Catching Up

I got a funny call last Wednesday while Akila was at dance class. The teacher called me to say that Akila was having a hard time with her Asthma and needed her inhaler right away. Being the sensitive mom that I am, I started to laugh hysterically. I told the teacher that Akila doesn't have Asthma, to tell her to resume dancing, and that I would see her in an hour. I thought this was so funny. She has told several people this over the last week or so. My assumption is that some student in her class has been having to use his or her inhaler and Akila has noticed the attention they have received. Nice. Like she doesn't have enough medical challenges already.

Our children go to Children's Clinic in Minneapolis for all of their medical needs. We have a Pediatrician I absolutely love, Dr. Paula Mackey. She invited me to be on a committee last month that is called something like a Medical Home team or something like that. It is a state funded program that is working with clinics to help them to better serve families with special needs kids. I have been to two meetings and they are really interesting.

The teams from the different clinics from around the state, are suppose to come up with little ideas to improve their care, put them into action, research the results, and report them at the conferences so all the teams can hear how it worked. The project my clinic started (before I was on the team), is to send dictated notes to special needs families after a visit to the Dr., so we would have a very detailed summary of the appt and all that was talked about. What a great idea, Akila hasn't had an appt. since they started this, but it is a great idea.

I talked about having some kind of way of giving the front desk staff info to give the nurse and/or Dr. before they call you back. Like info that I don't want them to say the word shot or injection during the appt. (for the opposite reason that most would need this info relayed, Akila throws rages if she is not going to get a shot); or that I would prefer that they not bring us into the exam room until they are ready for us, as keeping Akila's hands off all the instruments and stuff, is not fun. It is much easier to wait in the waiting room where there is a better variety of toys and nothing to keep her out of. Some families with special needs kids, need to get them into the exam room right away because of immune problems and all the germs and stuff.

Anyway, we are working on ways to improve these kind of issues for families. The majority of other parents on the team, mainly have kids with medical needs, and not behavioral issues like we struggle with. I get to go to a conference in January with all of the clinics, and I am looking forward to it. I also get paid for my time at meetings and conferences, which is a great bonus. It is nice to be at a clinic where they care and are trying to make things easier for families. I love Children's Hospitals and Clinics!!

We had a great weekend, in great part thanks to Angie and Emily. Michael and I had tickets to the Guthrie to see Shadowlands on Saturday night, and the two of them babysat (Emily's husband Jesse came for part of the night as well). Then on Sunday afternoon, Emily and Angie took the kids to the Bell Museum and swimming at the Y for several hours so Michael and I could get some Christmas shopping done. When they brought them home, they brought pizzas. These ladies are a huge blessing to our family. My kids were totally wiped out last night, put them all to bed by 7:30 and did not hear a word from any of them. It was beautiful!!! Thanks Angie and Emily!