Chasing Our Tails

I feel like such a failure today. We found out today that the place we had put our hopes into for getting Jonas the speech and occupational therapy he needs, only provides services to preschool kids. (Why they didn't tell us this when we called them a month ago and went through the hoops of getting a referral from our pediatrician, I'll never understand.)  They've referred us right back to the school system, which is where things fell apart in the first place.

I'm kicking myself because I didn't fight harder for these services when he was in Kindergarten. My gut told me that something was wrong but rather than push the powers that be to do something about it, I trusted them when they said they had to wait and observe, when they said it was too early to tell, and when they said he might grow out of it.

It was wishful thinking in my part. Every parent wants their child to hit all their developmental milestones and sail effortlessly through school and through life. No parent wants their child to struggle to communicate because they can't speak or write clearly. It was too easy to believe them when they said we should wait and see and now the poor kid is too old for the subsidized services he needs and deserves.

So now we're right back to where we started and it's immensely frustrating. We did get good news yesterday though. Steve's company just changed their benefits package and will subsidize 75% of speech therapy to a max of $1000 per year. We're still waiting to hear about Occupational Therapy but we're getting started on Speech Therapy immediately, ironically with the same provider and therapist as treated him, and likely will again when he comes off the waiting list in a couple of years, through the school board.

Cheers!