All Around

Things have been up and down and all over. The good new is that yesterday we drove Jovan to his camp in the Dells and it was *awesome*!! He has a 24/7 counselor and we felt totally at ease with her caring for him for the next week. The camp itself is beautiful - log cabins among 100 acres of pine trees. After we dropped him off, we walked around downtown Wisconsin Dells and went to the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum...we saw an actual shrunken head and a 'painting' made out of toast. Interesting! Afterwards, we had dinner at a cute little cafe and ate salads and paninis. Overall great day!

The bad news: We found out that our car needs a whole new engine that would cost $1,200+ bucks to fix...and on the same day we got a bill from our gas company that we've been kicked off their budget plan and somehow have to come up with $900 within the next 5 days or we'll be disconnected. Of course we're freaking out trying to figure how we'll pay for all this....and Dennis has been quite a jerk to me lately with the stress.

Geez, does it ever let up??

Summer's Here!

These are the days kids live for! HOT weather, many friends, and a slip'n'slide in the backyard with many popicles to go around. Now this is what childhood is all about.

The Reality Vs The Fantasy

We've been considering moving to Wisconsin for years now because everyone here in IL tell us the services for autism there are out of this world. It hasn't been until recently that we've really looked hard into it due to feeling very much stuck here. Anyhow, we recently joined a support group in S.E. WI and we're beginning to feel the reality of services offered that Jovan could benefit from differ from what we fantasized about. The biggest whoop about WI is their autism waiver, which provides intensive therapy...however, we found out that if your child isn't on the waiting list by age 8, they're no longer qualified for this service. We also learned that WI discourages self contained classrooms (which Jovan is in now in IL), and most disabled students are in regular/typical classes with support people. Maybe this will work for Jovan, we've never tried that route yet, however my gut feeling is he's needs more than that. There's only 6 self-contained classrooms in the entire Kenosha district (where we'd probably end up moving), and most are geared for developmentally delayed students, not autism. So now we feel, at this time, that WI may even be more limited in choices than IL! 

However, we're only at the tip of the iceberg and we may be making more of an issue of this than need be. We know a few families that live in Kenosha and they seem pretty satisfied with their services...so too early I guess to make an informed opinion yet.

Great News

Jovan received  a full scholarship from SEDOL (special education of lake county) for respite camp this summer! One less thing to worry about.

Cleaning up after Jovan..

Is a full time job. Seriously. What I did today *so far*: 3 loads of laundry, including the couch cover and sheets that he peed on. Scrape off some kind of crud off the wall/chair cushion. Wash ALL of our cups that he uses to 'pour' liquid - he favorite stim. Mop the whole downstairs floors due to breakfast drips/spills. Vacuum the rat food up that he dumped on the floor this morning.

I'm sure they'll be more...and repeat the same tomorrow.

Help?!

We have a meeting coming up soon with Jovan's teachers to discuss his placement next year. He's currently in a self contained classroom for autistic children and has a 1:1...however, his teacher feels he should be placed in private placement because of his behaviour issues and they claim they can't handle it. This is so disheartening so say the least. I'm everything from depressed to enraged at this situation. ALL of the kids in his program have issues, why is she singling Jovan out?? Communication with this teacher is dismal at best and I don't feel I ever get a straight answer from her. I've suggested several things to possible make it better for Jovan and her at school, such as more sensory breaks, cranium-sacral therapy, etc. She's never very receptive. 

We've been backed into a corner, and I hate it.

The only private placement option in our area is an Easter Seals day school and when we toured the facility it did not seem like a good fit for Jovan. 1:1 is not provided; 5-6 kids per 2 adults. Jovan needs more than this.

If we could afford a private attorney, we would in a heartbeat. We've contacted wrights law, and they can only offer us general help. We're in IL - does ANYONE know of any resources/recommendations? TIA!

Crazy cat lady!

Fox!

Ellis and I took a walk to the marina today and saw a large litter of fox cubs near the beach. They were rolling around and playing - it was the cutest thing ever. Didn't see the mom though...I'll check on them soon to make sure all is well.

Happy Birthday Joavn!!

For Jovan's 12th birthday we spent the day at Independence Grove and rented a 4 person bike, unfortunately Jovan refused to get on it so Ellis and Dennis took a ride around the lake and had fun with it. We brought a chocolate cake and sang happy birthday to him in the park with my parents. Dennis's parents were a no show - not sure what happened there. We stayed til about 7pm and had overall had a great day!

SSI sucks too

I'm sorry to always be complaining here, perhaps I should rename this the bitch and moan. Anywho, here I am on hold with SSI because they lost my income info and I received a letter today that they want me to pay them back for all of last years payments because according to their records, they can't verify my income... UGH. My case workers voice mail is always full and trying to get a live human on the phone is next to impossible. I don't know what we're going to do if they cut off payments...we're going to be screwed. To top it off, the income documents they lost were all ORIGINALS... ::hyperventilating::

Insurance is not my friend

I'm so frustrated with our 'insurance,' FamilyCare. We used to have awesome insurance for years through my husbands work, but that all disappeared after he was laid off...so now we must rely on medicaid. I know, I know, it's better then nothing and I'm able to appreciate that at least we have something, but the quality of care leaves much to be desired. There's 1, yes only 1, doctor in our area that accepts it and this person is suppose to be in charge of all our various and diverse health issues among my family, which includes COPD, autism, ADD, depression...and this doctor is a general family practitioner. Not the most qualified, imho. When we had private insurance the doors were wide open to any specialist we needed. I almost feel we're being punished for having public aid. The doc we see now always has an extremely long waiting time - I had to wait almost 3 hours once with my severely autistic son. The office never calls you back, never remembers to call in prescriptions...I always have to chase them down. 

All I have to say to this go universal health care.