Friday, January 24, 2020

Mike got a job and other updates

So this has been quite a week! The amount of things happening since my last post totally deserved an update.

About two weeks ago Mike had a phone interview with a company he applied with in November for a job he was quite overqualified for. He never heard anything about it and put it in the pile of "ah well, it was worth a try". They emailed him to see if he was happy to talk to them about a possible job. The phone interview was scheduled shortly after and it became clear they thought his skills were very suited to another job they were now advertising. The phone call went very well and a week after he had a face to face interview. The job would be quite a new thing for him as he will move away from hands on work in a lab to a more managerial role to be a reference point with the headquarters which is based in San Diego. So, while German is very important, clearly being english mother tongue is quite an advantage. They told him they would let him know within a couple of weeks but on tuesday they called him and offered him the job! Massive celebration all around, major sense of relief  for me and part of my current anxiety around the fact that if something should happen to me, now that Mike has a permanent job at least they can all keep living here (I know..I know...).

On the same friday as Mike's interview, we had the appointment with Oliver to the psychologist for the evaluation of ADD, possible traits of autism and giftedness. We really really liked the therapist, she spoke very good english and had a great approach to probing Oliver's emotions. She had him do a non verbal test (because the others are in German and clearly Oliver would not be sufficiently fluent to be meaningful), and despite being a friday afternoon, after a whole week that he had the flu with high temp etc, and a persistent annoying cough, Oliver scored >130 (not a genius but clearly above average). She strongly recommended for him to do the full test to properly evaluate the giftedness level, this can be done in english at the hospital in the children neuropsychology department. We have been referred and while it won't be quick to have an appointment at least we are now in the system. She said there is no trait whatsoever of ADD (he never lost concentration in the test despite the coughing) or autism. He is just very clever, when he loses interest in school it's because he actively disengages (as opposed to not being able to keep paying attention). She said it's a pity we didn't do this when it was suggested to us back in Ireland, apparently one of the major risks for these children is that they give up after a while, because they just get too bored. Anyway, hopefully now we can find a way so that he is properly challenged and this should help in turn to relax him and make him feel more fulfilled.

This is almost all. I am falling back into my obsessive health anxiety, i hate it so so much, winter sports help but then as I am in my office I enter the awful loops. I've started taking CBD and see if it helps a little. As usual I have (or imagine, i can't tell for sure of course) a symptom of some vague nature somewhere in the body which becomes my obsession and it's a clear sign of something ominous. I know so well how insane this sounds, I must have had 3 or 4 different lethal conditions in the last couple of months... I need help. I fear the only help will be medications.

Heather, still no joy in posting to your blog (or others...though i see some have comments so I have no idea why just mine are eaten up!), I'd love to be in touch, my email is visible, would love to hear from you and at least I can comment to you directly on your updates.

Hugs to all

No comments: