A Little Bit of History
February 19, 2006 9:00 AM

I'm posting 3 pictures, Juliana at the top of a slide, then down, and at the bottom. The quality may not be good as I've done some cropping, but you can see how big Juliana is getting. They go in sequence. In the 3rd picture you can see how proud she was for going down the "big girl" slide all by herself. She is so pleased with herself when she does something new.

I know everyone is missing the caringbridge "guestbook" and the camaraderie it provided. We're still working on acquiring a new web site with a more secure comment section. "Building" a web site takes time!

Also, I haven't been making "weekly" updates—I've been sick with the first cold I've had in years. First Tami and Kendra were ill with a stomach "grip", but Juliana and I didn't catch that. Then the people at my house came down with colds, and I did get that one. I kept working, but I wore a mask so Juliana wouldn't catch it. Juliana didn't like for me to wear the mask. She doesn't like anything new, and the mask probably reminded her of the hospital, but she didn't catch the cold, and now I'm over it too.

I had a question asking if I was in the service, as I use "military time". No. I became conditioned to use it while working in hospitals. Hospitals use military time. I think everyone should use it. Once you learn it, you can't not use it.

Another question—since her eyes are closed in one of the recent pics (on caringbridge) does that mean she doesn't need the plastic wrap anymore? Unfortunately, no. Sometimes she closes her eyes, but not always. It's easy, once she's asleep, to apply the eye ointment, then lay a piece of plastic wrap over her eye (a separate piece for each eye) and secure it with a small piece of tape. She doesn't rub her eyes or bother with it at all. When she wakes up she waits for it to be removed. She'll sit up and wait. This is a good thing, because next month she'll have metal rods in her face and we won't have to worry about her picking at them or messing with them. She has a way of knowing that something is necessary and to leave it alone. She's a very wise little girl.

Several people have requested more details about how I "found" Juliana. Here's the "short" version. I was working in a hospital on a telemetry unit and hating it. Overworked and unappreciated, poor job satisfaction, etc. I had already returned to school to become a Licensed Massage Therapist. That didn't work out very well, although I love massage. (The details of my experiences with massage will be found in the "long" version of my big long story.) Then I went back to school to become a truck driver. I actually did drive a real 18-wheeler, for Werner, for 6 months, all over this country and into Canada, butthat didn't work out very well either. (Those details will also be in the "long" version.)

I quit Werner with no idea of what I was going to do. I hired back on with "Traveling Massage" but they had not renewed their ad in the Yellow Pages and I wasn't getting many calls. But I went on one call to a hotel not far from my house. As I was wheeling my massage table into the hotel I ran into a nurse I had worked with many years ago. She was at the hotel for a conference. Ordinarily we never would have run into each other. She told me about the agency she was working for, I went over the next day, and they sent me to Juliana on my 3rd case!. I had never even thought about working with children, never thought about working for an agency, never thought about networking with old acquaintances—but look how it all worked out.

That's all for now.

—Jeanne ("Party")