A Different Boat

After 18 months of driving 120 miles round trip to Children's Hospital several times a week, we have decided to move closer to Denver. It's incredibly sad to move away from the mountains and the community we love, but there are some unsolvable things about living here. Wesley needs to get regular occupational therapy which he can't get at home in this rural community. Sadly, there is not a single pediatric occupational therapist who will travel up here. It's also become more evident that our 5 level split-level house is not practical for Wesley in the long run. Although we are hopeful that he will learn to walk and climb stairs, it is going to be a much longer and more difficult journey than we originally realized and constantly carrying him up and down stairs for most daily activities will become increasingly difficult as he gets bigger. Also while the schools here are filled with wonderful, compassionate people, they simply don't have the same resources as school...

I have so many thoughts and things to share it's hard to know where to start...   We got a mini-Christmas for Wes this week at his physical therapy appointment. Almost 3 months ago we ordered a few adaptive equipment items to help Wes progress and to help us take care of him. Well, after a long process of obtaining letters of medical necessity and waiting on insurance, we got them (yay!). One of the wonderful things about Wes being on Medicaid, is this equipment is covered 100% (double yay!). So we traveled home from Children's with a new medical stroller (kid kart) which also works as a chair at home, a bath chair (since he just won't fit in the infant tub anymore and isn't sitting independently yet), and a stander. I have mixed feelings about these items. While I am excited to have the tools appropriate to help Wes, there is some reminder of the loss of normalcy while seeing him using the equipment. He looks adorable, as usual :) , and his positioning is so mu...