Catching up with old friends....

Hi!!

I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. Things have been hectic here – I’m sure you’ve both been there.

I wanted to see when we could all get together. I probably won’t be bringing Monster because it’s easier to talk when he isn’t around, but we can still do Joe’s or Olive Garden – either one is fine with me. Right now Wednesday nights M has swimming and Thursdays he has OT. Tonight is his first swimming lesson – we’re really excited. It’s through C___Center and it’s one-on-one with a recreational therapist. It’s really cheap too which is nice.
I figured next time we get together I would spend the whole evening just catching you up on everything so I figured I’d write this little book just to bring you up to date.

Monster is being kicked out of his after school program effective March 20th, because they claim they can’t handle him. Interesting thing is; this is happening less than two months after we went to the police because M had been intentionally hurt by his aide (who was not trained in CPI or how to work with ASD kids). So we think they’re doing this out of retaliation. We got the Office of Civil Rights involved and they are now investigating the school on the basis of discrimination and retaliation. We should be hearing from them soon.

Monster is going to be starting a new special ed class March 24th. He can’t hold it together in larger classrooms and still has the behavior issues and this new classroom will hopefully help him with both issues. It’s in the same school district but on the opposite end of town and M will be bussed there every day.

We got PCA hours for Monster but they haven’t been approved by the county yet. We’re hoping to find someone to watch M this summer because no matter what happens with the OCR case don’t want him at the old place all summer.

I have an interview with W___ Center early April to see if Monster would benefit from there, and if he does, he will go there half days all summer long and it would be paid for by medical assistance. That would help with the PCA since we’d only need one half days. But that’s still up in the air too.

I just found out yesterday that I got a new job – still at (same co) but it’s a grade level up with a 6% wage increase and 3 weeks vacation per year instead of 2. I am hoping I might be able to work from home quite a bit with this new job, which may also help in the summer, since I would feel more comfortable if I was home when the PCA was there with Monster.

I have been stressed to the point of being ready to snap – it all started when Monster got hurt by his aide – it just started a whole domino effect of everything falling apart. After we filed the police report the after school place told us the aide was on administrative leave so we couldn’t take M back. I had to fight them for a week and get ahold of the State Board of Education section 504 specialist before I got them to agree to find another aide and take him back.
So. That’s it in a nutshell. Sorry to write a novel. Like I said, it would take forever to catch you all up at dinner.
Let me know when we can meet up again – even a weekend day would work.

-Pan