In The End, We Got What We Needed

If there was one thing about our lives that I wish I could change, it would be the frequency in which we need to see medical professionals. I have a love/hate relationship with them on the best of days, so you can imagine how I feel about them on days when there are problems.

I said a few posts back that I am trying to transition the boys to the state agency that deals with children who have special needs (they qualify under their CP diagnosis). Both boys still need physical therapy and Sh.awn will need occupational therapy. They haven't received formal therapy (just what Is.aac and I do with them) since they aged out of Early Intervention at the end of October.

The transition to the state agency shouldn't have been that big of a deal and should have been facilitated to some degree by Early Intervention. Unfortunately, our case coordinator at Early Intervention (our 5th coordinator, mind you, in the 2.5 years we were involved with EI, and only the 2nd one I had ever met during that time) decided that she no longer wished to work for the agency and quit in early September of 2010. Again, there shouldn't have been an issue, our cases should have then been transferred to another case manager so we could have our exit meeting when the boys aged out of the program at the end of October. Instead of transferring our cases to another manager, someone just closed the boys' cases with an "no resolution" label and filed them both away.

Leaving us without an exit plan/evaluation review/or anything.

At first, I expected the case manager we had to contact us to do our review of goals.

I learned in late November that she had quit and that we had been transferred to someone else.

In the second week of December, after I still not heard anything from EI, I called yet again to see what was going on. That is when I learned that our cases were closed with no resolution.

There was to be no transition to the state agency with help from EI.

Joy.

I have been playing phone tag with the state agency and doctors ever since. It has royally sucked.

We seem to luck out and get assigned to people who have no common sense every. single. time.

Let me just run down a few of the highlights:

• I lodged a formal complaint about the way our cases at EI were handled. (It is amazing how nice people were to me all of a sudden!)
• It took the neurologist's office, who had to write a therapy prescription, SIX FULL WEEKS to fax said prescription to the state agency only to find that the state agency never received them.
• 3 phone calls later, the state agency said they had received Sh.awn's prescription twice, but nothing for Ja.son. (The neurology office says they faxed both and that the state agency is wrong. Whatever.)
• When Ja.son's prescription was finally faxed, it was apparently faxed to another person in the office, not the person expecting it.
• Another call to the neurology office gave me the name of who the prescription was actually faxed to--get this. The woman at the state agency waiting for our fax shared the same freaking office as the man who ultimately received it. WTF? Apparently, even the fax machine the script was sent to is shared by both of them yet she couldn't find it?!!?
• Finally the paperwork was moved to the second stage and was sent to the therapy team.
• Keep in mind that the boys always have appointments on the same days, and I always call doctors/the state agency in reference to both of them, Sh.awn's paperwork managed to get to the therapy unit about 4 weeks ago, while Ja.son's was sent two weeks ago.
• I've called the therapy unit office 4 times to set up an evaluation appointment for the boys. I've had to leave messages every time.
• The therapy unit called to set up only Ja.son's appointment.
• Sh.awn's could not be made because his therapy prescription had expired 3 FUCKING days earlier. (Me upset? Nahhhhh.)
• I.Lost.My.Shit.
• I asked the woman from the therapy unit four or five times which doctor had to write the script for therapy. She swore it had to be his primary physician--who has not had anything to do with the referral to the state agency at all. I called that doctor and told her what I need a script to say, but...
• ...you know how this is going to go, right?
• Yes, of course they needed the script from the neurologist. Idiots.
• Good thing I had figured that would happen and had already called the neurologist's office and begged them to send an updated script.
• The idiots at the therapy unit got a script from both the doctors just for good measure.
• I called the therapy unit back. Had to leave a message.
• They finally called me back and now Sh.awn finally has his own appointment.

This is why the state has no money!

They make everything a hundred times more difficult than it has to be. If people would just use common sense and actually think, we would all be better off!

Ugh. People can be so stupid.

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And don't even get me started on the drama it takes to set up a neurosurgery appointment (just for follow ups/and CT scans). That is still in the works, too. I've been waiting two weeks (not quietly either) for that...