Haven't been on here to post a blog in a while. Now that I have no aide anymore I feel much better. Nothing much has been going on with me besides the fact that I take the SATs this weekend. I'm phsyched about it but at the same time I'm nervous as well. I hope to do well but I am going to sign up for the ACTs as well soon so that I have both to use. I still have a whole year of school left after this year before I go to college so I still have time to retake both if the need be. I'm trying to get out the house more since I never really go anywhere and I'm always cooped up in the house.  Tonight I'm going to the basketball game since our team is going to state and if they win the game tonight they have to play against a couple of other teams that are in the top to compete for first place. The only thing is the game is in Lakeland, which is two hours away, and we won't be getting back until late tonight. I guess my mom is just glad to see that I'm trying to get out of the house and do something though which is why she's letting me go. She didn't believe that I was really going to go. For the next two or three weeks my weekends will be booked. Besides the SATs I won't be doing anything else this weekend unless something comes up between now and then but the weekend after this one I will be going out of town for a club that I'm in called CECF. It's a career club that's associated with BPA and we compete with students from other schools in my state in different career related categories. Depending on which event it is the first few places that win will go to state if that specific category is in the state competition. I will try to post another blog soon though.

So, after ten million years of having to call up to the school and everything they FINALLY got around to changing things around so that I don't have to have an aide. It's funny that they wouldn't when my family kept asking them to do so but as soon as the lady who is over the program for children with disabilities called up there they got around to it. She said that the assistant principals didn't even HAVE the power to do all of that and they kept taking it too far. She also said the lady who is over the school buses caused all the problems in the first place by saying that since she'd never seen me before she assumed that I needed an aide without first actually going to my parents about it which is probably where the whole thing about them lying saying my mother wanted me to have an aide comes in. I'm just glad I don't have to put up with having two different aides following after me like I'm some kind of special case or something. Now if I could just get them to switch my bus around so that I won't have to miss class time during my last class because they make me leave early because the bus I ride goes to a school for kids with serious physical and mental disabilities and if I'm not out there on HER time she'll leave me which kind of pisses me off because then I'd have no way home if she leaves me.

I know I made a blog with questions once before but now I have more questions. Does anyone know anything about getting a leg with a bendable foot? Also I'd like information about different places that manufacture newer and more comfortable prostheses that are made of a softer material maybe because, though I'm glad that Shriner's does free legs, I will be 18 soon and I would like a more comfortable leg that isn't so hard and painful sort of when I sit down because of the hardness of the leg and because of a piece that sort of pokes out which makes it uncomfortable whenever I sit down.

After ALL this time of calling up to my school and trying to contact my principal my grandmother finally got through. She's been calling for the past month or so and he was never there and nobody ever called back. They are having a meeting and my grandmother wants me to be there. The principal keeps making up crappy excuses about the law requiring that I have an aide and this and that which my grandmother doesn't believe one word of and quite frankly neither do I. I've never had an aide in my life up until this point so until I have proof that it's required I will believe otherwise. The principal tried to out talk my grandmother which did not work at all. She fed him a whole lot of things about how if they keep it up she will take it to the newspaper and the school board. I believe it all has alot to do with my mother requesting a bus for me this year since before this year they kept telling me they don't have a bus for my neighborhood because we live too close to the high school, when the high school is about the same distance away from where I live as the middle school and they have a bus for the middle school. Well, my mother and I thought they were going to give me a regular bus but they turned around and gave me a disability bus. I've NEVER had to ride a disability bus for as long as I've been riding the bus to school. They are going through all of this only because they KNOW that, being that my leg was amputated and I have a prosthesis, they get extra money towards the school because of this. The principal and assistant principal keep making up excuses about not wanting me to get hurt to cover that up. I don't see why they want me to have an aide now of all times when it's almost time for me to graduate and I'm in my last two years of school. They lied saying that my mother requested that I have an aide which was, in fact, a lie. To add onto it the principal keeps coming up with crap about how he isn't responsible for my other schools in the past not giving me an aide and how he doesn't want to get sued if something happens to me. I understand what he means but come on let's be real. The most that has EVER happened to me has been that pieced of my leg have come a loose and, REALLY now, what can an aide do? It's not like the aide can fix my prosthesis for me so what good is she going to do? Whenever that does happen I can do what I have ALWAYS done in the past which was go to the office and call my mother to come pick me of from school with no problems and leave it at that. So what can an AIDE possibly do but be in the way? I feel like they are treating me like I'm mentally disabled rather than physically. Especially the aide, who talks to me like I'm stupid and can't understand a word she says then wonders why I look at her crazy without giving a response and talks about how I'm "cranky" and have an attitude all the time. My family has done their best to treat me normally and so has the people at my schools in the past so why should they treat me any different now? And, get this, the principal they switched to our school this year is the SAME exact principal I had in middle school and he NEVER tried to give me an aide back then so I don't understand WHY, people, WHY is he trying to change it up now and make it seem like it required that I have one? They shouldn't even be ALLOWED to push an aide on me without my mother's permission. Hopefully this meeting that we will have this week will make a BIG difference because I would really like to spend my senior year at school with my friends and not have to miss out on senior activities because of an aide hindering me. Especially since I've been complaining since the beginning of the school year and they have yet to take me seriously.

Can anyone help me, I go to Shriners, have been since I was 1 yr old. I'm a junior in school, when I turn 18 they will make 1 last leg. My mom is worried about how she will pay for a new leg, they are very expensive. She has a job with the state with good insurance, but does insurance cover prosthetics? Also if anyone can give me more information about C-Legs I would greatly appreciate it.