Hectic Times

The rush continues. Today Elise had a few therapy sessions and also had a health assessment with the local school district. She did well. Hubby took her to therapy and I took her to the health assessment. This means that I still have time to make up at work and hubby had to return to work tonight. I guess that in therapy she was jumping on a trampoline when another boy joined her. She was really excited to play with him and even once kind of hugged him. She was laughing, making eye contact and really happy.

I spent some time on the phone today learning about a research study at the university. Elise qualifies for the study and I signed her up for it. It will run concurrently with the partial hospitalization program that she starts on the 15th. We'll have to take her to a detailed assessment at the autism research center where we can have genetic testing and other things done, all for free. Works for me. The more info we can discover, especially for free, is great. It requires an additional 1 hour of parent involvement each week, but it'll help defer our costs, so work will have to deal I guess. I need so many hours off already, what's one more each week?

We received the forms for the partial hospitalization program today. I now have a signed form from Elise's doctor to get a Disabled Person Placard for parking. I guess the parking is $11 a day, so the program provides the placards so that parent's can park for drop off and pick up. Seems strange to me. I swore I wouldn't take advantage of it and use it anytime other than for the specified purpose of taking Elise to the program. However, when I returned to work after Elise's health assessment today and had to keep winding up through the parking garage, I kept looking at all the great spots that would have been available if only I had the placard. Temptation is a difficult thing.

Things are generally going well. We're all just really stressed. Everyday seems to bring some new major stressor, even if there are good things about the stress, like maximizing help for Elise! I could just really use some time to slow down and relax. With an autistic child, there seems to be no end in sight for all the work.