Today when the driver and aide dropped Micah off our car seat was returned. Tomorrow Micah will be in a harness and on the school bus. It sounds a little bit medieval, a little bit bondage. I can't picture it, but he will be zipped into the harness and then the harness will be latched into the school bus seat. I just envision him sitting low on the seat, unable to look out the window. Fortunately the aide will be sitting next to him, she'd better like singing.
At school today Micah worked with Miss Cheryl. She was part of the team that initially evaluatead Micah in September 2007 before the start of Early Intervention. She also saw him that first year we went to the parent-infant program. And now that he's in preschool she got to see just how far his speech communication has come.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Last Day of the School Van
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Daylight Savings Time !
Spring forward! I just love it. More daylight. One less hour on call this weekend. Bonus.
Twenty people seen during office hours this morning. That's what I usually see in the course of both morning and afternoon sessions. A non-stop parade of upper respiratory symptoms interspersed with two UTIs, one traveler's diarrhea, and a vaginal discharge that was masquerading as a stomach problem - though the jig was up when one of the front desk staff knocked on the door and started to open it while the patient was on the table, in the stirrups. I managed a very emphatic "NOT A GOOD TIME" (my version of "GO AWAY") before the door opened more than an inch.
Meanwhile and far away, the calls from the answering service started right as I pulled up in front of the salon for my 4 pm appointment. Refill for a Xanax prescription. Nice of the person to call AFTER office hours. Nice of him to listen to the message prior to the answering service picking up. Totally inappropriate. What do I look like the benzodiazepine fairy?
AND, to ice the cake, once I got home I looked up his medical record and his Xanax had been renewed on March 2nd. And if he's going through 60 Xanax 0.5mg in five days, he's got something going on that is a little bit beyond just phoning in a refill. AND to further decorate the icing on this cake the patient told the answering service that the dosage was 1mg. Weasel, weasel, weasel. But since the pharmacy where the March 2nd refill was sent was closed (yes, I am mean-spirited enough to check up on patients) until Monday morning, I gave in and called in #15 to the Walgreens, which had better keep him off the phone until the office reopens on Monday and he can deal with his regular provider.
Call just mystefies me. I don't think that my parents ever called the doctor's office after hours, I've never done it as an adult; it's either a suck it up, suffer and do the symptomatic care situation or it's bad enough to go the ER.
I'm working five days this coming week; one of the doctors is off on a ski trip to Vermont. The regular, now slighty abbreviated Tuesday and Thursday, and mornings only the remainder of the week.
Meanwhile family went to see Grandma and to Turtleback Zoo.
End of Week Wrap-Up
Micah made it to school via the Montgomery Township van for the second day. Today his driver was Toni, who came with Bob yesterday morning. She had another aide with her in the morning, but brought him home solo today. This morning as we were strapping him into the car seat she asked if she could give him a little school bus, so he's managed to charm another one of the transportation staff - who was also willing to spend an hour singing 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm', 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider' and 'The Wheels on the Bus' with him.
He came home from school with a library book, Maisy Goes to Bed, so we need to improve his taste in children's books. Maisy makes those Biscuit books he's so into look good by comparison.
I'm on call and working this weekend. Ick. The first 90 minutes were a non-stop stream of calls, mostly all busy work: an electronic prescription that had been sent from the office at 4:10 pm that had still not arrived at the pharmacy at 6:00 pm, a cough, one of those "I am starting with flu symptoms and need an antibiotic" calls that make me wish that insurance plans' patient newsletters and the media made more of an effort to inform people again and again and again that influenza is VIRAL and antibiotics are for BACTERIAL infections, so are therefore ineffective.
Then the stream of calls dried up and I was able to make dinner, get Thea showered and read a story to Micah before putting him to bed. Unfortunately I was woken up at 10 pm by a call from the answering service, while annoying, it got me up and back on the computer to finish chart notes. And the really wonderful thing about this is that I am sitting in the big chair with the ottoman in the living room, working on my laptop from work. The wireless internet router Steve installed works. This beats the socks off of sitting in the kitchen at the PC with its cold floor, no TV. I could get used to this.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Micah's First Day of School
I spent part of the day in the observation room watching his sessions with his primary teacher. He managed to behave fairly well, though there were a few times I wanted to reach through the one-way glass to park his butt in his little chair.
After the first session I went out for the much-needed, long overdue coffee and came back. I thought I'd go to the parent group meeting, but there seemed to be a lot of people, and being tired I just wanted to be by myself so I sat in the lobby for a bit. Micah's teacher came through for a few minutes on a break so she chatted about how she thought he was doing.
Summit has early dismissal on the first Wednesday of every month, so instead of having to wait until 2:45 pm to get my baby back, he was tucked into his coat and had his backpack on and was trotted out at 1:45. He was very proud that he took a nap after lunch (I sort of expected he would since he usually crashed quickly after his session with Ela.)
Meanwhile back home, Steve got a call from the school district was told Micah has a driver for Thursday and Friday.
So this morning we had Bob and his minivan pull into our driveway - he had an aide, not the one he usually rides with, along. No car seat - so we had to use Thea's old seat that was in the garage.
Thea was up, but not dressed for below freezing temperatures, so she stayed inside -but amidst the car seat drama she had an 'I'm alone in the house and I'm freaked out' drama, so I had to run in wrap her in my long winter coat and carry her back outside to be part of the whole getting Micah ready to roll scene.
And Steve and the aide strapped the seat in, strapped Micah in the seat and off they went. My little three-year old baby and two complete strangers hit the road.
I called the school at 9:10 am and he had arrived safely and seemed happy according to the receptionist.
The van is the one that the district originally proposed. The 'incident' that provoked all the excitment last week resulted in the student involved getting removed from the bus. The driver assures us that the other three are no problem at all - so it looks like Micah will be riding to school next week with the other children going to the program for children with autism.
More later. Suffice it to say I am more than a little pissed that the school district transporation office seems like it is trying to put one over on us. The intent that I got from the driver is that once the 'problem child' is off the bus, then the he feels that it would be fine for Micah to ride with the others. I liked the driver, he has nine years experience and seems like he knows his stuff - I want to to trust him, but I don't trust who he works for. Who is to say that some other child moves into the district with issues similar to the child removed from the bus and we're back to square one?
Micah got off the van today, happy as a clam, all smiles. He serenaded the driver and the aide (a different one this afternoon - she usually does the dispatching) and they both seemed to genuinenly enjoy him. We'll see if that holds up or if they will be dreaming of a van with three non-verbal autistic children and a quiet ride to/from Union County.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Cochlear Implant Encounter
Friday when we were at Family Fun Night at Summit School, dropping our tickets into the bags for the gift basket raffles, a lady stopped me and started asking about Micah's BAHAs. She said she was a teacher of the deaf from New York, and from her speech it seemed as if she had hearing loss of some sort herself.
The hallway, crowded with people, and already narrowed by the tables set up to hold the gift baskets, was not the best place to have a conversation. She was curious as to how the BAHAs are held on his head (the big mesh hairband with the two little disks held by the mesh and the BAHAs snapped onto them somehow eluding her.)
I tried explaining that he was too young to have the titanium posts that some BAHA users have to attach their devices directly onto their mastoid bone, and I tried to convey that we don't know what lies beneath in terms of being able to have atresia repair. With all the background noise, it was hard, I was struggling to keep my eyes on the kids, speak clearly and maintain eye contact with my listener - but it just really wasn't working. It was the longest fifteen to twenty minutes of my life in terms of frustration.
And then this woman says, "Wait a minute," reaches into her purse and pulls out an over-the-ear cochlear implant hearing aid, pops it on, attached the magnet and the conversation continued.
There were too many witnesses there, otherwise I would have cheerfully strangled her. Why doesn't she wear it all the time?
My frame of reference is stories about kids who want to sleep with their implants on, stories of parents who used some sort of seal-a-meal device to waterproof the implant so that the kid can wear it in the water held in place by a swim cap so they can hear, the idea being that the wearer is happier hearing versus not.
Thanks to a cold/sore throat, a yelling marathon over a blue lollipop with Thea and this conversation, my voice sounds like I'm going through gender reassigment surgery.
Mother Nature's Birthday Gift
The weather seems to be casting the majority shareholder's ballot as to whether Micah starts school on his birthday. Thea's school called around 9 pm Sunday night with a preemptive closing; the snow hadn't even begun to fall.
I was fooled into thinking the very light dusting we got Sunday morning was it, but there is about two to three inches on the ground as of right now (1:30 am).
So the best laid plans of mothers and three-year olds are on ice, quite literally.
Damn the weather, damn the transportation office. Bite me, all of you.
Happy Birthday Micah.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Sunday
Today Micah's Early Intervention expires. Tomorrow he's three. Nothing got solved on Friday regarding his transportation to Summit, so I'm millimeters away from having palpitations.
Today Steve took Thea and Micah to see their grandmother. He considers this a 'day off' for me.
On this 'day off', I have:
done a load of wash
put away three dryer loads of laundry
cooked three different breakfasts
- and cleaned up afterwards
baked a pound cake (which didn't turn out as good as I had hoped)
dressed two squirming children
made the bed, with two squirming children under foot
stripped, washed and remade Thea's bed
gone grocery shopping
- and put away most of the groceries
put together Micah's extra outfit for school in a ZipLoc labeling all the pieces,
labeled his notebook, labeled his Pull-Ups, labeled his container of wipes
wrapped his birthday gifts
Yeah, that's what I'd call a day off. And there is still dinner to cook, cupcakes to make. I want to find the Birthday Boy t-shirt I bought for Micah ages ago which now seems to have been swallowed by his closet.
And tomorrow the alarm will go off at 5 am. I'll need to figure out two lunches, make two breakfasts, etc., etc., etc. before getting on the road at 7:30 am to make sure Micah makes it to his first day of school on time.
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