More in the news

Bobbi was in the Minneapolis Star Tribune yesterday (you might not be able to see the article without being a subscriber?? On my laptop I could see it, but not my desktop - maybe I've used up my "free" articles on that computer already? I don't know...)

And this morning in the St Paul Pioneer Press. (Note that a few of the dollar amounts are off in this one, but you get the general gist of it...)

Yesterday when she was out walking, a few people stopped her and asked if she was the girl whose chair had been taken.

If I get a chance beyond the few minutes it takes to throw this up, I'll write a little bit more about all the ins and outs of how this is affecting HER (because it's worth sharing!) but this is what I have time for. We're thinking this is going to be a good year to make sure we get a full veggie garden put in, so we're using the good weather to get things prepped!

Whirlwind

It's been a crazy few days with all sorts of things happening, not necessarily in the most sensible order, but kind of all in a jumble all at once!

Thought you might be interested in seeing what's been going on:

First, Bobbi was on the local news Tuesday night.

That prompted a GoFundMe page as a quick way to handle all of the interest the story generated - which is nuts to me - we still don't know if insurance will cover the chair or not - it very well might! But we don't know, and even with that "maybe we won't need any help at all" built into it, we still had a seriously overwhelming response.

And, though I'm not posting this here asking for donations (which is why I didn't post it when we first put it up! That's not what I intend my blog to be for!) I thought that all of you who care about what's going on in our family ought to know what's been going on!!

More later, hopefully, but didn't want to wait too long.

Wheelchair thief (?)

Well, we don't know if it was malicious or innocent, but someone stole Bobbi's wheelchair from where it was waiting at the bottom of the driveway while she was walking with Rose on the path yesterday!!!

It's like having your legs stolen! Now that she doesn't crawl since her surgery, the chair is how she gets around. We still have her old chair from Bulgaria, but it's very limiting for her mobility, particularly in the fact that it doesn't fit into her bedroom!!!

Besides the fact that her little bag that hangs on the front is kind of like her purse - all of her favorite chapstick are in there, a few other personal items, and her wallet...with her state ID in it. This is part of why we're thinking it's increasingly unlikely that whoever took it did so thinking it was "free" at the side of the road. You'd think that once they got it home and saw that it had bag(s) with personal items in it that it wasn't intended to be taken. It also wasn't by the curb, but was on our driveway on our side of the walking trail. And, seriously - not that far away was a young woman walking with a walker with her PCA next to her!! Ummmmm.

She's handling it quite well. We'll see how that continues once the novelty wears off.

In the meantime, we've contacted the police, so they've got their eyes open, and we're checking craigslist, and, the most exciting part is that the local new station came out this morning to interview Bobbi and Matt, and she'll be on television this afternoon!!
 

Down at the "scene of the crime", Dad and Bobbi talking into the camera with the reporter.

So, if any of you see this chair, let us know!!!

In the meantime, we're already in process to see if our insurance will cover a replacement chair. Not sure how or when all that will pan out. We sure would just like to find HER chair! And her chapstick.

A brief update

• We got the report back regarding Bobbi's birth family. They were only able to speak with her grandparents, learning that her mother and older half-brother have moved with his wife and two young daughters to another EU country (which we know). Her grandparents were not really interested in talking much, but even with that, we were able to get a whole handful of little tidbits, that while in and of themselves are not much, were able to answer some of our questions and Bobbi's curiosities. And, of course, to open up a whole bunch of others. There's still hope that her grandparents will choose to pass the information on to her mother or brother and this may not be the end of the story. We shall see.
• Mira is doing really amazingly well. We are keeping ourselves completely isolated, knowing how easily she can get really really sick, and figuring even if we could make it through the COVID-19 virus, she probably couldn't, and since truly the one "goal" or dream that we had for her when we decided to bring her home was that she would not die alone - that when her time comes, she will die with her family that loves her surrounding her and touching her - this is not the way we would choose for her to go! Her nurse still comes in three days a week. She has stopped working for her other family because the mother in that family works in health care, so more exposure than Mira's nurse was willing to risk (and, I think she made the decision, too, knowing that Mira's need for professional care was greater than that of her other client). Rose comes into our house five days a week as well, but she's only coming here, or grocery shopping, even before Minnesota's stay-at-home order went into effect. 
• We have dear friends from church who are doing all of our grocery shopping for us so I don't even have to leave the house. They even brought and amazing full meal for us last Tuesday, which was Leah's birthday, to help her celebrate.
  
  
  

  

  Now my second-born is the fifth teenager in the house!

  

  And there's the fat hands of the youngest, helping himself.

• We DID have to go out for an orthodontic "emergency" for Leah. I talked with her orthodontist on the phone, and he agreed that what we were dealing with fell just over the line into "emergency," so was willing to treat. Her last appointment came two days after they were ordered to stop seeing patients, and her wires on the bottom were protruding far enough that they were irritating her gums. They agreed to just have us give them a call when we got there and come out into the parking lot with their wire clippers so we didn't have to go into the building. Owen, our new driver, drove us over there, with Evania, Reuben, and Eben along for the ride just for something different to do! We didn't even have to call when we got there because they saw Big Blue drive up and knew it was us!
• Bobbi, Krassi, and Reuben are doing physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy (each some combination thereof) over the internet starting this week, and it's gone really well. Krassi was showing off some of his skills this afternoon. See him sitting up so tall!
  
  And that's it for now. Just a bit to let you know we're still alive over here!