March 18, 2013

  • I’m surprised that I’m surprised.

    If you’ve already seen this on Facebook I apologize… what a crazy week it’s been!

    We found out on Friday night that the Air Force has decided to not only ERD (early release of dependents) Isaac and I home, but to also put us on the EFMP (Exceptional Family Member Program) There are a lot of ramifications of this, most of which I don’t understand and therefore can not explain… But here is the immediate fall out.

    Ryan is escorting Isaac and I home immediately (Probably in the next week but at this point we STILL don’t have a date) so that I can get treatment.  He will then return to Turkey, pack out our house, ship our car, move into the dorms and wait while the paperwork goes through.  The EFMP codes me for certain care and affects profoundly where we can and can not be assigned.  So in a matter of weeks we will have a new assignment.  Ryan’s assignment here will be curtailed and we will immediately PCS (Permanent Change of Station) to a new base.

    They are going to try to station us at Luke AFB in Phoenix.  We get to pick one base that we have a justification to be stationed at and as Phoenix is the ONLY base we have justification for (Family support system, the one doctor that has successfully treated my illness, the location of my gastric bypass surgeon) it’s the base we chose.  With these justifications we have about a 50% chance of being given this assignment.  When you consider the sheer amount of bases, 50% chance to go to ONE is a pretty good chance.  If they can not find a place for us at Luke we will be stationed at the first base they have a position for Ryan and the correct medical facilities for me. 

    And so begins yet another season of waiting…   We SHOULD have orders in a few weeks so that we know where we are going, we SHOULD know by the end of today when we will be on a plane out of here… but it’s the Air Force and things change at the drop of a hat!

    I’ll try to keep you updated!

    Do you know what I miss?  Drama free life… not that it was ever 100% drama free… but on December 28th of 2011 things blew up in my face with a phone call and it’s been DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA ever since.  If I tell people just a little bit of our story they’re jaws drop and I feel like a total drama queen!  :)

    Courtney

Comments (6)

  • Your last paragraph about tired of always having drama going on & feeling like a drama queen reminded me of something we heard at church yesterday: “Your faith should have a story.” Love you & sending prayers always!

  • I am glad the orders are in progress…. with the military I have always had the motto of hurry up and wait! They can be SO slow with things!

  • Hope all is going well. Hope they get you stationed somewhere quick. I agree, with the Military, all you think of is hurry up and wait! Sending prayers your way<3

  • Hello
    My dear i am peace by name but friends call me Pp i am here to seek for your friendship please contact me i will tell you more about me and also send you my picture and more about me, love you my dear.(boldenglove@yahoo.in)
    Yours Pp

  • I did miss this on FB, so I’m glad I caught it here! Wow, so Ryan doesn’t get to finish his assignment. Does he still deploy for the long stretch?

    I love the exceptional family program, though it does cause the occasional person’s career to get hung up and make rank slower. With Ryan’s career field, I can’t imagine it doing that to him.

    In DoDDS, we learned that some people keep their family’s medical needs away from the military so that they don’t get in the exceptional family member program and have their assignments narrowed. If you ever want to get me riled up, mention these people. I had an 8th grade student with a psychological diagnosis that required meds and a psychiatrist. The parents had the school counselor and others whitewash the record so that they could get the career-building assignments the dad wanted. So I get this kid in my classroom, who is very socially charismatic, but actually psycho. He was so awful that his class was usually 10 lesson days behind all my other classes. He’d not only misbehave himself but get others to misbehave because his charisma controlled others. Now, the dad was training me to be a deacon at the Gospel Chapel (before my Catholic days). We were rather close spiritually. So I had a vested interest in doing well by the kid and not just in salvaging the other 30 studetns’ education in my class. I spun my wheels from Sept – Jan trying to get the kid help. He had all the qualities of ADHD. I held parent conferences up the wazoo, meetings with his other teachers, the counselor, etc. Every time I was on the verge of getting him an ADHD diagnosis, the school would drop the ball and all my progress and paperwork would be lost in some sort of black hole. Finally, in Feb, the school counselor pulled me aside and said that the parents, principal, base psychiatrist, etc. were waiting for me to give up on it. As if I’d give up on a student! She realized that I might let go if I knew That there was a “secret” diagnosis off the books, and if the kid took ADHD meds, it would actually worsen his chemical and psychologial state. But it couldn’t get on the books because it would throw the family into the exceptional family member program and hurt the dad’s career. His career path and the bases that could help the boy didn’t mesh well, apparently. So I was stuck with this kid and this kid was stuck with no meds to help him. Shortly after that, I found out that the kid had drawn blood in the classroom at least once a year since 2nd grade. As in harm another person. In 7th grade, he’d stabbed someone in the back with a sharpened pencil. Shortly after I got this fact passed to me, the kid started to spiral up in my class. I thought he was going to harm another student, so I grabbed his forearms, forced him to sit until he made eye contact with me, and then I kicked him out of the classroom, sent him to the principal, and called the office to expect him (many kids don’t go and then they send out a search party). That afternoon, my vice principal paid me a visit and said that I laid a hand on a student and if the parents sued that the school couldn’t back me. The student was savvy on his “rights” and knew how to make it so that I’d get in trouble and possibly lose my career. Apparently I needed “Restraint Training” before laying a hand on the kid. I spent the rest of the school year asking for the training, but no one got me into it. The only good thing that happened was the family PCS’d in spring break, so I had 2mos of peace. It ruined my friendship with the family, obviously. I totally lost respect for them for not telling me the deal after all those meetings I held to try to help their child. And they were in Christian leadership!!!! I heard later that the kid was so bad that his previous principal in Southern California wrote a letter to our principal telling her how dangerous he was in the classroom. That letter got “lost” because the school counselor the year before was their friend and took it out of his file. To this day, I wonder who would deny their loved one the care they needed so that they could have a wider choice of bases and assignments?!?!?!

    All this to say that I’m so glad you’re in the program and I know that God can work through it to put you guys right where he wants you! I wish you blessings and health!

  • You guys are awesome.

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