Back in the early 2000s Mary and I became foster parents to a little 16 month old boy Robbie (now my son) and 9 months later to Allie, 2 days old straight out of the hospital (now my daughter). About 3 years later we adopted them. So Dad and Mom are 70, Robbie is 24 and Allie is 22. Which all by itself is a problem.
Allie has a genetic duplication, which means a part of one of her genes is duplicated. This causes an unknown number of health issues, unknown because genes do hundreds of things, impossible to know what, and having one of them partially duplicated massively screws up the body's machinery. For sure she is intellectually impaired, 20% deaf in both ears. She had surgery both ears and wears cochlear implants to mostly correct the deafness. She has Apraxia of speech, or in fact general apraxia, but it affects her speech the most. She has extreme anxiety, obsessive compulsive (doors must be closed, bedding arranged just so to go to sleep), extreme ADHD. And she loves dogs and talking to people so she cannot be left alone or some perv would grab her.
I like to say, "She's a mess, but she's my mess!"
I am "getting ready" to retire from driving completely. Back in December I bought a little Winnebago Vista 26HE, a 26 foot class A motor home. When I do retire ( a couple of more years) I will live in this thing out on the desert southwest. In the meantime I am actually living in it in my driveway, with my son living in my apartment. Miss Allie and I spent the last month in my RV "camping", often in my driveway but also behind my church, in the parking lot behind the local stadium, and at Bandit's Roost National park. We spent many hours down at the lake fishin'. Did I mention I don't much like fishin' But Allie loves to fish.
And I have been madly writing trying to get the book in a state where it is useful.
A busy 5 weeks.
