First quarter of L's junior year is racing to a close. Thanks, most likely, to TBI #4 in June, Lexi began this year on shaky ground. After a couple of days of classes we (Team Lexi, defined as a herd of adults at Bolles and me/Matthew) agreed that she should drop her Honors Physics class, thus giving her a favorable schedule. AP Comp Gov, study hall, Honors PreCalc, AP Eng Lang, lunch, "office aid" (essentially a study hall but with more freedom to rest) and Adv conversational Spanish. She may add in another class next semester, but we will decide that at Christmas break.
Her ever kind and supportive swim coach also agreed to let Lexi swim her morning practices on her own at LAF. This allows her to sleep an extra 90 minutes and still get her swim in and to school on time, and has enabled her to make probably 90% of the morning practices. If she had to get up at 4:45a, swim and do dryland (difficult because of blaring music) and then make it through a full day of classes, followed by another practice and then homework... it wasn't going to work. At all. So we shoe-horn practices in, as often as we can in the mornings and sometimes at lunch.
The admin at school continues to be fantastic, as they've set up a system for her that gives her extra time for assessments AND ensures that she doesn't have multiple tests on the same day. She made the mistake of trying that once and got slaughtered in the second test and ended up coming home with an awful aura and nausea filled migraine. Her teacher graciously waved the test grade, which made me cry. The number of adults working to give Lexi a chance to neutralize the negative impact of these TBIs and achieve success is astounding. Of course, all they can do is give her the opening - SHE is also busting her a** to walk through it and accomplish her goals.
Under the sage guidance of the learning specialist at school and the wonderful assistance of Lexi's mayo Dr. we are submitting the documentation to the College Board people to seek extra time for her on the SAT test and AP exams. I've never been THAT person (I hate asking for special treatment) but am to the point where I will accept any accommodation people care to offer for Lexi. And as the swim people know, will also ask for help too. Lexi just learned that, although she rehabbed her grades fantastically last spring, she is a couple of tenths off the cut off for NHS membership right now (if I understand it all correctly, she needs a 3.9 in the Bolles world, and she has a 3.88...) but she has a chance to recoup those .02 points this semester. At the midquarter she was sporting all A-, which is fantastic. She is still the very bright young lady she was before the 4 TBIs, but she needs a bit more time to get it all out there.
Her swimming has been going very well. She's posted times in-season that are faster than she's ever swum in-season, and has regained most of her fitness. She still pays a fantastic price after races, but has learned to manage it while in the water. Not so much once she exits the pool and looks not unlike a jellyfish flopping into a chair. One step at a time. She just found out she will swim her favorite two events in the state series, which was a huge boost. This is, of course, the "big" year academically and athletically for the college search, and she has heard from a bunch of schools... but she is in a bit of a holding pattern while she waits to see how this short course season turns out. With a taper meet at states (hopefully), another one in Dec., and then her final short course meet in March, she has three chances to state her case. Of course one of them is at Gator, where this whole mess began last December. Lexi finds special motivation in giving the metaphorical middle finger to situations, so that will be interesting.
So those are the quantifiable things. The emotional and physical side of this equation have been a bit of a rollercoaster.
Lexi decided to try a med combo -- amantadine, which she's been on before, and nortryptaline, which she tried briefly 4 years ago and did not care for at all. The latter was supposed to help with sleep and anxiety and the headaches. It did not help with the former, definitely helped with the middle, and jury is out on the latter. Lexi decided to titrate off of it this week because of the sleep situation and some odd numbness during her swimming that she believes correlates to that drug. We go back to Mayo tomorrow to discuss alternatives. And she has a neurology appointment at Nemours next week to discuss other options as well.
The headaches continue. Some days are much better than others and some are much worse. I believe that she is improving gradually. There are days when I would expect her to be kicked-in-the-head brain dead and she is not. She is handling longer stretches of studying and homework. She still looks like a bruised-eyed zombie many nights before she heads to sleep, but at least it's not 3p most days when she looks like that.
Most people assume she is fine now, which of course she is not. The struggle is well known to Team Lexi, but outsiders always seem to be surprised. That can be pretty annoying, truth be told. People who don't know the story tend to look at her like she is a freak when she does the flop and crash after a swim at a meet, and sometimes none of us feels like giving much of an explanation. Her teammates have, for the most part, long forgotten (if they knew in the first place). But, thanks to the fantastic support crew of adults in her life, I think Lexi feels a sense of equilibrium right now. Sometimes we fall out of the sweet spot, but (with a few disastrous exceptions) she, and we, are doing a killer job of keeping a balance of sleep, nutrition, academics and swimming. If you've read my curling-as-parenting analogy, you'll understand when I say sometimes I feel like I'm sweeping like a drunken sailor, without the benefit of the alcohol lol.
On we go.
