….ok so the title is a little misleading as we didn’t really get any help from Appsense.  Simon was faithfully promised by his boss that he had his back, maybe to piss up it and tell him it was raining………

Anyway I can’t be too harsh as they have amended his commission plan to help with our cash flow but that is all.  I know I should be happy that they have changed that but it was part of Simons salary he was entitled to so basically I am NOT happy.  The logical side to  me says what did I really expect.  I really didn’t expect much  I know Appsense are growing and can’t be seen to be making exceptions for Simon.  The truth is though that I feel really aggrieved at the way he has been treat this year and saw this as an opportunity for them to put things right.  I am not naive and I never expected them to turn round to us and say here is the $6500 you have spent on therapy and we will give you a salary increase to cover Elliots therapy each month.  Don’t get me wrong that would have been nice but I am a realist.  If they had looked into incorporating PDD in the current policy that would have been great.  If they had said to him look you probably wouldn’t get group therapy paid for in the UK but would definitely get OT & SLT, therefore we will give you some money towards it that would have been great.  Faith restored and I would happily settle back into living out here and living out the remainder of our contract and possibly staying longer.  The fact is they didn’t and I am really fed up.  Again it isn’t about the money it really isn’t, it is the principal.  Why should we be out here for the benefit of Appsense and be out of pocket every month, relying on our savings to pay for something that would be covered in the UK. 

Anyway ranting is not getting me anywhere and if wasn’t for the fact the therapy programme we have Elliot enrolled is doing him so much good I would have our bags pakced and we would be on the next flight home.

PS. Dear Aetna Broker have Appsense opted out of Mental health coverage???????  I await your response with baited breath as I may have another trick up my sleeve………….TBC

Ok so the last post got taken over with a rant about medical insurance which could go on and on but at the sake of boring myself and anyone else I think it is really important to focus on what our money is getting for us. 

This is the last week of intensive session as there are only 3 more of the TSSV sessions left.  The PTS sessions continue for another few weeks and the individual sessions for SLT & OT continue for as long as we keep paying for them ;o) 

OK so Elliot is always going to be  a shy conservative boy that hangs back and assess situations more than other children but he is learning to find his voice and that it is ok to have opinions.  When we started this journey with Elliot, all we hoped for was that we could help equip him and give him the tools to cope with being a quite person and to understand that it is ok to be that way.  Although all of this is way too much information to impart on a four year old the therapy sessions are really improving his confidence in talking to adults, speaking up, trying to correlate more coherent sentences and trying to be heard.  He still stumbles with his peers but is showing a slow and steady improvement.  Just this week I have managed to get him out of the house without as many prompts and even without as many security devices i.e half the toys from his bedroom.  He is doing so much better with change also.  Miss Christie was not available for his Friday session and he saw Miss Maria instead and he totally took it in his stride. 

Yay for Elliot lets hope the improvements in leaps and bounds carry on……

This week is the final full week of intensive therapy.  I can’t believe how quickly it is going and how the costs are mounting, which reminds me we eventually heard back from the broker to say the we can get a big fat ZERO back from them.  It is a little disappointing that it took him over a week to confirm what we had asked him.  Anyway no point bitching too much or is there ;o)……….I guess the real frustration here is that health care is completely free in the UK and that a lot not all of Elliots treatment would be covered for free in the UK.  I think it is safe to say that it would be unlikely to find as many of the group therapy type sessions that Elliot has in the UK so we had almost decided that we were not going to see the money back for that.  But to be told we can’t claim back anything is soooooo wrong. 

The next steps I guess are for Simon to speak to his company and see what they can do to help.  This kind of puts us all in a very awkward position as we don’t expect any special treatment but do expect to have the same level of health care as would have been provided in the UK.  This does not appear to be the case right now.  The issue is what can we realistically expect his company to do.  We are in the less than favourable position now of Elliot already having a diagnosis which would make getting him insured difficult as it is a pre existing condition.  As it is costing us nearly $3000 a month at the moment we are relying heavily on our savings to live on.  Granted this is not indefinite but once Elliot goes back to School we will be spending $2000 a month for therapy and school fees.  Ok so it is our choice to put him in the school he is going to, however the teaching style here best suits someone with Elliots needs.  I guess from our point of view all we can do is flag how much it is costing us to be out here, ask to change his commission plan so we are less out of pocket every month and see what extra help/support the company will offer if any. I really am not holding my breath at the risk of airing our dirty laundry in public Appsense are not the company they once were, they really have not shown Simon the respect or courtesy that an employee that has been with the company as long deserves. Hey that’s just my humble biased opinion but I am sure many would agree with me.

I just want to point out here that this really isn’t about the money it is the principle.

This is the third week of intensive therapy and Elliot is continuing to take all we are throwing at him in his stride.  He has accepted that he has Sessions on a Monday ,Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and doesn’t question it anymore i.e I no longer need to bribe him with a target visit to get him to go ;o)

So this week I am adding a play date with some friends of his that he insists don’t like him anymore.  I organise it at our house so I can maybe be in a little more control.  We have a playdate with a school friend and then another play date with my friend who has 2 older boys.  It will be interesting how he copes with all of this and his therapy, oh and we are going to go to Yosemite for the weekend.  Doesn’t sound like much but the last time we were away from home he really freaked out and didn’t sleep all night lets see how this week pans out……

Therapy sessions –  great continuing to improve in his group sessions albeit it slower but improvements are there.  Individual sessions he is doing Awesome ;o)

Play date at home with his friends –  goes really well the kids don’t play together all the time but they play associatively interact a little and have a giggle together and he tells me at the end they can come again because they are his friends.

Play date with older friends – again he does really well considering he is in someone else’s house and the little boy is a lot more forward than him he manages to tell him he doesn’t want to play what he has suggested, Go Elliot

Play date in the park with school friend – always a little tricky as there is so much space and so much to do so they don’t need to play together but at the end of it he asked the little boys mum if her son could come and play at our house.  OMG we are finally making progress :o)

And now for the final piece this week the Yosemite trip.  I know what you are thinking after throwing so much at him he can’t possibly cope with that as well…..Ok so we had a few wobbles after 4 hours of driving he asked if we could go home and refused to sleep in a hotel for the night.  He soon got over  it however and when we had to go home he asked why we couldn’t stay another night.

Well Done Elliot you have had a truly amazing week and continue to surprise me at how well you are adapting :o) xxx

Another week of pretty full on therapy sessions for Elliot start with a 2 hours session at TSSV, a 11/2 hour session at PTS, another 2 hour session and TSSV then his usual 45 min OT and 30 min SLT session.

Last week was pretty hard on Elliot and he took a lot of persuading to join in his groups and a lot of reminding of what was coming next and how much fun he was going to have.  Luckily this week was much easier for him and he took it a little more in his stride.  His therapists tell me he is always quiet but is willing to speak out more.  We have pretty uneventful sessions this week other than play in the park on Wednesday is cancelled because of the rain seriously in the middle of June in California crazy weather we are having. 

As Elliot is getting used to the groups I decided that we need to increase the social things that we do with him in terms of play dates with friends.  He has quite a few friends that we plays with regularly but is telling me he doesn’t want to play with them.  Rather than press the issue I have kept the stress low due to the therapy sessions but that will be all changing next week as I will start to integrate more into the week and just push him a little bit further and see how we get on.

On another topic we finally have the Elliots report back from the specialist and have all the information we need to start claiming back some of the $6500 we have spent on therapy so far.  This in mind I call the insurance company to see how we go about claiming the money back.  Only to be told that we are not covered through Appsense. WTF…….. we have just paid $600 for this report that Aetna told us we needed to claim back the monies only to be told we can’t claim back a penny.  Surely this can’t be right.  I speak to Simon and he gets on to the insurance broker and we wait patiently whilst he does some research and gives us and update.  Believe me when I say this is not over yet………..