Monthly Archives: May 2011

All quiet in the house now our visitors have gone

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We took Mum, Nard, Tim and Betty to the airport last night and saw them disappear into the bowels of the San Francisco airport – the guy that checked them in was a cyclist so he took a keen interest in Betty – he was very helpful in pointing out that because Betty was a “gift” then Tim did not need to spend the usual $200 to put it in the hold. A NICE result.

It has been great to have had the family here for the last two weeks and we will miss them terribly – Elliot even informed the Pizza delivery guy last night (yes we relented to having Papa Johns… 🙂 )that Grandma, Nard and Uncle Tim had gone back to England 🙂

It was REALLY quiet in the house last night without our visitors.  It was NICE however to be in our own bed – although the littlest Rust soon helped us with that by getting up at 11pm and pretty much demanding to sleep in mummy and daddy’s bed.

Olly is still not well with a temperature of over 40 degrees at 3:30am and sleep not appearing for him for nearly a further 2 hours.

We spoke with Tim and Mum earlier today and found that they arrived safely and cleared customs, picked up their bags and were on the Heathrow Express train heading into Central London in about 25 minutes – nice result.  only to find that hey still had to wait for 5 hours for the train back up North 🙁 Betty is safely in the UK, ready to be built up again in prep for the first UK ride 🙂

We went out for a cycle ride tonight and head out in a direction that we have not gone before – towards Campbell – all in all a nice leisurely 7.4mile ride with 15 minutes at a park for the boys in the middle.  We clearly need to get back into the cycling to help with our fitness levels and lard reduction – the programme starts here 🙂

Finally, making progress

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Elliot is still going to his TSSV sessions on a Monday morning without any complaint.  He has attended 6 sessions now and I am not sure whether we are making a huge amount of progress yet.  I am feeling pretty guilty as we get lots of follow up work to do outside of school and I don’t always get a chance to do it all.  His session notes don’t seem to be changing much maybe this  this week I get around to doing more.

Elliot: Session 6

  • Cheers: participated with encouragement, imitated peer ideas.  Loved the marble run! Really participated with the marble run and helped figure out the problem and fix it.
  • Challenge: maintaining group peer play, speaking to peers.

Firstly I think we need to get a recommendation for a good mental health professional in the area.  I have heard of Damien Korb and I am thinking he might be a good place to start.  I check in with the PTS therapists and they highly recommend him.  So here starts my next mission to get an appointment slot.  I contact the centre for developing minds who take our details and mail out an information pack.  The paperwork arrives a few days later and I am greeted by what seems to be pretty standard statements referencing payments.  These companies will NOT deal with insurance companies and you MUST pay for their services directly.  This is not giving me  a warm feeling about getting any help towards any of this treatment for Elliot.  Up until now the sessions have been costing around $150 but this one is really going to hike up the tally @ $600.  Hope this guy is worth it.  With all these escalating costs and no sign of help from the insurance company we will soon need to ask a very serious question of our selves.  “Can we afford to live here?”  We have a couple of avenues to explore before we get there but these are very real questions when the few sessions we have been to and have organised are totalling nearly $5000.  Fingers crossed we find a way around the blocks the insurance company are putting up.  I have a strange feeling that the old insurance company would have covered Elliot but AppSense changed providers this year.  I need to see if I can find out.  Hmmm…….another project .

Happy Birthday Oliver David – 2 today

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Oliver’s big day today – 2 years old already.  He wanted to celebrate by spending time with family on the beach in Santa Cruz. It has been a really nice hot day (even in Santa Cruz) and Tim, Mum, Simon and Nard have all been victims of the sun – Mum being the worst and Simon who has for once almost got away with it.

Oliver received lots of nice cards and some cool presents – thank you everybody who has sent things through for Oliver – he really appreciated everything and has not stopped playing with his new toys (well, except for when he was on the beach 🙂 )

Tim collected his new bike tonight so we guess that he will be up early doors tomorrow out on the trails….

San Francisco bound day

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Tim has invested a lot of time in researching Specialized, YETI, Santa Cruz and Trek mountain bikes over the weekend and on Monday ordered the Yeti 575 bike.  It is being courier shipped from Colorado from Monday afternoon / Tuesday morning, and the local shop – Trail Head Cyclery are building it up for him.  Excited does not cover the Tim’s mood right now… 🙂

So, today we all head out to San Francisco at 8am, with Tim running over the Golden Gate Bridge first thing, then running up and around (down) Lombard street – the world’s crookedest road.  Then, Mum, Nard and Tim all head out on the boat from pier 33 to Alcatraz.

While they visited the rock, we went into San Francisco  and Vicky bought her first pair of Christian Louboutin shoes – they are very nice and hopefully pave the way for Simon to buy a Santa Cruz mountain bike 😉

We are finishing the day with Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a few sausages on the grill and beer 🙂

Not sure what we are doing tomorrow yet, except Mum is going to school to help with Vicky in the afternoon.  Friday is the big 2nd birthday, so we are heading to the beach…..

Back from England and ready to get cracking

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We had a great trip to England and Elliot seems to have coped pretty well with a change in environment and has only had a few “episodes” We are back from the UK and ready to get back to a routine and get on with our plan for Elliot.  We haven’t heard back from PTS yet so I guess I will need to chase this up.  This really seems the American way, Californians are so laid back.  At times it can be a little frustrating especially when you just want results and answers.

After a break of 3 weeks we head back to TSSV with Elliot.  I am curious to find out how he will react as he hasn’t been for some time.  I spend time to explain to him that we are going to play with our friends Hayden, Derek and Sameer.  He was quite happy to do this especially as we were taking Grandma with us.  As we had been away for 3 weeks Miss Debbie asked us to bring some photographs of our time in England.  We didn’t get chance to print anything off so decided to take the ipad with us.  Elliot really enjoyed showing his friend the photos and continued to have a great session with his friends. He had a little upset at the end of the session when the play didn’t turn out they way he expected.  He soon got over this with some encouragement from Miss Debbie to use his flexible brain see session notes below.

Elliot: Session 5

  • Cheers: so happy to show pictures of his trip – he explained who everyone was and what people were doing He used a big voice and full sentences to explain what was happening.
  • Very engaged with his friends today – popped up out of the box; big smiles! Jumped for the popcorn song; made his box into a racecar – drew wheels and a steering wheel. Referenced his friends (used eye gaze for purpose)
  • Challenge: maintaining group peer play, speaking to peers. Was upset at the end of the session when the boys hid in boxes to surprise their parents. Someone else had hidden in “his” box and he did not want to hide in a different box – but I encouraged him to hide behind it with me. He did cry a little when all the children were popping up so their parents could find them. I think he was upset because he was in a different box, but I commented that I was so proud of him for using his flexible brain and trying a different box. He got over the sadness very quickly.

 

Finally I get hold of PTS and discuss what we do next.  They suggest getting a further diagnosis to satisfy the insurance company so that we can hopefully get some money towards the treatment for Elliot.  The insurance company is not helping and we are told to reference a clinical policy bulletin board that doesn’t appear to cover much.  When I speak to insurance company again they are asking for a CPT code for his condition that requires the therapy.  As we haven’t officially had a diagnosis from a mental health professional it looks like this will be the next step.