Tomorrow I finally have an appointment with the local elementary's school speech therapist to do an evaluation on Olivia and see if she qualifies for free therapy. This would be ideal since the school is a short drive from home and it would be free.
When the therapist finally called last week she told me that not all children qualify for the free services even though she has seen an actual pathologist that confirmed that she did. Since the school is a government entity they have government guidelines to follow. This thought terrifies me and in many ways angers me. I am paying hundreds of dollars every year to the schools. The school in which I have no children attending because they are too young. I should be allowed to benefit from their services.
If for some reason we don't qualify for the school's services I have the option of taking Olivia back to the original speech pathologist for therapy. The only problem is that the cost for those services are $85 an hour! We simply can not afford that. We're in the process of applying for financial aid through the hospital but this has been a joke in its self. Before I can apply for financial aid (which I don't know how much they'll even grant us) I first must apply for Medicaid (government health insurance) which I know we don't qualify for (it's based off of income and we make too much). Then once Medicaid denies us I can finish applying for the financial aid.
You may ask about our medical insurance through Ed's work; well they don't cover speech therapy. So our only option is to pray that the school will allow us to use their free services or that the financial aid will come through. This has been very stressful!
On another note, I went in yesterday to my doctor for my annual exam. Call me odd, but I actually like to go in for these visits. It gives me a chance to ask questions, check on my health status and to prevent any future problem. Plus, my insurance covers it 100% so I would be stupid not to take advantage of this service.
I have had high blood cell counts for 5 years and I have not been able to find a doctor to take me serious that this is a concern. Finally my new doctor is going to look further into it. Typically this probably wouldn't be a concern for most, but we have a genetic blood disease, Polcythemia Vera, that runs very strong in my family (the Blamires line for those in the family). It typically hits later in life but I need to keep an eye on things now. I'll find out in a week what the blood tests show.
With going in with my list of questions and concerns, I left yesterday with an appointment for a machine so see if I have Sleep Apnea. This completely caught me off guard because I don't meet the typical stereotype for this. But if it will mean better sleep and not feeling tired all day (even after 8 hours of sleep) then I am willing to give it a try.
Here's to better health all around!
Hope everything works out with the therapy.
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