3 bits of good news - kinda long

[Guest guest]

besides the fact that i still haven't fully recovered from my bad night last

night, and things got off to a bad start this morning, today actually turned out

to be a pretty positive day. there were 3 things in particular that stand out...

#1- around 12pm, i stopped in to see my service coordinator that's through the

program i'm in for parents with mental illness. while i was there, she

introduced me to the new service coordinator they hired for kailey to take the

old one's place. her name is rosemarie and she's very nice and understanding and

intelligent and she was already starting on some services for kailey before i

had even met her today. i don't know what her credentials are, but she seems to

have a good grasp of the situation. she's coming here on tuesday to meet kailey

and she will attend kailey's CSE meeting on wednesday.

#2 - i missed my therapist's appt this morning and when i called her to

reschedule for later this afternoon, i only got her voicemail, but i went up to

her office after i was done with my service coordinator and she fit me in right

then and there and talked to me for about a half hour and she agreed that if i

felt i had some bipolar issues, they should try to medicate accordingly. she had

no arguments about it. she said they never denied that i had a mood disorder, in

fact, i guess any kind of depression is a mood disorder (duh! moment), they just

never went further with the bipolar stuff because they weren't seeing it for

themselves, but she said if i felt THAT strongly about it and i wasn't afraid to

try different meds that might not even be appropriate then she thought they

should take that seriously and give it a chance. i see the psych on monday.

#3- when i was done talking with my therapist, i had to leave and go pick up

kailey and bring her back so SHE could see the therapist (same one)...while i

was at the school i ran into the lady who is apparantly the director of the

autistic program at the intermediate elementary school. it's the same exact

program that kailey's in now, but she says the kids are more on kailey's level

with academics and social skills and aren't as therapeutic as the kids at her

current school and because it's in the regular school, there is opportunity to

mingle with the regular kids and she just had an opening and she wants kailey to

be the one to fill it in the fall. she's going to suggest it at the cse meeting

next week but she wanted to give me a heads up.

the ONLY concern i have is that kailey will have to change schools yet again,

but i mentioned it to our therapist when we went back and asked her what she

thought and she suggested that if THEY weren't afraid the change would harm her

then we should go for it. she was actually very happy with the idea. and if it

does work out to be an even better placement tahn what she has now, she will be

there for at least 3rd, 4th and 5th grade and possibly 6th, meaning that she

wouldn't probably need to move again anytime soon.

i was also a little bit worried about her going into the regular areas that she

might need a 1:1 again, but the director said the regular classroom aides

accompany them to all that stuff. btw, it's still a 6:1:2 autistic class, which

is what she's in now and she'd still go to the same town (not our town), it

would just be the regular school rather than the special ed school.

the director asked me to come in early tomorrow and she'd explain it a little

better and show me more of what they did there and she said that some of the

kids were going on the field trip, so i'd get to see them as well (the field

trip is tomorrow). she's thinking that altho kailey made a REALLY good

transition to her current school, she feels the kids in the other school are

more like her, " higher functioning " , that is. so, from what i know right now, i

think it's what we probably will do.

penny thinks i had some good karma with me today. who knows, maybe she's right

" Something important to remember...we'll always be who we are. " - Mr.