her backpack and the school has two to keep on the fridge and near the phone. May they be the biggest waste of time.

Tehilla was a bit nervous but immediately warmed up and jumped right in to coloring and exploring her school. She has a few friends from her previous school, which made her very happy. She is crazy happy with her Frozen backpack, Frozen lunchbox and Frozen water bottle. We also found Frozen school shoes, so she is happier than happy.

September 1, thank G-d!