Tuesdays with Rory

(See what I did there? hehe)

Well...Rory. This is the biggest reason why I haven't blogged lately. My life has been 100% consumed by work and trichotillomania. If I'm not working, I'm home with R and T, separating fights, administering time outs, defusing ticking time bombs of stress, calming down Rory, encouraging without demanding that she use her calm down strategies, balancing to the best of my abilities discipline and ignoring things...

It's been a struggle.

I am worn out. Beyond exhausted. My to-do list is two miles and let's be honest, half of it isn't going to get done. I'm not sleeping well at night, waking at least once every 2 hours and not falling back to sleep well. I'm tired at the wrong times, which leads to drinking coffee too late in the day but if I don't I'll melt down in the middle of a ballet class and my 8 year old students will have a sobbing Miss Kate on their hands.

Blah.

But Rory...well our girl is the proud owner of a new diagnosis. OCD. Obsessive Complusive Disorder. Now to everyone who knows Rory well, this is no surprise. She just need to exhibit enough markers enough times to get the "official" word. Trich is a direct relative of OCD so I am not surprised.

We are headed to a new therapist in Pittsburgh this Thursday. This is a pediatric counseling center with experience in trich. We love the woman we see locally and will continue to see her as often as can. Unfortunately, because she is so awesome, we often go weeks between appointments. This time we have SIX WEEKS between appointments and that just isn't good for Rory. We are going to supplement those appointments with these appointments in Pgh. Our local appointments center heavily on her behavior and anxiety where as the ones in Pgh will be much more trich centered.

For the last 3 or 4 months, Rory's hair pulling has been great. But the last 3 weeks...she's pulled big bald spots in her hair. It's especially noticeable when her hair is wet. She eats it too which is just...not only gross to think about but dangerous.

Some days are good, other days we are falling apart at the seams. But that's the struggle and the beauty in our situation...no one has been Rory's mom but me and I'm doing the best I can.