To those who know our family well, you know there’s rarely a slow moment. It’s been that way from the start, and this summer and early fall are no exception. Jackson moved home, got a job and travels often between home and Purdue to see friends and his girlfriend who are still up there. We have season football tickets (let’s NOT talk about Purdue FB this year), and women’s basketball season tickets and a couple volleyball and mens basketball games thrown in there for extra fun. We’ve been to a record (for us) number of concerts this calendar year, with another one yet to come – a for King & Country Christmas concert at the Grand Ol’ Opry in Nashville on December 20. Todd’s work is busy as ever and the private practice is doing phenominal.
Tommi started having some medical issues this summer – painful joints, headaches, hot flashes and more. Two specialists think it’s related to leaky-gut ; we’re still searching for answers.
In August Tommi started attending the Culinary Arts program at J Everett Light in Indianapolis. It’s less than a mile from my office, so I drop Tommi off at 8:20am and pick him up at 11:15am and he spends the afternoon at my office “doing homework” He is loving the Culinary program and has even been able to work in the student-run cafe twice already since it opened mid-October. The program has been a blessing to date. Tommi’s confidence is growing, his interactions with other people in-person are improving and his problem solving and ability to manage anxiety is also improving. He went on a fieldtrip to visit the Culinary program at IVY Tech with his program and without me!
Tommi and I went on a college visit in September to Vincennes University. I was pretty sure as we drove further away from home, he’d decide maybe Vincennes was too far away, but he was unfazed. We met with the head chef of the Culinary Arts program, and we had a personal presentation about the university from an Admissions counselor. Did you know Vincennes is the oldest university in Indiana? Founded in 1801 by former President William Henry Harrison!
And currently we are in the process of raising money to be able to provide Tommi with a psychiatric service dog. Not many service dog organizations train psychiatric service dogs for people with Autism/Anxiety/Depression. I did a lot of research 2 years ago and Tommi was turned down by every organization but 1. 2 years later, Tommi’s interest again spiked about doing this and we’ve found two organizations who we are talking to. One in Iowa, Superstar Service Dogs, has an amazing owner who I’ve spoken to several times and who I feel very comfortable with. She identified the type of dog she’d recommend for Tommi and she was absolutely positive they can train the dog that Tommi needs to make him comfortable and independent moving foward. The second organization is Medical Mutts here in Indianapolis. Tommi and I have an interview with them a week from tomorrow. Pros is that it’s right here in our backyard…we’ll see if there are any cons next week.
We’ve been blessed to have 13 donations made so far – what an amazing gift from those 13 donators! We will continue to share and spread the word…and we will keep you all updated on our progress. We’re almost to the point now where we can start looking for the puppy once we finalize the organization we’re moving forward with. As I say in all of our sharing of the GoFundMe posts, if you can’t donate we understand, everything is so expensive right now – sharing the GoFundMe and praying with us for this service dog who will join Tommi’s life is so welcome!
It's trichy in here 