Fighting Inner Demons and Zombies

We’re several weeks into the new school year now, and for the most part it’s gone well. We had bus issues at the beginning, but since they readjusted the pick-up time in the morning, we haven’t had any problems with the kids arriving late to school. We’re still choosing to pick them up from school each day because no solution could be found to shorten the afternoon bus ride to under an hour and a half.

I had originally worried Mira might be challenging for her kindergarten teacher. She’s not only smart, but she’s clever and knows how to manipulate a situation to her favor. But so far everything has been great. She’s already gathered her own gang of friends, she’s progressing quickly with learning to read, and she claims she’s never had to move her name once on the behavior board. (If they get in trouble, they have to move their name to a different spot – the lower you go, the more privileges you lose.)

Cordy’s year has been a little more of a struggle. When the bus was running late and they were helping her deal with the anxiety related to that, she quickly picked up on the concept that if she had anxiety in class, she was taken to the special needs room where she got to swing and relax. So, like most kids would do with this knowledge, she’d fake anxiety to get out of boring class time and go relax.

I realized what she was doing very quickly and collaborated with her teachers to remove this as a reward. Now if she has to go to the special needs class, she loses computer time. With that change, her behavior immediately improved and she remained in class all day for the past few weeks. Other than her complaints that they’re only learning “kindergarten-level” math (can you tell she’s bored?), she’s enjoying school.

This week has been harder, though. I don’t know if it’s the weather change or the full moon earlier in the week, but she took a full step backwards in behavior. Unfocused, hyper, irritable – it’s been a challenging few days for her.

Then yesterday I received a call from the special needs teacher. A group of kids were playing “zombies” at school, and the play got a little rough. Cordy, trying to protect other kids from the zombies, grabbed a boy around the neck and left small scratches on his neck. There’s no way she meant to hurt him – the teacher said all of the kids were playing rough and that’s when they were told to stop.

But because Cordy had hurt another kid, school policy required her to lose her second recess and spend it in their behavior correction class. It’s a classroom with a behavior specialist in the room at all times, who helps kids work through better choices for their actions. Some kids spend most of their day in that room, others (like Cordy) only are there for a recess and hopefully never return.

For a perfectionist like Cordy, the world came to an end. That is where the Bad Kids go, which means she must be a bad kid. Unable to separate out the difference between a bad action and a bad person, she immediately became upset. Her teacher said she was crying in class and couldn’t focus on her schoolwork, so she was taken to the special needs room to calm down.

She told her special needs teacher that she should be “thrown away” or that we should “kill” her because she’s such a bad person. They were shocked at her reaction and didn’t know what to do. My heart ached to hear it, but I wasn’t shocked. Cordy often overreacts like this when she makes a mistake, and we have to walk a very thin line in discussing the problem with her while also protecting her ultra-fragile self-esteem.

No matter how often we tell her that everyone makes mistakes, and we learn from our mistakes so we don’t make them again, she still believes that a mistake means she’s a failure as a human being. Her inner voice – or inner demons, really – convince her that each mistake is THE biggest mistake she could possibly make, and she will never be able to right the wrongs or redeem herself.

Cordy did eventually calm down after her teacher repeated much of the script we use when she overreacts, and she served her sentence of missing second recess. But she was still upset when she came home.

I was fighting back tears the rest of the day. Cordy is our gentle soul who doesn’t understand why anyone would hurt someone on purpose. She internalizes every mistake as a personal failure, with even the smallest error on her part worthy of the most extreme punishment in her mind. It hurts to see her struggle and tear herself down so much. She is a smart, happy, and kind child who likes to please others, but no matter how much I try to show her that and praise her, she only sees her flaws.

Also, at the moment she’s still mostly unaware of what her classmates think of her, but I’m sure that she’ll find out eventually. How long will it be until someone calls her “weird” or a “freak” and it sinks in? How will we handle that? I love this kid with all of my heart, but I know I can’t protect her from the rest of the world forever.

No one prepares you for this part of parenting. What To Expect When Your Kid Navigates The Social World of Elementary School and The Happiest Elementary School Kid On The Block aren’t handed out at baby showers when we’re anxiously preparing to become parents. Add in special needs and autism, and it’s three times as difficult. My heart aches.

(And yes, I’m already starting to worry what’s ahead when puberty sets in and kids get really mean.)



Health Insurance Hoop Jumping

I was thrilled to find out earlier this week that a health insurance claim that had been pending for nearly a year was finally being processed.

Yes, eleven months and a week to process one claim. Crazy, right?

The claim was for a test I had done last October after my doctor was concerned with some odd symptoms I had recently experienced. She recommended an abdominal ultrasound to rule out ovarian cancer. (Spoiler: everything was normal, other than a slightly out-of-position ovary. Yay!) Trusting my doctor, of course I had the test done.

At that time we had only recently obtained health insurance. Since we were uninsured before that, we had a one year waiting period for any “pre-existing conditions” and when we signed up for insurance had to provide the names of any health provider we had visited in the last year so they could obtain our medical records to determine what pre-existing conditions we might have.

Since I had never experienced anything like this before, I wasn’t too worried. Our insurance sent a letter shortly after the test stating they needed me to sign another permission slip to obtain my records before they could process the claim. I authorized all of it again and considered it done.

Then I began getting letters from the outpatient center at the hospital where I had the test done, asking me to follow up with my insurance because the claim still hadn’t been settled. When I checked with my insurance, they told me they were waiting on my records from a grocery store clinic where I was treated for strep throat once. I again authorized them to send another request for my records, and also pointed out that these grocery store clinics couldn’t diagnose anything that would be relevant to the test I had done.

This entire scenario repeated two more times. Maybe three. I lost count.

Over the summer, I then received a bill from the hospital, telling me they had received three denials from insurance due to missing information and so would start the billing clock against me. I owed $2,097 for an ultrasound, and please pay within 30 days.

A flurry of calls to the insurance company started again, asking why this still hasn’t been processed. They told me they were still waiting on my records from my strep throat visit before they could declare that I wasn’t trying to get coverage for a pre-existing condition. I was so upset at this point. What did I have to hide? I signed away all of my rights so the insurance company could dig up any medical info on me that they wanted to – how was it my fault that the clinic wasn’t complying with their request?

I was angry and scared at this point. Angry that the processing of a claim could be held up due to a strep throat visit and angry that I even had to deal with a pre-existing conditions clause when we pay a large premium every month just to then have a $1000 deductible per person. (Well, it was $1000. It’s $2500 now.) And I was scared that the insurance company would continue to hold up the process and refuse to pay, which would leave us in the position of accepting the entire bill or possibly going into collections and hurting our credit score while we continued to wait.

The customer service reps at the insurance company were very understanding, I will admit. They agreed it was ridiculous and wanted to help however they could. Finally, last month one rep looked through the history of this claim and said, “You know what? I’m going to send this on to claims processing again, and I’ll put a note on it pointing out that the grocery clinic can only handle minor illnesses anyway. Let’s see if we can get them to forget this and get it processed.”

It took nearly a month, but then I looked at my online account and saw it had FINALLY been processed.

It’s not a perfect happy ending, of course. Insurance declared that the “allowable” part of the bill was only $964.62 and so that became the new total. Of that total, they paid $111.78 and left me with a bill for $852.84, the remainder of my deductible from that year. We’ll still have to set up payments with the hospital for that amount, but at least it isn’t as bad as $2,097.

What really drives me crazy is the new bill after the insurance processed it. Because I had insurance, the hospital is accepting $964.62 as the total bill for the procedure. But had I not been insured, I would have been responsible for more than twice that amount.

So those unable to get insurance are not only afraid of ever getting sick or hurt because they have no safety net in place to help cover those bills, but when they do need care they’re hit with a bill that is much larger than what the provider will get from someone with insurance.

I’m so glad that my tests were normal. I can’t imagine how much worse this would be had I been sick and needed treatment, all while trying to fight for coverage. And that’s WITH insurance. My experience is completely how the old system works – the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) provisions that relate to this story have yet to go into effect, although I can’t wait until they do. Our daughters are already seeing the benefits from it, and I’m looking forward to those same benefits and protections.

I know there are good people who do good work at health insurance companies. But I still believe that a health insurance company cannot provide effective medical coverage of their members when they have profits to make each year and shareholders to please. It’s an unpopular belief to many, but I don’t believe health insurance should be a for-profit industry.

While I’d prefer universal health care, I’m willing to accept the idea of private, universally non-profit health insurance companies, where any profits beyond operating costs are rolled back into health education and research, programs providing new ways to encourage preventative care, decreased premiums and incentives for proper maintenance of health conditions. (This would be the nurse in me speaking.)

I know health care is a hot button topic during this election year, but I believe it’s far more than a talking point. Whether you’re a fan of the Affordable Care Act or not, I think we can all agree the old system is not effective and needs reform. I’m not 100% happy with the new system being rolled out, but I’m ready to give it a chance over dealing with the current one.



Birthday Weekend Extravaganza

I probably should have written a post on Friday, but I was still too in shock over the realization that I was now the mother of an eight year old. Cordy’s birthday was Friday and I spent the early morning just staring at her and wondering where all of the time went.

You mean she’s not a baby anymore?

Eight feels so much more grown up than seven. She’s crossing that threshold into big kid now (I can’t even think of the word tween yet) which is both exciting and frightening. Cordy gained so many new skills in the past year and pushes for more independence, but at the same time she’s still so very innocent and unsure of the world.

We didn’t have an official party for her this year. She doesn’t really like parties. Besides, we had a big reunion of friends to attend on Saturday – including several kids she’s friends with – so we were happy to combine occasions and just bring a cake with us to the gathering. Then on Sunday we had family visiting, so Cordy had the chance to celebrate her birthday with them, too.

Instead of one day of celebrating, it turned into a weekend-long birthday extravaganza.

On Friday, after she received a few presents from us, we took her out to dinner at her favorite restaurant with her uncle and aunt. As we sat down and the server handed us menus, Cordy got her attention and brightly exclaimed, “Hi, it’s my birthday today, but please don’t sing to me!” She has never liked people singing to her – it’s a sensory issue she’s had since she was young. Singing to her usually results in her hiding under a table for awhile.

Thankfully, the server understood, and when the meal was done she quietly slipped Cordy a hot fudge sundae and a balloon with no crowd of servers to sing at her. And so dinner ended with everyone happy and Cordy still in her seat and not under the table.

On Saturday we made the drive up to northern Ohio to spend the day with friends. The house we go to is just outside of a small town, with lots of backyard to run and play in. What started as a semi-warm, sunny day quickly turned into rain for over an hour. After it stopped, the kids quickly ran outside again, ignoring the drop in temperature. (How do their small bodies keep from freezing?) It wasn’t long before we were all being ordered by the kids to come outside and see the amazing sky.

The kids were right:

You could see both ends of the rainbow.

Completely unedited photos shot with my iPhone.

As we marveled at the most beautiful rainbow I’ve ever seen, Cordy ran to me and said, “Look, mommy! The sky gave me a rainbow for my birthday! That’s such a nice gift!” She was right, it was a lovely gift.

On Sunday the festivities continued. Aaron took Cordy and Mira to Chuck E Cheese for an early lunch (another request from Cordy) while I straightened up the house. They came home just as family arrived to spend time with Cordy, and different family members cycled through as the day went on.

As much as she wanted her birthday to last forever, Cordy was also showing signs of overload by mid-day. She spent much of the late afternoon in the dining room working in one of her new workbooks while everyone else was in the living room, and later went to her room to be alone for a bit. I was able to coax her back down before dinner, though.

By 8:30pm, the house was finally quiet again. And I was exhausted. I’m still exhausted. It was great to see friends and family this weekend, but I’m looking forward to spending much of the next few days working by myself.

But Cordy had a great birthday, and that’s what matters the most. Happy birthday to the warrior princess!



Shark Girl Loses A Tooth

I lost my first tooth when I was five years old. Cordy lost her first tooth at five years old, too. So when Mira turned five, I waited to see when her first baby tooth would start to wiggle.

Mira’s excitement at the idea of losing her first tooth has remained high, too. There are many days when she sticks her finger in her mouth, wiggles it back and forth, and shouts, “Mommy! I have a loose tooth!” Of course, every time I’ve checked, not a single tooth has wiggled, even a little bit. (But I usually agreed with her that it did wiggle a little. Can’t crush her hopes.)

It’s been a few weeks since she mentioned loose teeth, and we’ve been too busy for me to think about it. Last weekend, though, she gave me a wide smile as she worked on making a necklace at a community event, and suddenly my gaze was fixed on her teeth.

I thought I saw a little gap between her itty-bitty teeth. “Mira, did you lose a tooth?” I asked her. Her eyes were instantly huge. She gave me the biggest closed-mouth smile she could, and I noticed there was a bit of a gap on either side of one tooth, but not enough for another tooth to be missing.

“Oh, I guess not,” I sighed. “You’ve got a little bit of space around one of your teeth, though. Maybe it’s wiggly?”

It was then that Mira opened her mouth wide to wiggle her tooth and I saw the reason for the space around that tooth: her adult tooth was already coming in, right behind it.

That would be a very impatient adult tooth right behind her lower baby teeth.

I help this kid nearly every day with brushing her teeth. How could I miss another tooth already coming in? Especially one that’s already made it that far and is the size of two baby teeth?

So after we made all of the Shark Girl jokes (because really? You MUST make shark girl jokes when your child is starting to grow a second row of teeth), it was time to get to work on removing that baby tooth. After all, that big tooth needs room to get in there – behind all of the other teeth isn’t a very useful place to be.

It was very loose, and I told Mira if she could just wiggle it endlessly it would probably fall out that day or the next. So she set to work on it, but after a while it hurt and she stopped. I reassured her it would probably fall out the next day. She was a ball of excitement at the thought of losing her first tooth and getting her first visit from the tooth fairy.

That tooth hung on the next day, though. And the day after. She requested apples to eat, brushed it extra-thoroughly, and did everything she could to get it out without actually pulling it out. By last night it couldn’t even stay in line with the other teeth, but wouldn’t come out, either.

During storytime, I asked her if she wanted me to pull it out. She agreed, and I gave it a few tries. Tiny teeth are hard to hold onto with big fingers, though, and I had no luck. “Mommy, I want it out for school pictures tomorrow!” she insisted.

I had to say goodnight to Cordy, so I told Mira she was welcome to keep trying. As I went into the next room and gave Cordy a hug goodnight, I heard Mira yell, “I did it! Mommy, I pulled the tooth out!”

Sure enough, she did. Just in time for school picture day.

We wrapped the tooth in a tissue and placed it in the pouch for the tooth fairy. She woke up this morning and found two dollars in the pouch from the tooth fairy, clipped with two sparkly hair clips for her to wear for picture day.

She assures me this wasn’t her picture day smile.

Now I can’t decide what to do with the tooth. I’ve kept a couple of Cordy’s teeth, but do I really want to keep collecting teeth? Not to mention, this tooth and I have a bad history going way back to when she was four months old. I have some painful memories from that tooth, and it nearly made me give up breastfeeding when she was a baby.

I’m not going to miss it at all. Although I might mourn her cute, straight-teeth smile as I open the savings fund for her future orthodontics.



The Transportation Situation

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may have seen my frequent complaints about the buses for our elementary school. We’re a few weeks into the school year now, so you’d think that any issues with transportation would have been smoothed out by now, right? Ha.

I completely gave up on the afternoon bus after it was clear that they were never going to make it to our house in under an hour and a half, and usually longer than that. Driving an hour round-trip is inconvenient for me, but I’m finding it makes for much happier little girls. And they are usually home, have eaten a snack and finished homework before the bus would have even been at our door.

The morning bus is still a problem, though. I can count on one hand the number of times it’s been here on time (within 5-10 minutes of scheduled time) in the past 3.5 weeks and still have fingers available.

There are two big problems with the morning bus being late. First, we have to wait forever at the door for the bus. Two kids waiting at the door for 5-10 minutes are a little rowdy. Two kids waiting at the door for over 20 minutes start to get into trouble quickly. And since I have to walk them out to the bus, it means I can’t get much done until it shows up, either.

The bigger issue is with Cordy, though. With the bus getting here late, it turns out it was arriving late to school, too. And Cordy, who is Type-A to the extreme with her autism, really does not like being late.

We didn’t know anything about this until her special-needs support teacher emailed us last Wednesday to report that Cordy had a meltdown at school that day. The bus arrived late to school, which immediately threw her off. She was anxious that she would have a “black mark” on her record for being late, and even though everyone reassured her that she wasn’t responsible, she still believed she was in trouble.

Then later in the day, her class was lined up for recess and her second grade teacher had to talk loudly (“yell”) so that her class could hear her over the chatter and the three fans trying to keep the classroom cool. She was trying to get the attention of the whole class, but Cordy was convinced the teacher was yelling at her for being late that day. Cordy became upset, hiding under her desk and crying, and had to be taken to the special-needs classroom for a time out.

After she calmed down, she went back to her class, but needed an aide with her for the rest of the day. Since then she’s still anxious on days when the bus is late, and is still diving under her desk when the teacher gets too loud. Her teachers are very understanding, and the school has been doing everything possible to complain to transportation to get the issue corrected.

On Tuesday, we waited for the bus for nearly an hour. The last fifteen minutes of that time was spent on hold on the phone as I waited to speak to someone in transportation to find out where the bus might be. I finally gave up, packed the girls in the car and drove them to school, knowing that we would be late even with driving straight there. Cordy was anxious, but we talked the entire way there about how it wasn’t her fault and her teachers were just as upset with the bus for being late.

We got to school five minutes late. I walked in with her, met up with her teacher so Cordy understood that we were all in agreement that she wasn’t in trouble, and then I left. I later learned the bus arrived at 9:30am, half an hour after the school day started. WOW.

Angry emails to the district’s transportation department were sent. (Since it’s impossible to get to them by phone.) The school’s principal assured us she was also working on the problem from her side, too, and that our bus wasn’t the only one having troubles arriving on time.

And then yesterday? The bus was four minutes early! Good thing I opened the door ahead of time.

Problem solved? Too soon to tell, but I hope so.

It’s ridiculous that the transportation department can’t get buses to school on time. Beyond the anxiety issues it’s causing with Cordy, children arriving late to school affects the entire school. It’s distracting to the classrooms, and it’s stealing precious time from these kids that should be spent in education, not sitting on a late bus.

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