A little good news...

My last day of work was last Friday and I've been worrying about how long it will take to find a new job. I've had interviews with 4 companies already and have a few more things in the pre-interview stage, but no offers yet. Except that I just got a call from the contracting agency that I did my last job with and it looks like the company I was at has a 3-4 week job for me to come back for. Perfect! I can keep job hunting while I have income for a bit longer.

Last week was really interesting at that company; I mentioned once in an earlier post that my boss there had made me wonder whether I would have a job from one day to the next, even though I was leading one of the most successful projects they've ever had there. But just a week before my contracted ended was her last day -- she moved on to another company! So all last week, people kept coming up to me asking why are you leaving instead of being put on another project? All I could say was that she and I had very different management styles and I wasn't a good fit with her. She expects project managers to control every aspect of a project while I believe in leading a team to own the project themselves and their success too. She told me near the end of my project that she had never seen the kind of high performing team I was managing, but it seemed that she thought I had gotten very lucky. I didn't say much about it, but I thought it was rather ridiculous when that was what I had told her my strength was (building high performing teams) before she ever hired me to begin with! :)

Luckily, other people in the company think I at least deserved another chance to prove myself some more, and now I've got it. So, thanks for all the prayers and good thoughts! Keep them coming so we can still have an income a month from now!

Love,
Robin

p.s. Faith got her school pictures back today. I love how she has her hands on her hips! And if you've never seen that purple thing on her trach before, it's her Passy-Muir Valve (PMV) or a speaking valve. It's a one-way valve that allows her to breathe air in through her trach, but not exhale through it; instead her exhalations are forced up through her mouth, passing her vocal cords which allows her to speak louder and with more control. I really need to upload another video of her speaking. Her speech has improved dramatically over the last year and even just in the last month it has leaped again!

Faith doing well

Faith seems to have recovered from RSV, no more oxygen during the
days. We went out for lunch today and Faith wanted to cozy up with
Daddy - she has really grown very close to him over the last year!

Faith with Oxygen in tow

Faith is pretty much back to her usual activities, with her oxygen
tubing following her around. Double click on picture for a close-up.

Putting things into Perspective

I've been whining a lot in my last few posts because we've all been sick and I'm really tired of things being difficult for us. But, today I was reading one of my favorite blogs, "Life Since Harlie" (Harlie and Faith were born a day apart, both with Goldenhar Syndrome), and I gained some much needed perspective. Harile went through a major jaw surgery about 9-10 weeks ago, where they took bone from her skull to graft into her jaw and had her jaw wired shut for 9 weeks while it was healing. She went in to get the wires removed this past week and it turned into a serious life and death emergency. Thankfully she got through it, but she went into cardiac arrest during her surgery. My heart ached so much just reading her mom's posting. Harlie has an infection in her bone and will go home on IV antibiotics for 6 weeks. And I'm whining about Faith going home on oxygen for maybe a week or so and doing nebulizer treatments twice a day? Yes, that is more than most people have to deal with, but as always, it could be even harder and I need to focus on getting through this instead of focusing on life being hard.

Faith is pretty much back to her normal, happy, self, just with oxygen tubing following her around everywhere. I'm hoping we can start weening her down a bit over the next few days as she seems to be very stable now. The hardest part right now is that the antibiotic she is on is giving her very bad diarhea and she screams bloody murder when I change her diaper. I feel just awful making her cry like that but obviously I can't just not do it.

Here's hoping things are a little better next week and special Valentine's Day wishes of love being sent to Harlie. Get better soon!!

Robin

Having fun

Despite getting very sick with a serious repiratory virus, Faith recovered pretty quickly from being very out of it and making this "enh" shound every few minutes to complain about how she felt to starting to smile and play with the toys the the fun specialist (i forgot her real title, but that is the basic job description!) brought her. Here she is giving a "My Little Pony" a nice bath. She loved being able to play with some water.

We left the hospital a few hours later and she has been doing very well since then. I'll try to get a few new pictures of her up soon, running around with her oxygen tubing following her all around.

Robin

Enough Already

It looks like 2010 wanted us to know right up front that it has no intentions of being any better than 2009! My car had to go in the shop (3 times for one repair), our hot water heater busted and had to be replaced (and then repaired within the first week) and finally (please be final, we just can't take any more) Faith landed in the hospital with RSV for four days. She is doing much better today but will still need to go home on oxygen for awhile (a week or two, I'm guessing).

Oh, and my job ends next Friday and I don't have anything new lined up! I have about 3 or 4 possible jobs pending, but I need an offer!

So, seriously, enough already!!

Faith's room at the hospital PSL - they built a new wing since we were here last, so the rooms are much nicer and I even had a couch to sleep on and a desk to work at!

All for now, I'm too tired to write more.
Robin