Taking the Scenic Route

We finally got them to give us the consent to test paperwork to sign so we could start the clock.  (she did seem to want to actually get to that part in a few days, but didn’t act too annoyed when we insisted the paperwork be signed today) Granted, at this point, the clock doesn’t run out until into the next school year, but it sounds like they plan to make a genuine effort to get the evals done and the IEP in place before then, so I am happy.  I was happy with the social worker there and she seems to really want to do a good job.  They just implemented a new procedure for evaluating preschool/kindy kids on April 1st, and we are the first people to go through the process, so she is eager to get it right and make this thing work.  That is a good thing.  I just hope there aren’t any snags because it is a new process.

The only part of the meeting that got under my skin in a major way was the nurse abruptly demanding Zane be tested alone for the eye test.  Zach stood right outside the door, and we were both pissed off afterwards that we let her do that, but we were so stunned with her attitude that it took us by surprise.  She “claimed” that he was able to pass it with the glasses on.  I am having problems believing that he actually read the chart for her to be honest.  He read some of it just fine without glasses yesterday, but it wasn’t good enough for her because he started goofing off (he was bored because she was going so freaking slow and started making a game out of it).  In retrospect, I suspect she just claimed that because she wanted us out of her hair and because she wanted to make some sort of convoluted point that he *needed* glasses.  If I would have seen him pass the test easily with glasses and struggling without glasses I would be content, but considering he reads things from a distance regularly and only wears glasses as long as they are a novelty, I am really thinking she is just trying to blow smoke up our butts.  Whatever.  As far as I know, we only have to deal with her one more time for some sort of health assessment (because, apparently, she thinks a doctor’s exam isn’t good enough…oy) and then we shouldn’t have to deal with her again.  He is going to go to a different school, but since this is the one closest to us (but doesn’t have an autism program so we will go to another school), this is the one we have to deal with until we get officially transferred.

One thing I did agree with the nurse on is how the current vaccine schedule for the school district varies from the one the doctors follow.  In a craptastic piece of bureaucracy, if you have your MMR before you are four years old, you have to repeat it to go to this school district.  Thankfully, we delayed ds’ vaxes and he got his MMR only a few months ago, and are set to get the second half of the series within a few months.  This is not a state where it is easy to get vax waivers either.  At least by delaying vaxes, and fighting most of the doctors he has had every step of the way to do so, he doesn’t get stuck (pun intended) with having even more toxins in his body just because of this idiocy.

In praise of private therapies, when I mentioned yesterday afternoon that we would need copies of everything to present to the school district, including the official diagnosis, not only did they know what the school district needed, they had it ready by today.  Kickin’ some butt there.  I need to tell the other place the same thing.