More Health and Education news

It’s been a while and I’d better catch up!

On the health front, Isaac had a follow up visit with his Urologist and so far everything seems great. They want to see him one more time in 6 months to confirm that everything remained normal and that would probably be the last visit.

Physical Therapy has been going quite well since his third visit. The therapists work hard in the beginning to gain the kids’ trust and to be seen as an authority figure. Lori took Isaac for his first session and they let her into the gym, but since then, I’ve always remained in the waiting room while they worked together. They have been making him wear a weighted vest and it seems to have worked wonders for his concentration. I think we need to get us one at home! We really wanted to start Occupational Therapy but they’re backed up at the hospital. Our medical benefits have changed for next year and we won’t be able to do much O.T. without forking a ton of money out of pocket as Medical Insurance will only cover a limited amount (I think it’ll be used up within a few weeks). In my opinion the cost of therapy is ridiculously high. If I’m not mistaken the full cost is about $190 for a 40 minute session. Yikes!

We got a call about an appointment that opened up last week so we had our Developmental Evaluation moved up. This was great news as it meant we only paid the coinsurance amount for Isabella and nothing for Isaac since he’s met the maximum out of pocket for the year. The psychologist didn’t seem to have major concerns and educated us a bit more about FAS/FAE. From what we were told, it seems that a diagnosis of FAS is only done based on the presence of a number of facial features. In the case of the twins, this doesn’t seem to be applicable. So even though exposure has been confirmed, FAS as a diagnosis is probably not likely, although effects of such exposure cannot be excluded and are unknown, as they manifest themselves throughout the developmental years at various levels of intensity. We were encouraged by the observations made and hope to keep helping the kids progress. We were encouraged to read “Parenting the Strong-Willed Child” and seek further assistance if needed. And yes, we’re talking about Isabella here, who was originally portrayed as the angel of the two! My, how things have changed.

Some of the behaviors we described were quite normal for kids their age. This was helpful news as we don’t have other children to compare to! As new parents, it’s quite difficult to navigate your way through and figure out what’s considered normal and what could be a “symptom” or potential problem. We were also advised to look into PPCD (Pre-School Programs for Children with Disabilities) due to the delays present, speech issues, etc. We’re not sure Isabella will qualify, but tomorrow a diagnostician from the Elementary School in our area and someone else will go observe the kids at Pre-School to determine if further evaluation is necessary. If that is the case, they might then be admitted into such program for 5 days a week, half days.

The nice thing about this program is that it targets areas of development such as Speech, O.T., Gross Motor skills etc. which can help them catch up. This is particularly important for Isaac. In the current pre-school they don’t get that kind of specialized tutoring. As part of PPCD, educators work an individualized educational plan to strengthen their deficiencies so they perform better once they join kindergarten. Also, just because they join PPCD doesn’t mean they’ll always need special education from now on. However this might give them the required crash-course/jolt to offset the shortcomings of their early developmental years. We’ll see where this goes in the coming days.

Finally today I decided to call and see if we could move Isaac’s Neurology appointment before the end of the year (lost count how many times I tried). Luckily someone had cancelled and we’re now scheduled for a visit on the10th of December, the same day as his speech evaluation. That’s great news for us as from what we understand, Neurology ain’t cheap! The more we can do this year, the more that will be available next year for other things.