Getting Ready

My love-hate relationship with insurance companies, drug companies, and the entire health care system grows. As I have mentioned in previous posts, Nathaniel received a diagnosis of growth hormone deficiency. It only took 3 weeks and more phone calls than I can count to get Nathaniel's growth hormone. Now the waiting is coming to an end. The starter kit from the drug company arrived last Monday. The actual medication arrived last Thursday (along with ice packs, needles, and alcohol swabs in a Styrofoam cooler). The nurse comes to our house tomorrow to teach us how to prime the pen and complete the daily injections. Nathaniel must sense something is changing as he asked to read his "special book" about the hospital (which we had before his sleep study). This is over and done with and we don't have to do another, so I don't see a reason for this book again. I did today create a social story for him to try to explain why he has to have shots everyday (and along the way explain why he sees so many different doctors for so many different things). I also added the steps for what we will be doing on a daily basis with his shots. He seems calm, cool, and collected about it all having read the story twice this evening. We'll see how it all goes tomorrow. I am of course nervous and haven't been sleeping well as a result of this anxiousness. Hopefully by the time I have my next break from work and school (officially starting August 13th unless I get my final paper done early) I will be able to get some rest and relaxation for a week. 

Nathaniel is the type of kid who needs to self-talk things for a while. I can only hope the social story with pictures of himself, his own things, and his brave Opa (who also has daily shots) will help in the process. He is already enjoying the foam microphone that came with information from the drug company and is talking very calming about "after the shot I'll get a band-aide". Praying for a smooth process.

Heading in the wagon to Highland Fest aka "the Festival".

"Look I am daddy" - So proud to wear daddy's watch.

Taking turns with mommy reading nursery rhymes in the book with his new microphone.

On a completely different type of "getting ready". I have been working extra hours after work and extra days while on break to help our program have things in place for our upcoming restructuring. We have had big changes every year since I started in St. Paul in 2008. This year however is much more widespread and we have 8 staff leaving the program and many more new staff than that starting in the program. One of my duties was to order and set up assessment materials, sign-out systems, and organization of materials in order to best meet program needs and to start with a clean slate in some ways. This sounds easier than it was. In order to do all of this organization I had several large cabinets to clear out of junk, 2 rooms full of junk to clean out and organize, and the newly cleaned shelves to rearrange and this was only at one site. I also had a second site to organize and distribute/label materials. I spent 2 1/2 hours on the below pictures - pretty quick progress I must say. I still have a few hours of work on this site tomorrow morning. The other site took 2-3 hours of work on Friday last week. Thankfully it will all be organized and in place by August 1, the deadline. Oh did I mention I spent a Saturday afternoon organizing, labeling, and preparing 3 new assessment kits (that was the fun part at least). In all honesty, it was a good feeling to get it all done. I just keep telling myself that with 35-40 staff members it won't stay like this for long and that I can't let it bother me when it all goes downhill.

Ignore the boxes - newly organized shelves and equipment in the previous junk room #1

This room was floor to ceiling and wall to wall equipment. You couldn't walk in it. Now it is a meeting room (chairs to be added).

These shelves were full of books, craft items, toys, and many broken/missing toys and pieces. Needless to say I had 4 boxes to donate and 2 boxes of trash.