Splendid Mayhem: Congrats! You failed your eval...

Welcome To Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Congrats! You failed your eval...

After Parker's OT re-eval this morning, we got a congrats (how many of your therapists can jokingly say that to you? haha) For failing. Mr Parker is in the 5%. He really failed. I was prepared for this one though. I figured he'd end up in therapy eventually.

So, hopefully now that he qualifies for OT and Speech- we can get some state aid in the form of TEFRA (it's not income based, we just pay a small premium- but you only qualify for this when you qualify for 2 therapies). B/c we know how bad insurance sucks! They'd deny him, like Logen (who, obviously needs therapy!)

I am happy with this decision b/c I think it will benefit him (and me!). I am not sure where in the world I will pull time to take him in with our schedule already so insane, but we do what we need to do.

** Dallas-- T and I decided P & S are alot alike! (esp after this mornings 'interesting' eval) Happy late bday to you & S!!!!!