April 1st, 2010
I just today gave you a link to Becca’s day program, RRAF. Well come the end of April they will have to close their doors if things don’t change in the next few weeks. Temporarily we hope but possibly permanently. Why after over twenty years of service will they be forced to close?
THE STATE OF ILLINOIS OWES THEM 118,000.00 DOLLARS IN BACK PAY FOR SERVICES RENDERED. We have heard Quinn on the news; the state of Ill has no intention of paying any of us. On top of that he proposes to cut what the state will pay to anyone who cares for the handicapped by 2.5% in next years budget. Also believe it or not, the state will make expedited payments to 31U or 31A type service programs IF they have exhausted all sources of income. This just doesn’t mean that you have zero in the bank but also that you have exhausted all types of available loans and are in debt up to your eyeballs and over your head. Basically Governor Quinn wants every body to be as fiscally irresponsible as he and the other members of our lovely state government are.
So wonderful facilities like RRAF are being forced to shut their doors. You need to understand that the state medicaid money only funds two thirds of the cost of each person attending RRAF. Also that the state forbids RRAF to even ask us (the families) to make up the rest of the funds. Even still RRAF’s director, board, and parents have found ways to finish funding the program year after year. RRAF even had funds set aside for expansion of the program. They were looking into going residential as well as day. Those funds are now gone.They have been eaten away keeping RRAF’s doors open for this long while the State of Il. continued it’s whopping irresponsibility to the tune of 118 THOUSAND DOLLARS.
I am only one small voice. Where is the outrage? Why isn’t anybody using their influence to protect these who can’t speak for themselves. Oh that’s right all the people of “influence” are down state planning how to justify giving themselves another huge unnecessary raise after they fill up their favorite pork barrel.
Every year the same. The State of Ill takes every agency it can to the edge of bankruptcy watches while it drives some over the edge and then gives a sigh of relief that it will not have to share any of it’s funds with them in the upcoming year. Do the state officials then share that funding amongst similar agencies who now have to take in those displaced by the closure of the “failed” agency? No they play politics as usual cut the funding for the service agencies still standing and say oh look surplus we can give ourselves another raise. Shame on them all.
I am Nancy Tally and this is what I see happening.
The Link to RRAF is on the new page “Places to find help and blessing”
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April 1st, 2010
Today was the first day of riding back outside. They found easter eggs while riding and placed them in corresponding colored buckets. Sure is nice to have spring back. I just asked Becca how warm is it? She said warm, over ten degrees.
Doc, her horse is twenty-five years old today.
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April 1st, 2010
Just found this unpublished draft. If I could loose some thing like this I am way to busy. Polished it up for you, there is a small amount of overlap with a January post but it still stands on it’s own.
There is very little good to say about the current economic downturn. But it did one thing for us. The wait list for equine therapy vanished and we were able to procure a spot with FTEA.
As we have shared before Becca loves horses even though her only exposure in the past had been five minute rides around a corral. Now she has a forty-five minute lesson once a week for fifteen weeks. What a stoic she is. How many people do you know who would go riding just a few hours after a root canal? That was how her first lesson fell, right on top of a molar root canal. She did not want to leave the stables and could talk of nothing but riding the whole night. However, she said nary a word through her whole lesson and left her teachers stumped thinking she did not enjoy being there.
- Root Canal Happy Face
Here she is on Doc. He is the biggest and strongest horse FTEA owns. Becca is a hefty girl so she rides Doc every week. This particular week we took him carrotts and an apple to say thanks for being so patient.
That week it was raining so Becca’s lesson was inside. This turned out to be a good thing. There are far less distractions in the barn and Becca’s attention sky rocketed. She opened up and used verbal commands as well as signs. We saw a delay in her comprehension time but a willingness to try to do everything asked. She even posted for the first time.
I was able to see a very rare sight. Becca was proud of what she was accomplishing and her face said to loud and clear. Wish I had my camera there.
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March 29th, 2010
I have been sharing with you the exciting gains we have been seeing in Becca. There are three organizations who are contributing to these wonderful successes with their weekly to daily input. One that gives us a great big booster shot every summer, one that has helped us for the past fifteen summers, and a sixth that we are working with and expect to see great things on an hour by hour basis for the rest of Becca’s life.
I would like to introduce you to each of these wonderful organizations/ministries. Maybe you could plug in and help at some point (we do know how to have fun). Maybe you or someone you know needs to avail themselves of what these ministries have to offer. Maybe you have funds you can spare to help them, if so I hope we touch your heart.
RRAF is Becca’s Day program www.rraf.org Where Reality is Respect, Appreciation & Fullfillment
S.T.A.R.S. Disability Ministry www.college-church.org/disability Becca has music, bible teaching and social interacting here three to four times a week. Hum and I picked up my green font there need to figure out how to change it back. Aha, found it, now some practice so I do not loose it again!
FTEA: Beca’s horse back therapy 45 mins a week. www.ftea.org
Walcamp: Becca has been attending since she was nine and insists “It is where I can be myself” www.walcamp.org
Joni and Friends Camp: we get to go with her. www.joniandfriends.org
4pawsforability is currently training a service dog for Becca’s use. www.4pawsforability.org
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March 24th, 2010
Through the years Becca has participated in Special Olympics; so have many of her friends, now they have a chance to give back.
On April 10 2010 @ 3:00p.m.
The STARS of College Church will be singing in
“You Raise Me Up”
A fundraising concert for Special Olympics along with
The NGOMA Group
Chicago a cappella and
The GlenEllyn-Wheaton Chorale
Ticket info available at www.gewchorale.org or 630-415-3066
$10.oo per person or 5 for $40.00
I listened to practice tonite they are sounding good.
Think about coming it is shaping up to be a great time.
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March 24th, 2010
I use Word Press, this is default theme 1.6 by Michael Heilemann. I wish I designed it. It’s wonderful it allows even someone like me, who is struggling to learn, to have success. I needed to resort to this post to answer you all because I haven’t conquered my sites e-mail yet. Every thing is bouncing back as undeliverable. I have been trying to contact some of you just be patient with me I’ll figure it out sooner or later. Till then there is always more than one way to achieve a goal. But my e-mail is another days learning problem. Gotta go hope this helps.
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March 12th, 2010
Besides our training to certify as service dog handlers: our video of Becca is the largest single block of time /effort we have to accomplish. As I did not know anything about putting a video together this has been majorly stretching for me and taking way more time than the actual training will. In order to train Becca’s SD specific to her and her needs 4Paws for Ability needs a window into her life. We have been video taping Becca for a year now. Sorting through it all and pulling out the things 4Paws is looking for has been a challenge. They have four pages of questions. I am finding it is taking about an hour of video per page. Half is done. The interviews about what the family knows about dogs, past experiences good and bad, what we like and dislike in a dog are all done. How Becca interacts with animals, her fears, is she appropriate or does she poke into eyes and ears or go for tails done as well.
They want to see what activities is she involved in? That took a whole hour of video in itself just covering her weekly, monthly and yearly activities. Pulling tons of 15 -30 second clips together so 4Paws could see the kind of crowds we would be taking the SD into, and to hear the noise levels of these situations. Took a few hours after preparing that video to engage in my own little pity party. We do so much to keep her busy! It is no wonder I have no life of my own!
Well drop the pity party because now I have another problem. This third disk will not save and burn. Seems that I cannot put materials from three different cameras into the same video. Especially when some are avi and some mpg. AAGGHH!! Well I wasted a day trying to make it work and hubby has used another day to convert mpg to avi and guess what? That’s right it still won’t save or burn. Hm-mm, I thought I had a hard time learning to blog. Speaking about learning to blog my son updated my google browser and the next day all they side bar information on Becca’s Dream was gone. I had entered her site through that log in for so long I had forgotten how to get here any other way. I was locked off of the blog for a week. But that’s OK, I am learning more about my computer the web and my blog everyday and getting much practice in learning to control my tongue. Last week I was yelling at my computer and realized Becca was sitting at my elbow. Oopps! Time to reclean the mouth and make appologies.
I actually missed not getting time or beong able to log on to do this. But learning to make a video is good. So I’m grayer than I was four weeks ago. And Ok I have less hair because I have been pulling it out in frustration. My mouse is also worse for wear because of my frustration in fact I am surprised it still works. Some friends and I said it would be cute to have one that squeaks and scampers away if you smack it down on the desk top. Well so much for my technology woes. Excuse me for not working on the grammer today been down with the flu. But as I was instructed on how to get back onto the site I wanted to shout out to you all.
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February 14th, 2010
Becca is really into cheering on the Olympians. However, she believes doing so should be a team sport. She kept calling for her dad to come see this or come watch that. No breaks allowed for us while she was watching the games. She has even verbalised that we must watch as a team. It was interesting to see her understanding of competition during the Nordic combined. I watched as her body tensed up while she watched the end of the race and cheered loudly. Yeah USA!
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February 12th, 2010
Do you remember that childhood game?
I do!
When I was twelve my brother counted up all the kids on our street. In one block, on just our side, there were fifty three of us from birth to eighteen years old. Back then there were no fences and the backyard ran from the top to the bottom of the block. We had a six house stretch of lawn in which to play red light green light, red rover, kick ball, dodge ball or anything else we could dream up with fifteen to twenty players per game. The best games were hide and go seek at twilight. With porches on the fronts and backs of all the houses, alley ways in between, the car lot on the corner and a huge ten foot high bushy hedge running three quarters of the block at the back of the yards there were hundreds of places to hide. We only had three restrictions; you could not cross the street, you could not go around the corners and you could not go inside the houses. What a way to grow up. I can still hear my mother’s solution for sibling squabbles ringing in my ears “Go outside and play! You are driving me crazy!” We were more often than not outside.
Wow what dredged up these forty year old memories? Becca did. I picked her up today to take her to FTEA for her equine therapy session. Two blocks down the road she pipes up with “Nancy, the green light means go”. So of course I ask about red lights. Then remembering that she had mentioned playing red light /green light the night before my brain fires and catches on to the thought “ohhh teachable moment”. So off goes my mom/chauffeur hat and I plunk on my mom/speech therapist hat. I have a twenty minute drive ahead of me with stop lights every five blocks a topic initiated by my daughter (unheard of) and of such interest to her that she did not clam up the minute I tried to engage her in conversation. Trust me I got all the mileage I possibly could including the concepts of top middle bottom, left center right, continuity of where the red and green lights are placed (you see we are not sure that Becca is not color blind) even engine revving tire squealing and brake noises. It actually was a fun drive.
FTEA helped us out by ending today’s session with a game of “Whoa” & “Walk on” to red and green cards. Before coming home we stopped at Costco. The second time I stopped the cart Becca pipes up again with “red light” and again with “green light” as I started to move again. Then came the request to play red light /green light. So I took off the mom/therapist hat and pulled out my plain old mom hat, true I had to dust it off (it was thick with dust because I haven’t used it in so long) but I plopped it on my head and began to play and laugh. We had a good time stopping and going while calling out red light /green light all through Costco to the amusement of many of the customers and sample ladies. Two women we know caught us playing. I think they were more than just amused they actually enjoyed seeing our game. My heart was thrilled to be interacting with my daughter and having fun doing so.
Posted in Becca's Joys & Challenges, How do we interact?, My Joys and Challenges | 11 Comments »
February 10th, 2010
At least one person has commented on not being able to understand the post on FTEA & New hairstyle equalling increased confidence.
If a person has never been exposed to the handicapped population and has no handicapped people among their friends and acquaintances I can imagine that they might be confused. It is difficult to understand any topic if you have not had the chance to learn the basic underlying facts. Frankly, life for handicapped people is different than what the rest of us experience and as uniquely different for each one of them as their handicaps vary from each other. Lately I have been trying to help people see, feel and understand what is it like to live life in my daughter’s shoes. I want you to understand. Forgive me if I have not expressed myself clearly enough. I will continue to try and increase my clarity.
Handicapped people are no longer hidden away in family homes or in institutions. They are out in public places. We see them in stores and restaurants on a regular basis. Let me tell you now they also see you in all your varieties. They and their families clearly see and feel the bad manners of many “normal people”. They see the people whose bodies visibly recoil when they look at them. They see the noses wrinkle up in disdain showing disapproval and a (false in my opinion) sense of superiority. Eyebrows that knit together and eyes that darken in disapproval at the voices that are perceived to be to loud, at inappropriate and untimely comments, at the disoriented behavior or weird clothing/color choices they happen to be wearing. There are usually medical reasons for these “strange” behaviors. Things they have absolutely no control over. It is so sad that the above responses coming from “normal” people do not have equally valid reasons for being publicly displayed.
Fortuanately such ill mannered persons are increasingly in the minority.
Most people just go about their business paying as little attention to the handicapped as they do to anybody else moving about the mall or other public places. They do no harm and even allow handicapped and their families a sense of being no different than anyone else.
Then there are those of you who blessedly still practice good manners. You do simple things like smile and say hello. You hold doors open for us even though it means waiting for our loved ones to navigate steps or the door way. You nod and say things like “that’s nice” when you are enthusiastically given information that makes no sense. You may even take a few minutes to hold a conversation about an appropriate topic like; “what are you shopping for or what are you eating.” We are blessed by your kindness to us.
Posted in How do we interact? | 8 Comments »
