Did you see that streak go by?

Wy-man is bumping up to full-time at school... on Monday!

He did a couple of short days at school this week, and the next thing I knew, Nancy was talking to the speech therapist about when he could be there full-time. Because he really wanted to be. While going back to school was a little tough, being the one that left early kept him a bit out of the usual daily experience of all his pals, and really didn't seem necessary -- to him. Nancy talked to the counselor at the school, who gently probed "Who wants this to happen?" because he wanted to make sure it wasn't Wiley's parents pushing for him to be back so soon. "HE does!"

Within another hour or so, Nancy panicked, wondering whether this was really the right decision. She called Kay, Wiley's speech therapist while he was in the hospital. "Is this a bad idea? Is it too soon? Should I make him wait?" "Nancy," said Kay, understanding the real nature of the anxiety, "You can't break him. He'll be ok."

So, Wiley's back in school, soon to be full-time. The first day, not all of his teachers knew his circumstance. (Information system failure.) His algebra teacher, in fact, informed him that he was going to get a D- because he had missed so much school. (I guess she somehow managed to overlook the major scar on his head.) A couple more days, and things are mostly getting sorted out. He's dropped Spanish for this year, and he can't blow a tuba until January, so orchestra class will have to be satisfied with standup bass playing by Wiley for awhile. He's meantime working away on his own time, too, striving to make up for lost time with some outside help from his private bass teacher. "But," he says, "that Bach concerto is really hard."

Wiley can see best on his left side, because his left eye has a hard time tracking to the right. So you mostly see that side of his face when he talks to you, and he needs to sit on the right side of the classroom to follow what's going on at the front. (Of course, since he started school late, and kids seem to get locked into their seats, he doesn't have a lot of choice about where he's ended up sitting. It's not always in the best spot.) His eye doctor does think that the vision issues will clear up, and if they don't, surgery could fix them. His eye issue and the scar are by far, so far, his biggest apparent souvenirs of this wild journey he's taken us all on -- and for that we can all be grateful.