Heather sat staring at her laptop screen. She had been staring at it for the last few minutes unsure of how to even begin to respond to the email. It was from Rose checking in on how Ella was settling in, not from her work email, but from her personal one.
Hi, Rose
It’s been good. We are slowly making progress. I can’t believe it’s already been a month!
We’ve gotten her set up with Kaiser and it’s been going much smoother than in the beginning. My insurance was a nightmare and had us running all over town trying to see this specialist and that specialist. Now she has a team of doctors in one place and they are much more accommodating to her specific needs. She’s been going to speech therapy twice a week and we run through our vocal exercises every day. It’s slow going. It’s almost like she has to physically strain to get any kind of noise or words out. They’ve checked her throat for any kind of damage but haven’t found anything.
The neurologist says he’s concerned she may have suffered some kind of TBI incident, so we are waiting on an MRI. The CT scan came back negative, but after a series of tests the doctor says she is showing lower cognitive functioning in the left hemisphere. We are working on basic addition, but she is struggling to understand. She seems to be at a first grade level. He seems confident enough that if there was an injury, it didn’t cause any permanent damage. It is simply a matter of her relearning.
Besides the speech therapist and neurologist, she has also been seeing a child psychologist once a week, and a psychiatrist every other. She’s been on an anti-anxiety medication, and it seems to be helping. She no longer bites and claws, but the panic attacks have yet to fully subside. The doctor wants to give it more time until she adjusts the dosage. Danielle says she is still having nightmares and thrashing in the night, but Ella still refuses to tell us what they’re about. She insists she doesn’t know, but I have a feeling she isn’t being completely honest about it. The psychologist says she is very sensitive, especially to what is going on around her. She picks up on any tension in the house like a magnet.
Getting her to use the restroom has still been a battle, but we’ve made some progress here and there with a lot of coaxing and a little bribery. She mostly still uses the bucket though. Her daytime accidents have been reduced to only once or twice a week, and mostly when we have been out and about. She did have one major blowout at home, and that was when Danielle had had friends over in her room. It hadn’t crossed my mind to move the bucket into a different part of the house, and Ella isn’t very forthcoming about when she needs something. I don’t think she had meant to do it on purpose. I think she had tried to wait until they left, but they never did. I found her crying in the laundry room huddled in the corner. I ended up having to hose her down in the backyard.
Hygiene has been more of a hurdle than anything so far. I knew you told me her issue wasn’t limited to just the toilet, but it hadn’t really clicked until the first time I tried to get her to take a bath. She took off streaking out the front door. She made quite the first impression on the neighbors. “”Hello, Mr. Bryant, but have you by any chance seen a naked girl run past here?” wasn’t how I had planned to share the good news of our families latest addition. I wish I could say that was the only time that happened. Our next door neighbor thinks we adopted an exhibitionist and I’m starting to think she’s right.
There’s conversations I never thought I’d have to have with a ten year old. Things like, “I know it’s hot honey, put please keep your clothes on in public.” and “No, you can’t pee in the grass; you need to wait until we get home or use your pull up if it’s an emergency.” She’s usually good about making it home in time, unless it was a rough day. She seems to be more prone to accidents under stress. She’s doing well, but they’re still a little too frequent for me to be comfortable letting her leave the house without them. Despite one of the doctors concerns, we’ve decided to keep her in pull ups for the time being. She hates using them, so I know when she’s wet, it truly was an accident.
Except for two times, Heather thought. The first was when Heather and the girls had had many errands to run that day, but they were only at their second stop when Ella had begun doing the dance. They still had to go to the grocery store, the bank, and the Verizon store. They were thirty minute drive from home and Heather couldn’t justify turning back around. It was still her first couple weeks home and Ella was having a rough start. She was still dead set again setting foot inside a restroom, and Heather knew she’d never make it all day. While she had packed spare clothes and pull ups, changing her was going to be another story. The car was too full, and the parking lot was out; she was still trying to break her habit of public nudity and didn’t want to send mixed messages. The answer came when she saw the dressing rooms.
“Danielle, you can go look at the books if you want while we finish up.” Heather suggested. Her eldest daughter wasted no time making a beeline as far away from them as possible.
“There’s something I saw that I thought would look cute on you.” Heather said. She picked up a child sized shirt off the rack without bothering to look at it and guided her into a stall before locking the door behind them.
“Pants off.” Heather said. Ella looked at the shirt in her hand in confusion, before Heather hung it up and unzipped the bag. Ella shook her head when she saw what was inside.
I didn’t! Ella mouthed silently before dropping her pants to reveal the dry pull up underneath.
“You need to though.” Heather said, dropping her voice to a whisper. It wasn’t a question. “I’m giving you a pass just this once. I know you can’t hold it until we get back home, and I don’t know if we’ll have another opportunity to change you until then. You can either be miserable all day, or you can get it over with now.” Ella looked down at her feet, something Heather noticed she did when she was embarrassed, and continued her dance.
I don’t have to go.
“You have thirty seconds to decide if that’s your final answer.” Heather said before she started her countdown. It only took fifteen seconds for Ella to begin waving her arms to stop the countdown. “Oh, what’s that?” Heather whispered, a sly smile on her face at a quick victory. “You do have to go?”