Jennifer Briggs

This update is dedicated to my aunt J. who was recently placed in hospice care. In addition to reading my updates and cheering for our journey all along, she and my uncle financially supported the Sarah-Rise Program and made it feel easily possible to do whatever we thought could be most helpful for Sarah. My… Read more »

I know I haven’t been able to find all lost things, but the number of times I have found Sarah’s lost rings and the manner in which I have found them astounds me. Yesterday she lost a favorite ring while playing in a large pile of leaves at our house. I found the ring after… Read more »

From the recent concerns about Sarah’s lack of appetite and weight loss to the current issue of her being “pausenated” (constipated) we are having a serious case of deja poo. Sigh. I never thought we would be dealing with these issues again and here we are. The good news is Sarah’s appetite is definitely better even if not… Read more »

Due to Sarah’s notably decreased appetite, we stopped the Prilosec (for acid reflux) and Allegra (for seasonal allergies) for Sarah (with the blessing of the pediatrician even though she didn’t think that was the issue). We reduced the Oxcarbazepine (for seizures; under the guidance of her neurologist to slowly wean off of it). We stopped… Read more »

On Monday Carl was working from home since Amy was home sick and I had clients. When it was time to fix lunch he went to leave his laundry room home office only to discover that the doorknob no longer impacted the latch in any way. So even though that door doesn’t have a lock,… Read more »

First, I want to follow up on the whole bathroom screaming situation – when Sarah screams and pounds on the door if Amy is in the bathroom. When I last wrote about it it had seemingly miraculously stopped after Carl, Amy, and I decided we would ignore it completely if it happened. Well. I knew… Read more »

This has been one of the craziest weeks I can remember. Sarah has yet to attend school for a full week since school started at the end of August. This week she missed two days in full and one partially. I kept her home on Monday because, though her covid test was negative, she was… Read more »

This past week was a much better week and I’ve been feeling great overall. I had a helpful talk with Samahria (the original Son-Rise mom). I said all of the things that I hadn’t wanted to fully admit to anyone about just how deeply I could resent my sweet Sarah for her condition, her behaviors,… Read more »

Last weekend as we finished our camping trip, we had one more afternoon at the beach. It was wet and rainy and not all that warm, but we still had a good time. Amy, with some help from Carl, made herself a mermaid tail out of sand. Sarah wandered over to a park sign and… Read more »

Five. That is the number of medications Sarah now takes every morning. Then three every evening. A week ago it was three in the morning and two in the evening. Plus one in the afternoon. So it’s not really that much of a jump but it feels like a lot, especially when camping as we… Read more »