katezilla: Rock Star
Of course I think my daughter is a rock star. Don't you?
It's been a little while since I have written about Kate, so here goes.
One of the awesome things about OOW this year...just about everybody I met asked about Kate. How cool is that? You guys are some pretty awesome people.
Kate has been doing well...nothing major to report over the last couple of months, until today.
Today was our follow-up visit with
Dr. Sutton of
Butterfly Effects. Back in February, we had a rather...poor
performance from another doctor. He took our money and didn't really provide us with anything; no direction, no "I don't know", no nothing really. "I don't know" is just fine with us. If there is anything we've learned with Kate...she appears to be quite unique...so "I don't know" is perfectly acceptable. Funny how that ties in with IT isn't it? (no, I'm too lazy to explain that one)
Back to Dr. Sutton and today's visit.
We were aware that Dr. Sutton had already spoken to Kate's teacher and her Speech Therapist, way more than the previous doctor. Good sign. We met her at her office this morning at spent almost 2 hours there. She allowed us to vent (boy, you don't want to get either of us talking about Kate and her history and our plans...we'll go on
forever). She took notes. She asked questions that she missed the first time.
The best part (weird, I know), Kate actually got a diagnosis.
PDD-NOS. Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified. In essence, Autism.
(Small dig: The first doctor said she
didn't have PDD...thanks buddy.)
So what does this mean?
Means lots of goodness.
We now have a diagnosis. Yes, it might seem weird to be happy about something like this...but we've been searching for the longest time. It's...just a relief.
Mentally. Something to hang our hat on. Something to work towards getting her as functional as possible. Hope.
Financially. With no diagnosis, insurance doesn't cover many of her services. By many I mean almost all of them. PT, OT, Speech, her Home Health Aid (new acquisition). That's almost all out of pocket. Not sure why we pay for health insurance...it hasn't done us much good (well...just in regards to Kate).
Kate. Kate will now qualify for more. More services. Better services. More services too. She'll have access to a host of organizations now that will be able to help her (and us).
So we're excited! katezilla, Rock Star!
Labels: family, kate
