Therapy Graduation

I can't believe that Max and Molly are going to be 3 in a month!    I have such mixed emotions about this milestone,  I'm excited because it means we should be potty trained soon, but it also means Max will be graduating from the amazing birth to three program and losing all of our fabulous OT, PT, Speech, and Special Education services.  We would really appreciate prayers as we try to transition everything into the school district, which is a completely overwhelming process, which I will write more about later.   It looks like we will probably need a trip back to Boston in the next few months or so to meet with the rest of the specialists in PT, OT, and Speech, to train us as parents so that we can in turn train our new therapists.  It was too bad that we couldn't make it work to meet with more people on our last trip, but we did get to meet with an education specialist who helps manage over 30 OMS kids Individualized Education Plans (IEP). She has been such a blessing for us as we begin to navigate the whole IEP/504 process....

The whole purpose of early intervention services is to help the family and the toddler acheive success at home and in the community/school.  Now that we are losing that service we will need to rely on community based therapists to help us acheive success in the daily living challenges at home and in the community and the school district will focus directly on  those areas that he might find challenging at school. 

So we get to pick new community based therapists to carry us through the gap between graduation and when the school district can get started.  Which is a huge hassle to try to get Max accustomed to new providers.  As we are trying them out  I have to be realistic in our selection given the amount of driving time and the therapists expertise given that there aren't any in the area that have worked with a kid like Max. It is a big learning curve to try to train them in a kid like this with an acquired paraneoplastic condition like Max's where the symptoms are so variable.   We have begun videotaping his therapy sessions and cataloging them on youtube for evidence which also allows both our Boston and Seattle teams to be able to review them as needed and to help us in gaging when to taper or increase his medication.