November 19th, 2008
My daughter is 2 years old and has a sensory integration disorder. Our insurance will pay for 20 sessions of occupational therapy a year and, if she is diagnosed as being autistic, she can receive 20 sessions of speech therapy a year.
We currently have two options for her therapy. The first is a pediatric rehabilitation clinic at one of the local hospitals. She is currently getting occupational therapy through them and we go to their clinic and play in their sensory gym. The second option is to receive speech and occupational therapies through the school distict that we live in. We have had her evaluated and are currently waiting for a therapist to be assigned to us.
The first option, the pediatric rehabilitation clinic, did Baby Bear’s first evaluation to find out if she was autistic. The pediatrician sat Papa Bear, Grammy and Paw Paw, and I down in a room and discussed what she had seen in the evaluation. We also were able to ask questions of her regarding particular diagnoses. The pediatrician told us that she didn’t want to give Baby Bear a diagnosis of autism at this time because she was too young, however she gave us the option of the diagnosis due to what our health insurance would pay if she received the diagnosis.
After we turned down the autism diagnosis, the pediatrician gave her the diagnosis of being developmentally delayed with concerns for autism. We put Baby Bear on the list for occupational therapy and recieved an application for financial assistance through Scottish Rite, a Masonic organization.
Baby Bear is currently receiving occupational therapy twice a week from the clinic. We will go back to once a week next year and, hopefully, once the 20 sessions are up, find a way to pay for them, be it through our own pockets or grandparents willing to help. She has been approved for financial assistance through Scottish Rite and will be beginning speech therapy in January.
The second option, through the school district, also performed an evaluation. I was told by an early education specialist that Baby Bear was eligible for services and I met my Resource Exhange guide who is supposed to take care of setting up a therapist for Baby Bear.
The first therapist decided that, since her child went to the same day care that Baby Bear goes to and where we would want the therapy to be held, she would be “uncomfortable” with giving her therapy because she didn’t want the teachers to think badly about her. No joke - that’s the reason she gave. Needless to say, she wasn’t the right one for us. A few days later, I received a paper to sign that states our goals for Baby Bear haven’t changed, only the provider has.
After two weeks, I contacted the guide at the Resource Exchange and told her we still hadn’t heard anything from anyone else. She was apologetic and told me that she had 28 more days to find a therapist for Baby Bear before she “got into trouble.” She called back the next day, telling me that she had a therapist available, but only on Saturdays at 11:30am which would make it impossible for us to ever do anything on the weekends when Papa Bear doesn’t have to work.
Note: the first option is private pay. Our insurance doesn’t cover everything but it covers some and we are very grateful to the Scottish Rite organization for their financial assistance.
The second option is our tax dollars at work through the public school system and the school district we live in.
Why again do people want Universal Healthcare?
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November 12th, 2008
Today Natasha and I went back to the occupational therapist. I’m beginning to like Lynnea more and more as time goes on. I think my initial reaction was because I was skeptical after I saw how everything worked. I was skeptical that this would work.
I believe it has. And I don’t think I’m just saying that because I’m expected to - I honestly believe that it has helped.
Natasha loved the ball pit last week and this week she got to jump in it again. We jumped on the trampoline… which I happened to love and as I was jumping, Natasha got onto the trampoline and it seemed like every time I jumped, she was flopping around like a fish out of water. She and I both were giggling and laughing.
She has learned to put the balls in the basket in the bathtub and she’ll even take them out of the basket, let them float in the water, and then put them back :) She can take off her shoes (we have shoes with velcro we’ve been using) with a litle help as well as her socks. Lynnea says that she does an excellent job with the “hand over hand” technique. I’m so proud of my baby!
Oh! And she actually asked Lynnea to help her put the peg in the pegboard :) Lynnea gave her a peg to put in the board and she looked at it then touched Lynnea’s hand to tell her she wanted help doing it :) She did this to me also a few times when playing with the pegs. So exciting!
Lynnea is giving us information on a special needs playgroup and I may call and get more info about it. Plus I’m going to buy a book from them, “The Everything Guide to Sensory Integration Disorder,” and read up on what Tom and I can do to help Natasha. I do know that I think we shouldn’t stop occupational therapy. I think it IS helping and I think Natasha enjoys the time we get to spend there.
Tomorrow, we go back (as our insurance will pay for 20 sessions a calendar year and we just started) around 8:30am-9:30am. This time, we’re going to take her into the pool - and we know how much she loves the water :) We took her in to see the pool today and when we left, she got so mad because she wanted to still play with the water. I can’t wait for tomorrow :) A family Y membership may be something we look into next year if she really likes this. Wish I could find a sensory gym somewhere just to take her and play.
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November 2nd, 2008
While I’m busy typing away at my laptop for NaNoWriMo (see my other blog), my dear sweet fabulous wonderful husband, Papa Bear, has been so doggone wonderful the past two days that when he hollered for me from Baby Bear’s room today and told me he needed me, I woke up from my nap to see what was wrong.
Natasha, our precious darling Baby Bear, had managed to pull off her diaper and pooped on the bed.
Now, understand, this wasn’t just any old poop. I could have handled a little poop. No problem. She got it all over everything - we were lucky that she didn’t get it on the walls at least. I had this vision of her smearing poop on the walls and Tom and I trying to scrub it off without bringing the paint with it. We threw away her abacus simply because it’s wooden and I didn’t want her playing with it, even if we washed it, after she had gotten poop all over it. So I’ll buy her a new one tomorrow.
I love my little Baby Bear.
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October 31st, 2008
We had another occupational therapy session on Wednesday and I suppose it went well. I’m not really certain exactly how I should be judging these sessions. I know that I kinda enjoy them because I get to play with Natasha and learn different things to do with her, but… it doesn’t really seem like this is THERAPY. I’m not quite sure about all this, but it feels like I could do this myself. Almost like someone is teaching me to parent my child.
Well, for now, that’s fine. I want to get some instruction on how to do things with her, whether she’s really autistic or not. Currently, my heart is swinging towards NOT, but again, we’ll see.
So, she and Lynnea were on a swing for a while. And then, back to the trampoline. Natasha and I bounced on the trampoline while Lynnea went to get a couple brushes and instructions. She wants us to try something called, “the Wilbarger Protocol,” where you take a special brush (looks like a newborn hair brush) and brush up and down each part of her body and then do some joint compressions. It’s supposed to “calm and organize the nervous system.” 
So, as skeptical as I tend to be, guess what I’m doing after every diaper change? Yay. Not completely sure as to exactly how this helps, but if Lynnea wants to try it, why not?
And for a few days, we had a speech therapist through the early education program for D11. She backed out. Want to know why?
Her daughter goes to the same daycare that Natasha does. She said that she’s been a parent there for over five years and she wouldn’t feel comfortable telling one of the teachers what to do. Because teachers talk to one another. And if she told the teacher to do something that the teacher didn’t like… um… she’d talk. I don’t know. All I know is that if I get a reaction like that from someone who’s supposed to be a “professional,” I’ll take someone else, thankyouverramuch. I don’t want someone who’s more concerned with what the TEACHERS would say than what’s best for Natasha. So, all in all, I have no problem with it.
I simply find it amusing. And I’m hoping that the next person will be more concerned with Natasha’s well-being rather than what the people around her think about her.
But I really am confused here. What exactly is she going to tell the teachers at Hope to do that will cause them to reflect so poorly on her?? That’s what I don’t get. Any ideas? Suggestions?
Ok, so a couple more things for this Natasha update. First, as you can tell by the pictures to the left and on lower, Tom and I took Natasha for a walk around the apartment complex on her new tricycle that Grammy B. and Grampy gave her for her birthday. She’s not quite sure what to think about it, but I think that, given time, she’ll love it. The idea of a tricycle with a handle for the parents to push is interesting and I’d never seen one when Grampy mentioned it to me. When Natasha gets older, we can remove the handle.
What we need to do is get her skates on her too. The biggest obstacle to all this that I see is this weekend marks the end of Daylight Savings Time. We will lose an hour of daylight. And in the long dark cold winters of Colorado, the sun will already have set behind Pikes Peak around 4:30 pm. Yes, in the afternoon. It gets dark here far, far too early and any time for us to take Natasha outside to play is quickly going away. It’ll be dark when Tom gets home at 5:30. So why didn’t Colorado opt out of the whole returning to Standard Time? I have no idea.
Second, Natasha is becoming fairly adept at basketball. Surprise for all you people who think we’re not going to teach her any sports! She may become a professional basketball player. We’ll have to wait and see.
In her bathtub, she has a small basketball set: three balls (red, purple, and yellow) and a hoop we stick to the side of the bathtub. Holding out the balls, I’ll ask her to put the ball in the basket and she takes one, stands up, put it in the basket, and sits back down in the water. She’ll do that for all three balls and then do it again. And again. And again. And she’ll take my hand and push it up to the basket to indicate that she wants to do it again.
Night before last, when she first did this, I think we were in the bathtub for 30 - 45 minutes doing this because I was so excited. It’s been so long since I felt like we had seen any real improvement in her… and that’s frustrating. So her new found love for basketball is probably going to lead to longer bathtimes and Mommy searching out other toys and balls and buckets to put things into. I need to find a shape sorter (or get her one for Christmas).
We love our little girl. Dearly.
Categories: District 11, Hope, OT, Ped Rehab, Speech Therapy |
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October 24th, 2008
Yet another examination. This time there were six women in the room and a couple who wandered in an out at times. I was asked to give a “Day in the Life of Natasha” talk, from the time she woke up until the time she went to bed at night, how did she did with separation anxiety, did she have any eating problems, what did day care say about her during the day, etc, etc, etc. Same ol’ stuff, different day.
We did find out that Natasha is indeed eligible for early education services and again, it’s only my own personal bias against the public school system that makes me worry. She is going to be receiving occupational therapy from Memorial Hospital’s Pediatric Rehabilitation clinic, at least through the end of this year. And I’ve spoken with my contact from the Resource Exchange (one of the six people to evaluate Natasha) and she said that they do try to bill our private insurance but if the insurance company turns them down, services are provided anyway through taxpayer funds. We are going to take the 20 occupational therapy sessions that United lets us have and then we are going to go through the Early Education program through the school district. I honestly think that this is the best idea for now, anyway. We will see what happens later and we can always modify what doesn’t seem to be working.
More interesting to me than the evaluation (which was exhausting) was a couple of the suggestions by the school psychologist. She suggested to play soothing music in Natasha’s room when she goes to bed at night and reserve the specific music we play for that winding down process only. Natasha still bangs her head on the crib to get to sleep and the psychologist said that lots of kids who do that will slow their head banging down to the pace of the music being played and eventually the music may replace the stimulation of the head banging to put her to sleep. This is definitely a suggestion that I am going to implement but I have to find the right music. I am probably going to see if Tom and I can buy a cheap CD player to put in her room at night and I can always find children’s CDs.
Another suggestion was to substitute a teething toy or a popsicle or something that Natasha CAN lick whenever she starts to lick inappropriate things. I’m not super-convinced of how to do this but she said that it would help reinforce that there are objects she can lick and objects that she shouldn’t. That sounds like it will take 110% of my energy as Natasha tends to lick EVERYTHING, but I think the whole idea might be a good one. I don’t necessarily want to always give her food when she starts to lick something but maybe there is something we can do? I’ll have to look around at the store and see what I can find.
Tonight, at dinner, Tom gave Natasha a lemon. And she ate it. No flinching, no grimacing. She loved it and tore into it like there was no tomorrow. :) I love my little girl.
Categories: District 11, Evaluations |
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October 22nd, 2008
So, not only was today Natasha’s first visit with an occupational therapist, but it was also the first snowfall of the winter. Yes, you did indeed read that correctly. We had an inch (or less) of snow this morning when we woke up and I stood out in the freezing cold and wind, scraping ice and snow off my car while Natasha sat warm in the backseat, waiting for me. Ugh, I’m not ready for this. At all.
Today was Natasha’s first day of occupational therapy and it seemed to go pretty well. What has happened is that on Friday we are supposed to meet with the Early Education people from the District 11 school system in Colorado Springs. Well, it feels like this is taking far, FAR too long and Tom and I decided that we would go ahead and use our health insurance to cover the alotted occupational therapy sessions at Memorial Hospital’s Pediatric Rehabilitation clinic here in the Springs. I’m also wondering about the quality of service from the public school system, but that’s just my dislike for the public schools that I have been a part of. I’ve heard good things about the public schools in the Springs, so I’m crossing my fingers that what I heard was correct.
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August 26th, 2008
It’s when Natasha Bear wakes up in the middle of the night that she scares me and worries me most.
Last night was one of those nights.
I should have made sure that the monitor’s volume was up loud enough that I could hear her.
When I finally woke up, she was crying and crying, like something had hurt her. I rushed to her room and she stood up in bed when she saw me, still crying, a hitch having formed in her voice.
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August 24th, 2008
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
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