Tuesday, February 5, 2008

5:47 AM 2/5/2008

Well crud! Here it is 5:45 AM. I have been up for 2 and a half hours writing email and I am no where near being where I need to be. On top of that I have the joy of having jury duty today. I am sure there is something illegal about this but I am quite sure that, whatever trial I am on, the guy is guilty. Unless of course, it is a medical insurance case in which case the insurance company would not be guilty until I made it on the jury. For all of those that read my diary and work for a medical insurance company (I know there are a few) I apologize for the insult. However, I think you can understand where I am coming from. And yes, I am still in legal battles with BCBS who refuses to cover medical expenses for a myriad of ridiculous reasons. For the record, I am not doubly insured nor have we ever been. I do think anesthesia is necessary for surgery and yes, in 2004 the doctors ordered TPN for my daughter while she was coming home from transplant (because she was not eating) and I think that should be covered as well. I am picky that way. Oh, and just so you know, yes, I continue to fight for coverage for the 2 years of treatment at Sloan Kettering which has not been covered for my daughter even though it has been covered for other children with the same policy from the same state.

Wow, where did that come from. Man, I have issues. Regardless, let me tell you about something happy. Yesterday I took my blushing daughter Sydney to her first speech therapy session for this semester. We were running a few minutes late as I had just come from a local meeting of neuroblastoma parents that ran a bit long. Regardless, Sydney and I raced in five minutes late. Her new therapist greeted us at the door. They made it back to the therapy room and I made my way into the dark hallway to listen in. In between the two rows of therapy rooms there is a long hallway with two way mirrors through which we can watch the therapy sessions. There are also several places to plug in headphones to listen in. I generally listen in but pay little attention unless necessary. This is a great quite time to review research literature, etc. However, this first session was all about testing her pronunciation and retention so I paid particularly close attention. I was amazed at Sydney's improvement. It blows me away how far she has come. She is doing so well. In just the last 4 months she has gone from completely missing Ss, mispronouncing Ls and Rs, and several other issues to completely nailing those sounds wherever they appear in a sentence. It was night and day. I was blushing especially as I met with the advisor. She was doing so much better. I had noticed this when listening to her peers at school. She had caught up and even surpassed some of them. There are areas that need some improvement. She has some trouble when THs appear in the middle of a sentence and some of her Vs sound like Bs. When not paying attention to her speech it also became evident that she tended to use SH sounds when Ss appeared in the middle of sentences. In other words, the word "lessens" sometimes sounds like "leshens." All in all, she still blew away my expectations. I was so pleased with her growth. The change has been dramatic.

Well, I had best be off. The other rugrats have begun to stir and I still have a mountain of email from yesterday to get through.

Purpose overfloweth!

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