Roseville, MN
First written November 9, 2000
Revised December 14, 2000
Dear Family and Friends,
It has been a long, hard year.
Our younger son, Thomas, is severely autistic. He is nearly 11 and has very little functional speech. The year has been rough for him. Back in February we noticed that he was showing an involuntary twitching motion, known as Tardive Dyskinesia. This was a side effect of an anti-psychotic medication he had been taking. We changed his medication, and with considerable difficulty and over several months we have been brought the TD under control, without bringing back the behaviors for which the medication had been prescribed. However, this fall we have had more behavioral problems, and are trying to switch medicines again to deal with them. However, he is on a rather complicated set of prescriptions, and, as you all will understand, we can only change one variable at a time if we have any hope of tracking the effect of a change.
Mia here. Tom was even hospitalized for over a week, just before Thanksgiving. He was having uncontrollable rages, and was a danger to himself and others. We are still tuning the medication change, and looking anxiously for side effects, but he's back in school now, and at this writing is happy and functional.
Our older son, James, got through a rather chaotic year in seventh grade. So far he seems to be doing better in eighth. He suffers from Asperger's Syndrome--a high-functioning form of autism, so he requires a lot more attention than a more normal child his age.
James (no longer, alas! Jamie) is starting to show some signs of turning into a fine young man, though of course he has a long way to go. He got involved in Middle-School theater this year; helped to build the set and ran the fog machine for the production. Stuck with it solidly for weeks of construction, lengthy dress rehearsals, and three performances. Wants to do it again. Academically he is also doing well; he made the honor roll first quarter.
PowerCerv, the software company I had been working for, closed its Minneapolis office this spring. Not wanting to relocate to South Carolina, I had to look for another job. Hence I am now a Database Administrator for Hennepin County. Since the county offices are in downtown Minneapolis, I can now take a bus to work rather than drive.
This gives me an extra 45 minutes or so reading time every day, which is nice. However, the job change was a hassle, and I did not get much vacation time this year.
Glenn seems challenged and busy at his new job; his colleagues are competent, and we can be very sure this job won't go bankrupt, get bought out, or move out of state! County government also has good pension provisions; important at our stage in life!
A wet basement carpet led us to discover that the drain tile of our house had collapsed, and had to be replaced. The financial cost was considerable, but the disruption in our lives has been even worse. We had to move everything out of the basement and store it in the garage. For four solid months we had no family room to speak of, and only minimal access to our library, files, and other important things. For all practical purposes, we had lost 40% of our house. And with a Minnesota winter off to an early start, we could not garage our cars.
Now, at last, the carpet is in! Just today (12/10), we hauled three dressers, three Very Heavy bookcases (including those housing the entire science fiction collection), and other oddments of furniture down to join the desks (which never left) and the other things that Glenn had brought down since the carpet went in two days ago. We can have fires in the fireplace again, and offer guests a pleasant, carpeted, furnished room, and spread out through the house a little more. Now the cars are in the garage, as the temperature goes below zero.
James is actually moving down to what was once the guest room, and I am taking his old room for my study. With a lock on the door. So there!
Mia continues to enjoy her garden, and continues to expand it. We had a pleasant, if all too short, trip to Chicago for the World Science Fiction Convention. I have managed to do some bicycling, and sometimes still can read a little physics. We are cautiously optimistic about next year.
As I read through this again; it seems like I'm the one offering the good news counterpoint to Glenn's litany of disaster. This is because, when he wrote, Tom was still really messed up, the basement was still in the garage, and the light was really hard to see at the end of the tunnel. Things are Much Better for the moment--until the next change in Tom, the next major-project crisis for James, the next big maintenance headache for the house. We are grateful for the hour's respite; ours is a challenging life, but we are rich in the love of our families and friends, and in God's blessed providence.
May next year be a good one for us and for you, too.
Go to Glenn's home page, or to Mia's. See our 1999 or 2001 Christmas letters, or the index of letters.
©2000-2003 by Mia F. McDavid and Glenn T. McDavid.