Tree-Normous

Tree-Normous!

By Tanner, Dallin and SarahLynn Zavoral

A true story that took place in Nov 2020.

"What is this place?" Tanner asked as the car pulled into the parking lot. There were giant palm trees of all types lining the walkway, sitting in enormous pots. The car rolled to a stop and Tanner, Dallin and Grandma got out to look around. The three of them slowly approached the entrance of the San Diego Botanical Gardens.

The truth was, Grandma didn't really know the answer to Tanner's question. She had come down to San Diego last minute to help entertain the boys while SarahLynn was suffering from a back injury. All the top-rated attractions in the area were closed due to the Covid19 Pandemic. Grandma was thrilled to find that this place was marked "open" and it was tagged as family-friendly.

The curious trio walked up a dirt path to a big greenhouse. A kind lady welcomed them into the park. Once inside, they saw flowers on the left, fluffy bushes on the right and colorful mosaic benches all around. Then, they came to a clearing.

"What the heck?!" Tanner and Dallin exclaimed.

Standing in front of them was a towering playground, made out of wood, concrete and fake trees. There were netted bridges, climbing walls, and a cool look-out point at the top. It was tree-normous!

Grandma gave a sigh of relief. This was the perfect thing to keep the grandkids busy for a while.

The two boys wasted no time discovering ways to climb all over the tree fort. They called to grandma from all of their hiding places as she tried to get pictures of them.

The adventures didn't end there. Another clearing revealed fallen logs and skinny dirt paths. Grandma exclaimed, "Hey, this can be a giant obstacle course!" The boys loved the idea and quickly got to work deciding what type of challenges can be placed throughout the course.

After the obstacles were established, Grandma set up her camera to film and time the boys. "On your mark, get set, GO!!" she hollered. Tanner ran as fast as he could. He finished in 51 seconds. Next, Dallin raced through and got the same time!!

Grandma's adventurous spirit kept the boys going and going, exploring all over the gardens.  They found jumbo chairs, a music making garden, real banana trees, an adobe playhouse and a place to build their own shack.  

Before they left, the three musketeers returned to the tree-normous playground where all three of them made it to the top of the structure. The view was gorgeous as the sun scattered light all over the treetops. The boys were beaming with wonder and Grandma caught some more pictures to remember the special moment. 

When they were finally tuckered out, they all headed back to the car. Tanner and Dallin were too tired to say it, but inside they were thinking, "Our grandma is so cool for bringing us here." 

Time of Despair

The worst part of the pandemic was behind us, so we thought. We were getting off to a great start with homeschool. Our October went amazing. We had a wonderful Halloween, we saw businesses and church reopening...

And then...

My sciatic nerve flared up in the worst way that I've ever experienced. 

In less than 6 hours, I went from happy at church with some aches and pains from our Halloween walk...

To excruciating pain on the floor, unable to move.

In recent years, I had a couple major flares that were awful. But this was way worse. Way, way worse. 

It felt like chain saws were gnawing at my left hip. Heat and shooting pain and throbbing like I've never felt.

But it was just temporary, right? All these flares are temporary. If I could just manage the pain long enough, the flare would pass and I could get on with my life.

I tried to rest and lay low. I canceled my lessons for the week to give me plenty of time to rest. 

But it soon became apparent that I could not control the pain. Every time I moved, it felt like daggers with hot lava were scraping all around my hips on both sides and down my left leg. 

Three days in, the pain was not getting better. It actually felt worse. Jeremy had gone from intermittently helping me to being my fulltime nurse. Getting me fresh ice, a drink of water with more pain killer, applying pressure to my tight muscles. Rearranging the pillows that I was laying on. 

With Jeremy's help, I could move into a new position and feel okay for a few minutes, then the pain would start again. I couldn't do anything on my own, so I just laid in bed. 

Nothing brought relief longer than a few minutes. 

Did ice work? No. 

Heat? No. 

Creams? No. 

IB profin? No. 

More IB profin? No. 

Shower? No. 

Laying flat? Laying Curved? Kinked? Standing? No, no no no. 

The boys played and did stuff I didn't know about. They also had a lot of screen time. Jeremy kept bouncing back and forth between his work and helping me.

All I could do was just lay there. I couldn't sit up long enough to eat. I couldn't get up or walk by myself. I couldn't even talk to people or see straight. I was too busy wincing from the pain. The image of fiery orange flames billowing out of my leg distracted me from everything else. The heat and shooting sensations was incredibly intense. 

Out of a 1-10 pain scale, it was level 15.

We got a remote doctor appointment at the end of day 3. They gave me a rx for Gabapentin, which is supposed to block nerve pain. Jeremy picked it up immediately. 

Did that work? No.

Ouchie...the pain was exhausting, it would literally take my breath away. 

Grinding sounds. My head was throbbing with sounds of a machine pounding, grinding, slicing, shooting through my hip and leg. Six times more painful than all-natural childbirth. 

Five days in. We called the doctor again to ask for stronger medication. They upped the dosage of the Gabapentin. Did it work? No. 

We were getting really discouraged. Five days was the longest we've ever dealt with this. I seriously contemplated how I could die instead of having to endure this unrelievable pain.

Jeremy gave me a priesthood blessing. The blessing said that I would eventually get better. We were hopeful, but feelings of discouragement crept back as the pain continued.

Should we go to the ER? We could... but what good would that do? We knew from previous experience, the ER was all bad news. We paid over $2500 out of pocket the last time I had a flare. And they barely did anything for me then.

I knew that hydrocodone worked last time. Why can't the doctor just prescribe that for me? Becuase there's stricter rules about who can have those drugs.

Jeremy was exhausted. Taking care of me was really hard because I was so irritiable and unpleasant to be around. He was at the end of his rope helping me.

My legs were very weak. I couldn't get up to pee anymore. Jeremy brought me a bowl to pee in. I got on all fours on our bed. I didn't care how stupid it looked. For Jeremy, it was traumatic.

Six days in. The pain was STILL excruciating, the increased dose of Gabapentin was taking the edge off  a little, but that only would last for 30-45 minutes. And I still could not sit up or walk without pain. The bottle said to take every 4-6 hours. 

What on earth was going on? Why wasn't my body responding to any of these pain relievers?

Jeremy went to the pot store to get me CBD gummies and oils. It was the only other thing we could think of that we hadn't tried yet. Did that work? Actually, a little bit. The cream helped take the edge off on certain parts of my leg. 

Seven days in. One whole week! We had another virtual appointment with the doctor, where I begged for different meds. They said they can't give us anything stronger. We were told that if we go to the ER, they can prescribe us something stronger like narcotics.

As much as we did NOT want to go to the ER, we decided that if this was the only way to quickly get stronger drugs, then we needed to go. One week of hell was long enough.

We arranged for the kids to sleep at the neighbors and we packed a bag for the hospital.

I knew Jeremy could carry me to the car, but the idea of trying to sit in the car or even lay in the car was not something I could accomplish with the level of pain that I had. We called the paramedics to come get me. 

Cringe for our pocket books! But halleluiah for me. They treated me really well during the ride there.

Jeremy followed the ambulance to the hospital. The paramedics got me into a room right away. 

And that's when the abuse from the nurses and doctors began. They wouldn't let Jeremy in with me because of Covid. They asked me a billion questions, and it was hard for me to answer and advocate for myself because I was so weak and exhausted from a week of constant pain. 

They minimized my testimony about how much pain I was in. They refused to do any imaging to see what was wrong with me. They gave me a fraction of the amount of pain killer that worked for me last time I was in the hospital. After 45 minutes, the pain started to come back and instead of helping me, they began to discharge me. 

Turns out, they thought I was a drug addict trying to get more drugs to abuse.

I insisted that they help me and get me medicine that will actually take the pain away. They only prescribed me with steroids and a strong dosage of IB profin. I was livid and started crying. "The only reason I bothered to come here was because my doctor said that this is the only way I could get stronger drugs. I can't keep being in pain like this!" 

They brought a wheelchair to escort me out of the ER. I said no, that I need to talk to the doctor to understand why I'm being discharged when I'm still in pain.

A security guard was called over and they told me to get in the wheelchair now.

Sitting in the wheel chair, of course, made a surge of pain shoot all up and down my leg. I screamed bloody murder and jumped out of my seat. I hobbled around sobbing, because putting pressure on my full feet also hurt. The security guard told me I have to leave now. The nurse yelled at me. I told them it's too painful to sit and I can't walk. 

I put one knee on the wheelchair seat and he rolled me out to where Jeremy was waiting. 

I was balling hysterically. I was betrayed, defeated, in absolute despair. 

There was nowhere to lay down so I collapsed on the tile floor and writhed around in pain, screaming and wailing. 

Jeremy yelled at the security and the nurses. "What the heck is going on?! Why is my wife screaming!? Where is the doctor! Why are you not helping her!??"

The doctor came out and had a conversation with Jeremy, all the while I'm still on the tile floor crying. The doctor implied that drug abuse was at play, and questioned Jermey's role in all of this. Ya know, I have been here before and I'm back again, this is a red flag for drug abuse. 

Jeremy was beside himself.

He told the truth. I have chronic back pain and I get sciatic flares. We don't know why.

I think at this point the doctor realized he was a complete dick-head. He asked us what drugs our primary care doctor gave us. When Jeremy told him the dose of the Gabapentin, he said we could take a lot more of that and still be safe. (Why hadn't the other doctors told us this!?!) 

Then, he left. We had to get ourselves out of the ER. 

Absolutely infuriating and humiliating.

I canceled another week of teaching and endured 7 more difficult days trying to manage the pain. During that week, a friend gave us some left over pain medication from her surgery that actually worked! 

Finally by day 14, I felt like my pain was manageable enough for me to pee on the toilet, walk around a little, and sit for 5 minutes at a time to eat a meal. I still had to rest a lot. 

Jeremy was deflated trying to manage our house, the kids, his job and take care of me. Fortunately, neighbors and church members brought us a few meals, which helped immensely. Friends even did grocery shopping for us and took the boys to the their YMCA camp. We were so grateful.

We signed the boys up for a YMCA enrichment camp to help make sure they were getting taken care of while Jeremy and I dealt with my issues. They enjoyed it, phew! At home, to pass the time, the boys took pictures around the house, played with the neighbors and had a lot of screen time. 

Week 3 came along. Still pain! I reluctantly canceled all my lessons again. I was getting better, but not well enough to teach. I still couldn't really do anything except walk around a little and put on CBD cream and take pills. I had lost weight and energy and muscle mass. We were not sure how to get through another week of being spread so thin.

Then, miraculously, Grandma Zavoral knocked on the door! What a surprise!! How did she get here, she was just in Texas?! Turns out that as soon as she landed home in Sacramento, she got in the car to come rescue us. 

The boys were really excited to welcome her and fix up a bed for her.   

Dallin wrote the neighbor a note explaining that he is going to play with Grandma.

Having Grandma Z here meant that Jeremy could start his job at work again. It meant that every meal was taken care of and cleaned up afterward. I was able to rest and find specialists to help diagnose what was wrong with me. 

Grandma took the boys on some really fun outings, in addition to their YMCA camp. It was a big task to find places that were open because everywhere was closing down again. They went to Balboa Park, the Botanical Gardens of San Diego (more details to come in the next blog post), the swimming pool and shopping for new clothes.

I eventually got 2 MRI's that revealed I had a severe herniated disc at L5-S1, bulging onto both sides of my spinal chord and pinching both sciatic nerves on left and right. It was very puzzling to the surgeon that the herniation was so severe, since I had no recent impact injury. Also disc degeneration and a Tarlov cycst that nobody seems to care about. 

We think that I've had a herniation for many years, as early as 2007, and it has just gotten worse and worse. This was the first ever MRI that I've had (beacuse all the prior doctors were idiots), so it is impossible to know for sure how long I've had the herniation or why it decided to go bazurk right now. The best explanation I can conjure is that I had the perfect storm- too much sugar, too much overexerting myself, and it was right before my period.

 

No cysts or abnormalities showed up with the ultrasound. Although I would not be surprised if I have endometriosis, since my chronic back pain always gets worse during pms and ovulation. 

The orthopedic surgeon said that he will prescribe me narcotics anytime I have a flare. He also ordered me physical therapy and surgery, based on how my symptoms work out over the coming weeks and months.

It felt so good to have some relief to the pain. But the effects of this episode would be with us for several months.

I'm so grateful for Jeremy, Grandma, and all our friends and church members that helped us endure this very horrible, horrible time of despair for me and my family.

School 2020-2021

School in the Fall 2020 was strange, to say the least. The school district decided to continue distance learning due to Covid. They also decided that all instruction must be synchronous, meaning it would all be done in live time on zoom. Our family soon called this "zoom school." The kids had to sit on zoom calls for 3 hours every day. Ridiculous right? This was way more zoom time than any other district in our area. We were completely beside ourselves. 

The boys' teachers did all they could to make it a positive experience. Praises to them for all their hard work and sacrifice! As a teacher myself doing online instruction during the pandemic, I had a ton of empathy for them. I knew how extremely exhausted and frustrated they were, and how much they were investing emotionally into making zoom school work.

But as we all know, school on a computer doesn't work for all students, and that included my children. The zooming itself created a ton of anxiety for both of our boys, each in different ways. 

Tanner was actually learning a few new things during his zoom classes (the biggest success being cursive!),  BUT he struggled with the unnatural ways of interacting with his class online... 

"Mom, do I have to keep the camera on the whole time? I don't like it when everyone is looking at me while I need to doodle so that I can pay attention, and I don't like how they can see me doing that." 

"UGH, that one kid has their mic un-muted AGAIN and I can't hear anything the teacher is saying!" 

"Mom, when the teacher asks something, there is a big long pause and then two people answer at the same time even though she called on a certain kid, and we can't hear anything. And then they all have to repeat what they said. It's such a waist of time. If we were in a real classroom, everyone would know their turn to talk so much easier." 

"Our teacher got booted off the meeting again, so we are just sitting here waiting." 

"I don't even know any of the kids in my class. Can we do a playdate with them? Except I don't even know them...I don't have any friends." 

"I wish we could watch the teacher in a video, because then all the easy stuff I can listen to in double time and have extra time to play outside, and the stuff I can't understand, I could watch it twice."

"MOM! She put us in smaller groups on the zoom call and I don't know what to say!? AH!"

Tanner also got upset when he had to miss class for therapy and other reasons. He felt like he couldn't get caught up during the next zoom call and would have huge outbursts and meltdowns about not knowing how to do something. Even though I tried to get him caught up before the next lessons, he would not listen to me and would let his anxiety take over. Yelling, crying, falling on the ground, hyperventilating. In all reality, he was never behind, because I knew exactly what the lessons were.

I did my best to help Tanner work through these frustrations. We talked with his teacher about being able to have his camera off, and she was very accommodating. I wrote letters to the principal and district asking for options to allow the teachers to record their teaching. We were told that teachers are not allowed to record the zoom meetings for privacy reasons and the cant post videos for contract reasons. 

At the end of the day, Tanner was right. None of this was natural or productive way to learn. None of this was equitable or helpful for any of his needs. And quite frankly, this was inhumane for children.

I wrote more letters to the school board, and wrote public comments that were shared during public board meetings, asking for more options to help our kids. If not in-person options, then to at least allow recording and posting videos. But no responses or answers were ever given. I started following a parent group called Reopen SDUSD, and signed their petition to provide in-person options for our kids.

Not suprisingly, Tanner was having meltdowns daily, and it was harder and harder to calm him down. He made more suicide comments and threats, similar to when school was online in the spring. He needed more breaks and heavy work in between zoom calls, making it really upsetting on him to miss even more class. 

Also, doing any of the independent work was a nightmare for him. His anxiety was through the roof. He cried when we help him, he cried when we let him do it alone. He fought and screamed and punched and threw supplies. He'd run into the kitchen to grab anything sharp and threaten to "kill myself because I'm stupid and a bad kid."

It was devastating.

Dallin hated zoom too, but in a different way.

He didn't want anything to do with the zoom classes. To no fault of his own, he had a really hard time staying engaged in his lessons and when something was either too slow or too challenging, he would leave the room or turn off his computer. I would often find him reading books with his camera off during his zoom lessons. It sure felt weird to tell my kid to stop reading during his "school" time. 

It didn't take long for Dallin to figure out that his school laptop allowed him to watch YouTube videos and play video games during the zoom calls. This created SO many challenges and power struggles for us. It got to a point where we simply could not let him do zoom school unless we were sitting right next to him, which between our two work schedules and managing Tanner's issues was 20 minutes a day if we were lucky. 

When we COULD watch him like a hawk, Dallin would do everything he could to get out of the zoom class. He would do the work rushed and sloppy, beg to leave, mess up the supplies, push and kick us, scream and fight, throw stuff at me, and it always ended in big tears for everyone. We tried to be stern with him and create incentives for him, but none of that made any sense to him... or to me! Why force a 7 year old boy to sit in front of a screen for 3 hours with 30 strangers and expect him to read and write and learn? Any idiot can recognize this is not how children learn!

The good news was that Dallin WOULD work on assignments with us away from the zoom calls. He would even do some of the stuff independently. We would get his work done very quickly because it was too easy for him. But don't get me started on how annoying it was to try taking pictures of his work an posting it on their school online platform called SeeSaw. Agh!

Distance learning was wrong on so many levels. I continued to write letters, speak out and sign petitions. 

And still we kept trying to make it work. I'm not sure why I felt like we should give it our best effort, but we certainly felt pressure to, and we certainly DID give it our best effort.

I'm still amazed that we endured this nonsense for 7 whole weeks! 

SEVEN weeks. A very dark and challenging time for our family, which still has its affect on us today.

I regret giving it so much effort. I regret not finding alternative education sooner.

People kept saying it would get easier each week, and I really wanted to believe that. For our family, this advice was wrong!

We also had faith that the district would reopen by mid- October because many other neighboring districts were. Our faith was in vain.

With much sadness, we finally withdrew our children from their school and the district. A part of me felt like we were abandoning our great teachers and school community. We appreciated them so much. There was a deep sense of loss there. Even Tanner was sad about leaving, despite how much he hated zoom school. 

We had to remind ourselves that the district had abandoned us. We needed to do what was best for our family.

After lots of research, we figured out how to create our own private school affidavit (homeschool) and get our kids on the road to detoxing from zoom. My biggest goal for homeschooling was to minimize the continued trauma that our family was facing during the pandemic. 

We had considered enrolling them in private school. There was still so much up in the air at this point on whether that made sense for us. Schools reopening and closing all the time. It was a tough decision, and hindsight, it might have been better to put the kids in private school. I'm not sure. But we did what knew best to do with the information we had.

Our first day of homeschool was Oct 19! 

We named our school Renegade Elementary, which is a name I've been keeping in mind for a charter school I might open someday. The name seemed especially fitting with our given circumstances.

We immediately noticed a difference in the frequency and intensity of power struggles and meltdowns in the home. It was SO wonderful to have the stress of zoom school lifted from our shoulders. It took about 2 months for the boys to completely detox from the zoom fatigue. 

I loved having a better sense of control over our lives-- something that Covid had stolen from us for all too long. I could let the boys play outside for a couple hours at a time and there was no stress or fear about what they were missing or had to make up. We could hop over to the zoo or beach or park whenever we wanted and incorporate mini-lessons throughout the outings that applied to the things we were learning.

Most school days at Renegade Elem consisted of lots of play time and STEM time, reading time and math activities. Then we rotated through subjects like science, social studies, art, music, typing, cursive, and field trips. 

I had no problem coming up with lessons and curriculum for the kids, some of which I'm sure will be blogged about in the coming months. Reading science and social studies books to the boys was my favorite. Math was easy to teach because we had their math textbooks from school. It was nice being able to let the boys test out of different chapters that they already knew, and to do the chapters in a customized order and pacing.

We continued doing lessons with the grandparents and aunties online that we had started at the beginning of the year. By the end of the school year they had done:

WWII class with Gpa Papa, 

How the Body Works with Auntie Desha, 

World Cultures with Gma Nana, 

Field Trips and Powerpoints with Uncle Matt, 

Mystery Food Science with Aunt Katie, 

Bucket Drumming with me and other students,

Language Arts Time with Taryn

Also, Tanner took All About Elections with Uncle Clay and Auntie Tanya and did Reading Buddies with Gpa Papa (they finished two Hardy's Boys books together)

The boys also participated in a few YMCA enrichment classes interspersed throughout the school year, where they got to be around other kids. Also, our school year continued into the summer, where we kept on with math and writing to make sure we covered everything needed. The boys got to do a lot of summer camps which added to their homeschool experience.

Not gonna lie, it wasn't all rainbows and roses. We still had meltdowns and power struggles. The boys complained about their work at least once a day. But the frequency and intensity of the power struggles were much lower than when we were trying zoom school. Every time that we reminded them how bad it used to be to sit on a zoom call with their class, they agreed that homeschool wasn't so bad.

Turns out that our district never opened up to a normal in-person schedule during this whole school year. They allowed students to come in-person for only 9 weeks in the spring, but the kids still had to do zoom lessons and online assignments. 

I am SO glad we got out of the system when we did. My only regret is that we didn't get out sooner. It was absolutely criminal what our district officials imposed upon our children, teachers, and families.

No doubt, the 2020-2021 school year was a major refiner's fire for everyone, including our family. 

I did my best to give my babies the best year they could have. It wasn't anything close to perfect. It wasn't even ideal. 

But it was the very best we could give them. 

I hope that Tanner and Dallin remember all the good times we had, along with the bad. 

The thing I want them to remember the most is that we worked through really tough times and found ways to make the most of it. Lots more pictures to come as I blog about life throughout the rest of the school year, but here's a few from when we first got started with homeschool.