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Living day by day only by God's merciful grace and blessings.
Journal
Sunday, March 29, 2009 5:19 PM Pacific Happy Spring Family, friends and prayer partners,
It is gorgeous out today, Praise God for his creation! How blessed He is to us. Our family has so much to be thankful; unfortunately due to our sinful nature we don’t always come to this realization each and everyday as we live out His plan for our life. Thank you for so many of you who do pray for our strength each and everyday as well as send in donations/gift cards through Emmaus Christian Fellowship. Your generosity of sharing gifts from God and your time through prayer in this extremely tough economic time means so much.
December, January, February and now it is March! Where and what have we been doing in the last 3 ˝ months. We have been blessed to be able to enjoy the birth of Christ; Fernanda had a check up with her gasteronologist; she participated in a comprehensive feeding specialist evaluation, presently is working with two switches on her tray, had a haircut, attended a few movies at the local theater, celebrated several family birthdays, saw the Nutcracker ballet, drove to UC Berkeley for a vision exam, went out to dinner with her family a couple of times, went to Great America and saw the dentist (This is not a comprehensive list!). Whew, Fernanda is a busy girl!
If you leave town for the Easter break please remember Fernanda by dropping a postcard in the US Mail or signing Fernanda’s guestbook. She receives great joy knowing she is not forgotten.
Our home address is 18334 Christeph Drive, Morgan Hill, CA 95037-3437
Signing her guest book
http://www.caringbridge.org/ca/fernanda/guestbook.html
New Pictures in her Photo Gallery
http://www.caringbridge.org/ca/fernanda/photo.htm
School
A new school aide started with Fernanda in January. You may remember in the last update her school aide had to leave suddenly. The new aide is also new to Fernanda; hence it has required extensive training from the different specialists on Fernanda’s education team. The new aide is very consciousness and teachable, very receptive to how to work and what works with Fernanda. The aide is a shy which is makes advocating and socializing with others a challenge for Fernanda. The school aide makes a huge difference in Fernanda’s school experience. This is the fourth school aide in 11 months.
A significant assessment was just completed by a state agency called the Northern California Diagnostic Center (DC). Typically the local school district does assessments on children though for those difficult to assess the DC steps in to assist per the school districts request. One of the two members who assessed Fernanda was the same individual who evaluated her 3 years ago. What progress he observed in Fernanda in 3 years. The purpose of the assessment was to profile the type of high school setting Fernanda would benefit. We are in the process, along with the school district of looking for a high school placement for Fernanda.
Caregivers and Medical
Praise God we have a new night time caregiver, she started in mid December. Fernanda now has night coverage 6 nights a week between two caregivers. Recently a friend from years past called us, unbeknownst us she has been following our journey. She contacted us regarding a friend who is a certified home health caregiver looking for employment. I spoke with the friend and put her in contact with the agency that provides the night care for us. We are hopeful the person may be hired as a backup.
Medical passed on another 1 % reduction to Home Health Care workers; unfortunately the state is using the already low pay of home health care workers to balance the budget. The budgets of the state Regional Centers also were passed on a reduction which too affects our services.
Therapy and Doctor Appointments
January we went to Santa Clara Kaiser for a year exam with her gasteronologist, he checked her weight, GT site and what we were feeding her. This month we had several blood tests run which showed we are doing a good job balancing the nutritional content of her meals.
The end of December marked the end of Kaiser’s contract for speech therapy for Fernanda. We were receiving services at home primarily focusing on her oral feeding. I have filed a grievance with Kaiser; initially they denied my appeal though when sent to the regional committee they approved our request to see a feeding specialist. Fernanda was provided a comprehensive exam by an OT feeding specialist earlier this month; we are waiting the referral to the speech therapist. Fernanda has made quite a bit of progress in her feeding and feel she can make more progress.
A new holder was made by a local plastic company to hold two switches for Fernanda! (She has been using 1 switch up until about two months ago.) Fernanda is using her right hand with both switches on the holder in a close proximity. She hits one to the right and roles her hand to the left to hit the other. The school district is in the process of ordering a new computer giving Fernanda more multimedia access capabilities.
We traveled to UCB in mid December for an eye exam; Fernanda has been to the clinic at UCB in April of 2006. The evaluation revealed significant improvements in her vision from 2 ˝ years ago!
Hanging out, going out…
One of Fernanda’s favorite outings is the movies, she went to see Bride Wars for her 14th birthday we several friends and family. We celebrated with a small lunch party at home. She also went to see a few other current movies, Jonas Brothers 3D and Bedtime Stories were her favorites! The week before Christmas we attended Nutcracker with her younger sister and grandparents.
December through early March we visited Grammie Hernandez in the local Kaiser hospital on our way home from church. Grammie H. recently moved to a skilled nursing facility in Gilroy. Grammie has been vomiting on an off the last couple of weeks, the medical staff at Kaiser has been unable to determine a cause is not sure why. Please pray for her.
The dentist and orthodontist both gave glowing reports to the health of Fernanda’s teeth.
We went out shopping and dinner on New Years Eve Day; Fernanda enjoyed some soup with her family.
Fernanda loves to receive visitors; one of her dear friends from the home our family lived in North Morgan Hill came by for a visit in January. It was fun to see the girls together and how they have grown. Please consider stopping by to spend some time with Fernanda.
Andrés and Fernanda joined a new special needs baseball team hosted by the Morgan Hill Pony Baseball league (see picture on Fernanda’s website). Our entire family is having fun each Saturday; please join us if you can at 11:30am, Johnson Lumber Field at Britton School in Morgan Hill.
Sleeping
Thankfully it has improved on a weekly basis though sporadically it does continue to be an issue.
The rest of the family
Alejandra traveled to Washington DC for a 7 day trip to see the Presidential Inauguration. She is playing softball in her senior year of high school and preparing for next steps after high school.
Andrés transferred schools in mid February; the new school is working out quite well for him.
Elena is working more on her preschool program at home and how to be a helper for big sister Fernanda and mom.
Jake took on a new role in the same company as a program manager. He continues to provide significant support to his father and siblings with his mother’s illness.
Debbie is busying managing the day to day operations of the home, the medical and special educational needs of Andrés and Fernanda. Debbie is also finding moments to go out with her girlfriends.
Wish List
The Hernandez Family wish list items for the month of March are located at: http://www.emmauschristianfellowship.org/custom.cfm?CustomLinkID=7 ;
1) Donations for the garage sale planned for April 17th and 18th. Assistance is sorting, cleaning, marking and working the garage sale.
2) Gift cards for the following stores are very useful in helping meet our daily needs, Vitamin Shoppe, Trader Joes, Costco, Target and Safeway. The cards may be mailed directly to our home address, 18334 Christeph Drive, Morgan Hill, CA 95037-3437).
If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution, please call 408.997.9866 or email ecf_sj@ix.netcom.com for more detailed information as to how to do so and where to mail the contribution. You will receive a receipt reflecting the total amount of your donation.
Our March prayer requests are:
• Praise the Lord provided a night caregiver for two nights; we now have night coverage 6 nights a week.
• Praise a new aide at school was found for Fernanda. Pray the school aide will put into practice the training she has received from various specialists.
Pray as well the school aide will be a stronger advocate for Fernanda at school.
• Pray God will provide for the Hernandez family financial needs.
• Pray for guidance and strength for Jacob and Debbie in raising our family.
• Pray for our relationships with each other.
• Pray for Christine, one of our day time caregivers who left suddenly due to medical reasons.
Pray for her healing and if it is God’s will for her to return employment with us later this year.
Pray for the training of the new caregiver I hired earlier this month.
• Pray for Fernanda's Grammie Hernandez, Jacob's mother who suffered a massive brain hemorrhage in the Fall 2008.
Coram Deo,
(Jake and) Debbie
www.caringbridge.org/ca/fernanda
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