My Time Management Skills are Getting a Run for their Money!

Oh, boy....

We had our second appointment with the social worker today (well, I guess it's now yesterday....Monday, I mean). It was all about how to go about hiring a home therapist. Though the cost of the therapist will be paid for by the provincial autism program, Steve and I will be considered the employer. We have to get a business number, hire an accountant/book-keeping service, and do all the advertising, interviewing, and hiring ourselves. It's quite daunting! The social worker is hoping for us to advertise this week, start interviewing mid-month, and have someone hired and all the paperwork done by the time the ABA training session comes around the first week in April. Just submitting all the job postings and reading through resumes is going to be so time consuming! And then there's the interviewing! I really hope we can get this done in time!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) morning we have an appointment with a physiotherapist (PT) who works with kids on the spectrum. I'm hoping she'll be able to give us some direction regarding Jesse's toe-walking. He walks on his toes much more now than he does flat-footed...even in boots! I'm so worried that he'll develop another contracture and require casting again. I do NOT want to deal with ortho again! (But I think that's a story for another day.) The physiotherapist should be able to tell us whether or not we need to get Occupational Therapy (OT) involved. After his appointment we'll be getting Jesse's bloodwork done. We'll be at the hospital anyways, so it's as good a time as any.

We should have a senior therapist assigned to us at some point this week, or early next week. This person will over-see Jesse's home therapy and his progress in general. She will be a sort of mentor/supervisor for Jesse's home therapist. She'll be coming to our home once a week for the next 3-4 weeks to assess Jesse's needs so that we can develop a treatment plan. I'm really anxious to meet this person. I really hope she'll be a good fit.

Monday coming Jesse will be seeing his new Speech Language Pathologist (SLP). She has a weekly 1/2 hour appointment available for Monday mornings at 8:30. I jumped at it, since Jesse is still wait-listed for the Children's Rehab SLP for another few months. I really need to check out our insurance, since I know speech therapy has limited coverage ($500 or $1000, I can't remember). At $60/appointment, we're going to run out quickly. But you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

March 17th we have an appointment with Dr. C. Steve wasn't with Jesse and I when we went for the ADOS, when Jesse was diagnosed. Since we expected Jesse to emerge from the ADOS with a clean bill of health, we felt that it wasn't necessary for Steve to take a day off work to attend the appointment with us. So this appointment with Dr. C will give Steve a chance to talk discuss this diagnosis with the doctor. It'll be good for me too, since I was too shell-shocked the last time to really comprehend what she was telling me.

And to top it all off, at some point we should be receiving appointments for audiology and clinical nutrition as well. And then there's the three day ABA training in April that Steve and I will be attending, along with our newly-hired home therapist (as long as we can find an afternoon sitter, that is).

Have I mentioned I also work 60 hours every two weeks?

At least I've found a way to keep track of everything. Google Calendar has been a God send. I've set it to E-mail me reminders of appointments 24 hours prior. I've also been able to share the calendar with my husband as well, so that he can access it anytime, anywhere,  from his Google account. I highly recommend it if you have a crazy, busy schedule and poor time management skills!

I guess that's enough of an update for now. I need to get to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow!