The End of an Era

I realize it's been two weeks since I've posted, but that's not for a lack of writing topics. The last couple weeks have been particularly eventful at work, Dave has started back to school already and we've been gone the past couple weekends on adventures. When you add that with all the little things to do before school starts (like open houses, meet-n-greets, arranging childcare, pestering the bus company, figuring out how the religious education system works, etc.), it's been a bit challenging to pull myself away from The Great British Baking Show to update this blog in the evenings.

Anyways, last week was the end of an era for Teddy. It marked a stop in all outpatient therapy services, as well as horse therapy, as Teddy transitions to full days at school. . Teddy's had breaks in different therapies before, sometimes even a month or two, while we waited for the approval process to go through each time. But this is different. More permanent.

It's not that Teddy is magically ineligible for outpatient therapy. We could continue services, most likely only through our primary insurance since Medicaid believes that school and outpatient are duplicity of services despite distinctly different objectives. It's a matter of time and available effort, both for Teddy and myself. No matter how I tried, I couldn't figure out how it would work for Teddy to spend all day working hard at school and then ride a half hour to work for another 45 minutes when he's already exhausted. (Horse therapy was even harder to try to figure out because that's an hour drive.) Then add in the factor of trying to schedule those appointments after school hours and on days that I'm not working. It just didn't make sense.

It's not that Teddy wouldn't benefit from therapy because he does. The more therapy he receives, the better his chances of progress. But only if he's willing to work through the therapy sessions. Given how much he fights the activities when he's tired or simply not pleased with the tasks, I envision trying at the end of a long school day to be a miserable experience for all involved. Or at least an unproductive one.

So last week was bittersweet. Teddy's been doing horse therapy for more than a year and really enjoys that. That's the one therapy that I'm planning to try to fit into our schedule for spring semester because it's distinctly different than the other services he gets at school.

As for the rest, I'm hoping that last week was merely us saying, "See you in a few months when school gets out," rather than a goodbye. Teddy has worked with the same three therapists since he turned one: Ms. Pam for physical therapy, Ms. Kathleen for occupational therapy and Ms. Caitlin for speech therapy. We have spent countless hours between their therapy rooms and the waiting room. (My rough estimations would be at least 500 hours driving to/from and attending therapy appointments.) We've brought cookies and gifts for the holidays, shared milestones and memories and got so much support and encouragement from them. There were hugs goodbye for the boys, one last parting gift of homemade checkerboards from me to them and books and gifts for the boys.

Teddy likes his giant foam puzzle that was his parting gift. Particularly ripping it apart all around the house.

As they said, it's wonderful that Teddy is off to school full time to make friends, learn new things and build his skills, but it's bittersweet to say goodbye to therapists who became a part of our family.