Fight & Life of Therapy

Last night my Hubs and I were talking about the fight we just won to get a referral for LB to get access to speech therapy. The fight/advocating for her to get to speech therapy was exhausting in itself...now we won...now we will be part of 2 types of therapy: OT & Speech (and that's as of this minute).

All this is exhausting!

I've found that there are 2 schools of thought for Down's Syndrome and early therapy's effectiveness. I have full faith that the sooner you can get your child into therapy, the more productive, happier, independent adult you will have later in life. And why not? Why would you not give someone the opportunity to soar? (Leads me to the tshirts Kelle Hampton just blogged about yesterday: http://www.kellehampton.com/ for more details). Back to early therapies...why would you not support any assistance humankind can offer? Our pediatricians simply didn't want to put their name behind the referral...because "she's not speaking yet." Which is what the other, older, school of thought for early therapies is: just wait until they're in preschool and then submerge them in everything at once because they don't need it before then. I'm going to cut out of this before my blood pressure goes back up...you know what I'm getting at and if you find yourself in this same situation FIGHT! You know what is right for your child. Do your research and then make copies of all the national medical groups/boards/professionals that support early (as in before 3) therapies and the drastic difference it makes in lives - and take that info to the medical professional that is not supporting you. Politely, respectfully present your case for the manner you would like to proceed.

Back to the conversation Hubs and I were having about all this last night. Our talk turned, again, to single parents and/or double parent families where both work full time. How do you make this schedule work with all the ELP, OT and SPT appointments? Good Lord, we're not even seeing a PT yet. I am amazingly lucky at this point in my life that I am able to work from home but I also know this is not likely a permanent stroke of luck. This is on my list of items I know I can't worry about now - trying to be present in this time. Worry when we get to it. Jennifer Bekins, Speech-Language Pathologist & Blogger of www.http://talk-ds.org/ just posted a new article about "Therapy Burnout and Parent Guilt" - very timely posting and I highly recommend following both blogs mentioned in today's posting.