Since April 1, I feel like my life has been in a whirlwind. As the governor of WI continues to take money from education in this great state, the schools are fighting just to keep up with rising costs. In Kenosha, the district is losing about $555 per student, which in turn translates into a $33 MILLION deficit for the district. That then translates into massive cuts into the education system, the deepest being with teachers. After 4 years in the district and 8 years teaching, I got my lay off notice. I had a good feeling it was coming and in fact some insider information had tipped me off the night before. Knowing ahead of time however doesn't make that information any easier to process.
I cried all day. I was told I could go home if I wanted, that coverage was arranged for my room, but I couldn't go home. I'd go home and what...wallow in my own self pity. I much rather would have been with my students and for good reason. As my co teacher was reading Charlotte's Web with the majority of the students, I was sitting with one reading with her. She has a knack for knowing when people are down and need a little bit of love. She laid her head on my shoulder as I was reading to her, looks into my eyes and says "I love you Mrs. Shike." And that my friends, is exactly why I teach. Everyday, I walk into my classroom and change the life of a child. EVERYDAY!! What I do is powerful, impacting and sometimes life changing. It's worth it.
The second part of my whirlwind started last week. My Grandma sent me an e-mail saying she was having a CT scan. She'd been having trouble with her legs for sometime and it was being attributed to low potassium. Apparently there was more to the story. She called me on Thursday, after her CT scan, to let me know that she was in the hospital in Madison. The saw an orange sized mass in her colon on the CT scan and the doctor in Reedsburg said he wouldn't touch it, so he sent her to Madison. She's been in the hospital since Thursday. She's got an infection and they've put her on antibiotics. She's clearing up the infection and will have surgery on Thursday to remove the mass in her colon. She had a blood test that screens for colon cancer and that was negative, so that was fantastic news. During the surgery she will have a biopsy done on the mass to rule out cancer completely. They are going to take out a pretty large portion on her colon, so she's going to have a colostomy bag. That's the least of our worries. Please pray for her as she heads into this surgery and recovery. She's my last living grandparent and probably the one I've been closet with. she means the world to me and a whole lot of other people, so I am not giving her up, not just yet.
The "rule" is, she needs to live to 100. At least that's my rule for her, she seems to think I am insane to ask that of her. Maybe I am insane, but 100 is my rule!
