OMG Yay!

I know it seems like the only thing I talk about lately is Jackson and his diagnosis but it's a major event in our life and we are figuring things out. Anyway, this is what happened this week. Tuesday I left my wonderful residency of South Dakota and took up residence in Michigan (all my Michigan friends are very excited about this fact). I was happy that the process went smoothly to get my new license since so many things have not been easy for us lately. In addition to changing my license I also was responsible for calling Blue Cross Blue Shield and trying to get Jackson set up with supplemental health insurance. Since I changed my residency we qualified for a major life event and were able to submit an application for coverage. On St. Patrick's Day I received an email saying that our application was approved and that we now have coverage for Jackson to get ABA therapy. It was a major weight off our shoulders. I know now that there is a wait for all ABA programs and we are willing to wait, it's just nice to know that we finally had something go our way!

Jackson had a great St. Patrick's Day. He had a class party which had a lot of treats for him! That evening we went to our friends house for dinner and of course some March Madness watching.

Jason has been off the past few days enjoying the first two days of the tournament. We were very excited when SDSU made the tournament, but then sad when we saw they were matched up against Maryland which is Jason's team. Sorry Jackrabbits we had to cheer for Maryland but are proud of how close the game was!

Jason and I are very excited to say that we were finally able to schedule a trip home where all three of us get to go at the same time! The past few trips have been Jason and Jackson or Jackson and I. So yay we are going to be going home in May for a whole week!

All in all things are going very well this week in the Lehr household!

Progress and Setbacks

This last weekend Jason and I had a very successful workshop on ABA therapy, some techniques and skills that we can use in our daily life to help and support Jackson. We were very lucky that Jackson's teacher at KinderCare was willing and able to come with us both Saturday and Sunday (6 hours each day!) to also see what she can do in the classroom. Jason and I left that workshop feeling really good about the direction that we are wanting to take with Jackson's therapy and what we have planned for our family.

Unfortunately like all things you make plans and you get attached to them and then the setbacks come into play. Jason and I recently found out that our wonderful (dripping with sarcasm) insurance will not cover any ABA therapy and that they don't do mental health coverage so therefore they will not cover therapy period. Ok so Jason and I then thought fine we will get supplemental insurance to just cover Jackson and his therapy....but we missed the open enrollment for that. We can enroll sometime in October and then coverage will start in January, but then with the 6 month wait list at most therapy centers that puts us pretty much to the move to Fargo.

Ok that makes this new plan (Plan C) the current plan. I am officially leaving my South Dakota residency. For those of you who know me this is a big deal! Jason and I have kept our South Dakota residency close to us through all these years because we never stayed in a place long enough to have to change everything. Well I have now contacted our school district to see what services they can offer us. However, to receive services from the school district I have to be a Michigan resident. So now I'm going to switch my residency over to Michigan get Jackson into what they call the SPICE program with the school. They will be able to do his speech therapy there, as well as, direct instruction which is similar to ABA but less evasive. The program is 4 days a week from 9:30 -11:30, they have a busing system that can take him to and from the childcare centers in the area so we may have to switch him out of KinderCare.

This process for us has already been very frustrating and long, but we have to keep in mind that we have some time and getting Jackson some therapy now is better than getting him no therapy at all. We also have to just power through the setbacks. Like I said earlier this is Plan C there may be a  Plan D, Plan E and Plan F who knows. We just know that we have to do our best.