Jared and MaKenzie have always had Occupational, Speech, and Physical Therapy. Always--since they were tiny babies. At first, their therapists were assigned through First Steps, a program through the state, which provides early intervention services to children ages birth through 3 years. The idea is that once they turn three, they will enroll in preschool or Head Start and will receive services through the public school system and will continue receiving services there until they have graduated, or completed their schooling.
When we lived in Oneida, services were sparse to non-existent; we might have seen therapists a handful of times. But once we made the move to Paintsville, we had a slew of services tailored to each child's needs. Our physical therapist, Deb, was wonderful! She came like clockwork at 7:30 am one morning each week for about a year or two. We also had an awesome speech therapist, Claudia who came once a week around 1:00 in the afternoon on a different day. Then there was the occupational therapist (we had 2 different ones who were both really good) who came around 5:00 pm on yet a different day. The early interventionist (a fancy name for a play therapist) came on still another day. Then, of course there were 2 social worker visits each week.
There for about 2 or 3 years, we had 6-7 different in-home visits from various professionals each week. Those visits were excellent for Jared and MaKenzie, and I truly believe that they have made the progress they have thanks to those therapists and the things they taught us to do to care for our children's special needs.
But there was one problem. I felt like our whole family and our schedule was at their mercy. To a degree, this was certainly true and partly unavoidable--after all, the therapists and social workers do have other people that they must see. However, I finally decided that for my sanity, and for the sake of our family, I had to take charge of the situation. I told the PT and ST to come at the same time and they could work at the same time with different children then switch. I fired the early interventionist--I can and DO certainly play pat-a-cake and peek-a-boo, and other developmental children's games with my own children MYSELF, thankyouverymuch! I told everyone else that they could come on Tuesday or Thursday during certain hours--NOT nap time, social workers and everyone included! This made a huge difference in how empowered I felt. I finally felt a measure of control over my time and our family's schedule. Do you know how GOOD it felt to be able to say, "I'm sorry, that time just won't work. You may come at xyz or at abc." The thing is that when you stand firm--people generally comply.
The little ones turned 3 and we began receiving services through the school system. Over the next couple years, I began feeling more and more tired of the "in-home" visits for lots of reasons. I decided to forego the public school therapies and began taking MaKenzie, Matthew, and Jared to Ashland to an outpatient facility to receive all their therapies. This took us out of the house one day a week and by this time, the social worker visits were only once every few months, since all our adoptions were finalized. This turned out to be a great outing each week. We would take school work with us to do on the drive there and back and while waiting for therapies in the waiting room. Then, after therapy, we'd head to the library or the park. Later, once Mom and Dad moved here, Mom would keep the bigger kids while I took the therapy trip.
The Ashland situation worked well for us for a couple of years, but a year or so ago, I began feeling like I was wasting time and money on all that traveling. The therapists weren't really doing anything "magical" and now that the kids were older, I felt more confident that I could do what needed to be done with guidance from the therapists.
Over the past several months we have made the move to home-based, parent-led therapy with consultation every 3 months from therapists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. They helped me develop a daily program for each of the children based on their specific needs and the educational/developmental goals I have determined for each child. I really feel good about this approach for this time in our lives. It is working well for us and for Jared and MaKenzie.
This whole issue of therapies is on my mind because we're getting ready to head into a very busy, intense time of doctor appointments and therapies. MaKenzie will be doing something called "LocoMat" or "RoboDog" training. Basically they hook her up to a robotic treadmill that will force her legs to move in a way that will produce a correct gait, or walking pattern. She will go to Cincinnati 2-3 times a week for 6 to 8 weeks for this therapy. That will be lots of time on the road, but we (and her rehab doctor) are concerned that if her walking pattern doesn't improve that she will eventually wear down her knees and hips and she will lose her ability to walk. So this is kind of important. Hopefully we will find that the LocoMat training will help. The idea is that her brain and muscles will develop a "memory" of the correct pattern and will begin to replicate it in everyday walking. We'll see.
Her appointment for the initial evaluation is Tuesday. Monday we'll be in Lexington for a CT Scan and Neurosurgery appointment. Tuesday, we'll be in Lexington for Orthodontist appointments early in the afternoon, then on to Cincinnati for the LocoMat appointment in the late afternoon. Friday, we'll be back in Lexington AGAIN for Opthalmology appointments. In the meantime, Harold will be trying to work at his job (did you know he actually has a real job?) and he and the boys are going to tear down and disassemble a lady's old barn that fell. She's letting them have the wood for clearing it for her. I'm so thankful Mom and Dad live closeby and are willing to keep kids who don't have appointments, especially on weeks like this one when there are several appointments.
