We kept Namine home from school yesterday due to a fever. Because she can’t go to school until 24 hours after a fever, we’ll be keeping her home today as well. We took her temp before bed last night, and it looked like it was going down. Hopefully she’ll be able to go to school tomorrow.
It’s funny, the things you take for granted. For instance, we’d become accustomed to hearing from Namine’s therapists precisely how she’s doing – standing, walking, speaking – everything she did in therapy would be recounted back to us, because it’s important for us, her parents, to know what’s working, what’s not, and what she needs to work on. Therapy in school, however, is different.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask to get a real status report on how Namine is doing in therapy. But all we get is a sheet that says “What We Did Today” with a single line description. So far, we haven’t seen any initiative on the part of the teacher or therapist to communicate much with us. That said, Namine seems to be doing pretty well. She is still getting therapy at the other clinic, and we do get more communication with those therapists. And you know, Namine is just like any other kid. Sometimes she works hard, sometimes not. I mean, come on. She has bad days, too. (I only hope that she doesn’t get headaches like I do.)
We are a little disappointed that the school does not give Namine as much opportunity to walk or scoot as we’d like; scooting is, after all, her fastest method of locomotion, and she does need more work in walking. Nearly all of her time spent at school is spent in her wheelchair. But that, too, has its merits. After all, the wheelchair is plenty of work too.
We had been assured in Namine’s IEP that she would be placed in a class with kids who spoke. That, unfortunately, is somewhat of a relative statement. If Namine didn’t speak at all, it might be true that some of the kids speak more – but as things stand right now, Namine talks circles around all of them. We had hoped that she would learn and benefit from the speech of her peers, but she won’t. It’s a good thing we talk to her a lot at home.
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