504 Plan and Appts Scheduled

Yesterday I had the 504 plan meetings at the school for Ethan and Emily. Emily's was just a meeting to revise the plan that was already in place for her from last year. There weren't many changes that had to be made. Basically, she just needs to be allowed to lay down if her head is hurting her. She needs to be allowed to rest during PE if her legs hurt. And we need to have Homebound Services available to us in the event that Emily has to miss a lot of school. Ethan's plan was pretty much along the same lines. I just wanted to make sure that he will have the chance to catch up on his school work without having it count against him if and when he misses school for being out sick or in the hospital. I also had a talk with his teacher about some things that I thought she needed to know about Ethan, but not necessarily needed to be in his Plan. I thought it might be helpful to her if she knew some of Ethan's history on his sensory integration dysfunction problems he has had. Yes, he has come a VERY long way in his short life, but he has these little sensory flare ups that can really cause a problem for him. Just like his paper problem did this summer. And his sensory issues seem to get worse when Emily is going through a difficult time medically. I also thought it would be beneficial for her to know just how much medication he takes on a daily basis. Almost all of Ethan's meds are a steroid based medication, and several of them are new to him this past month. He can obviously have side effects from the medications that can have an effect on his behavior. I just wanted her to be aware of this. He is also having a more difficult time adjusting to the separation from Emily than she is having from him. Overall, he is doing well, though. The teacher did ask me if Ethan liked to chew gum. She said that she might give him gum to chew during class and see if that will help give him something to do so he can focus a little better. I thought that was a great idea. I did find out that both of the kids made 100's on their first spelling test yesterday. They were both pretty excited about that.

Emily's teacher told me about something very sweet that happened during lunch. Emily had a headache and the teacher gave her the option of going to the nurse or laying her head on the table. Emily wanted to lay her head on the table for a little bit. She went over and sat with Ethan at his chair and laid her head down and Ethan immediately wrapped his arms around her. She said that all of the teachers at the teacher table were almost in tears over the very sweet moment and were saying that they all hoped that their kids grew to love each other as much as Ethan and Emily do. I am just so proud of my sweet and compassionate children.

I also need to say how much I love our neurosurgeon's office. They worked their tails off to make sure that they scheduled all of Emily's tests for the SAME DAY!!! The day will be Sept 16. Emily will have to go to sleep two hours later than normal the night before and wake up two hours earlier that morning. We will need to be at the hospital at 8:30 and the EEG will begin at 8:45. Immediately when that is over, we will head over to the diagnostic center in the hospital and have the MRI which is scheduled for 10:00. They are scheduled to do the blood draw at the time they do her IV so she won't have to have more than one stick. Emily will be put under general anesthesia for the MRI and will have to go to the recovery room after it is over for a short while. We will hopefully be finished with everything by 12:00 and be ready to head home.

Ethan will start his allergy shots on Monday. Open House at the school is set for Tuesday night.