ETR meeting

Yesterday morning I had Ethan's ETR meeting at school. This went over our basic hopes, plans, and expectations for his school year. I also was able to meet all of his specialists (OT, interventional specialists, speech, teachers, nurses, etc). This will all help in creating his IEP that we will discuss next month.

The meeting went well. I was able to discuss with them some of my concerns that I have. They were also able to let me know how things were going so far with school. OT evaluated him and does not think he needs to meet with her! His fine motor skills are great and he doesn't seem to have any problems with that aspect. She will keep him on the list for random evaluations throughout the year. If needed, he can meet with her for OT at a later point this year.

The teachers do feel he needs extra help with his core subjects (reading and math). Interventional specialists will help him out with that in his classroom. We all think this will really help him out. Everyone is thinking that he can get caught up with just some extra help now that his ADHD has improved a bit. This should help him concentrate and focus on learning the new material - and all the stuff that he missed from not paying attention in preschool!

His speech therapy is going well. He has a really nice therapist and he likes her. Hopefully they can continue to make great progress this year!

We also discussed his social issues. I asked how his socialization was going, and they said basically it is not. He avoids people at all costs and refuses to interact. :( They gave me a bunch of examples like during stations in class, Ethan will pick the station that has nobody there so he can work by himself. The other stations all have small groups of kids. When the class is in line to walk somewhere in the school, Ethan goes to the back of the line and leaves a space between him and the kid in front of him. He refuses to go outside for recess (even on nice weather days) because he'd rather go to the clinic and draw pictures. They asked me if I wanted them to force him to go outside, but I said no. I'd rather he relax and have that chance to de-stress from the day. I know he is not comfortable participating in all the activities with other people, so I think having that break is helpful for him. I hope it's the right choice. I know that once it gets too cold outside, all the kids will stay in for recess. That will give Ethan a chance to do other activities with them and not have the choice to leave and color by himself.

I ask Ethan a lot about who he is talking to at school and try to encourage him to pick a friend to talk to that day. The other day he finally told me he talked to David that day. I was excited obviously. I mentioned it to his teacher at the meeting and she laughed. She said no way, they never talk. David just gets in trouble a lot and so Ethan probably just remembered that name. Apparently Ethan was just throwing out a name to get me to stop harassing him about being social! :/ That kid!

One of the school workers did comment that he is improving a bit though. She sees him drawing every day in the clinic. She always pokes her head in to say hi to him and ask him what he's coloring. He never acknowledged her in the past. He wouldn't make eye contact, answer her, or anything. But a few days ago he looked at her and said he was drawing trucks! Hopefully that means he's relaxing and feeling comfortable. I hope this improvement continues and a lot more quickly!

His teacher also mentioned that he's improving during group participation. Up until recently he wouldn't sing along with the songs or participate during circle time. Now he sings and does the motions to all the things they're doing! :) She said he seems to be enjoying himself a lot more now.

The teachers have also noticed that he doesn't eat at lunch. Most of the time he'll just throw away his entire uneaten lunch (even though I've asked him a million times to bring it back home so I can reuse some of the snacks and see what he's eaten that day)! Today he claims to have eaten his lunch, so hopefully he actually did.

That pretty much summed it up for the meeting. He's doing pretty well in school and doesn't seem to have all the anxiety that he had last year - at least not panicking and saying he doesn't want to go. That's a huge relief! Hopefully he'll continue to loosen up there and improve socially as well as academically. A therapist mentioned that there's a program not too far away called "Fit" that helps kids with social issues. She's going to get some information for me and we'll see if that would work out for Ethan. She says she's only heard wonderful reviews about it!

Medically, we have a neurology appointment coming up on Monday. We weren't supposed to return until December, but they called yesterday and want to see him sooner. He's now up to his full dose of Periactin (the headache medicine). It has definitely helped the headaches, but not taken them away completely yet. Granted he just started the full dose two days ago, so hopefully things will improve as we give it a little more time. He's down to about 3 headaches a week. I've seen a slight improvement with his eating (mainly just that he's eating breakfast now). But still we have a lot of room to go obviously since he struggles with dinners and apparently doesn't eat lunch.

I still have not heard from cardiology about his upcoming cath. I'll probably email them next week if I haven't heard anything by that point.

His cough is sounding a LOT better. We're still doing the breathing treatments and still on the amoxicillin. It seems to be helping so that is a huge relief. We'll return to the pediatrician in another week to do a recheck on his lungs.

As for Fiona, I took her to the vet last week about her eye. She apparently has something called "cherry eye". She'll need surgery from a canine ophthalmologist to get it fixed. I had to pick up prescription eye medicine to keep her eye lubricated until surgery. She doesn't like it at all, but oh well!

That's pretty much what's been going on. We're just keeping busy with school, work, soccer, and appointments. Please keep us in your prayers and I will let you know how the neurology appointment goes!