Medical Insurance

A very brief, quick "hello" to friends and loved ones here to check on Ellie.  Since the beginning of August as you know, we've been trying to sort out the application for Ellie's extra medical coverage for medically fragile children.  Some wording has changed since last time we did it 3 years ago and I'm sorry to report we've been terminated from the program :(.

THE GOOD NEWS IS we've already reapplied and the supervisors of supervisors know we're coming back through with all things corrected.

Prayers please - mainly there is one way Ellie can qualify and that is if I can find a good doctor to trust with her cognitive evaluation paperwork.  Please pray we get in with one quickly and that our application gets received into the right hands!

The oldest and the youngest:

Football in the backyard!  Ellie takes the ball and runs with a host of siblings coming after her!!!

The big kids take possession and Ellie says "who won?"

I'll be sure to keep you posted on the application process.  Luckily she has a heart echocardiogram on Oct. 12th and we don't get terminated until a few days after that!  God always takes care of us!

Football, School, etc.

After a full month of August that included paperwork for Ellie's needs, ordering school supplies and getting us all used to Daddy being back at work...September is a welcomed change.

Here are Julia and Xavier throwing their stuffed animals in the air - I show you this to illustrate where Ellie can be found during anything exciting in the house.  Right in the middle of it all!

Who knew - put a plate of broccoli in front of her and see what happens!

 The kids get ready for football by all wearing their favorite team jerseys!

Ellie wears the names of some football players after a family tradition of picking players for fantasy football teams.

School has begun!  The big kids at the big table and Ellie at her own table!

(in keeping with my tradition of being "real" for my dear readers, Ellie sitting here only lasted as long as it took to take this picture and multiple painters hit their "artistic wall" right after I took this)

"A is for Apple" this week so Ellie got to try some melted caramel on an apple slice.  She signed for "more"!!

Therapies

There have been multiple times over the past three years where I have looked at a scenario and said, "This is going to be a disaster".  Of course, nothing was actually disasterous.  Except maybe some of the dinners I made.  But, alas, this is not a cooking blog.

Coming home from vacation we got word that some of the requirements for Ellie's medical benefits would be changing.  All in all, good changes.  But it took alot of "documentation" of how she's doing, what struggles she has, what her needs are, etc. to get the paperwork to go through.  Several doctor's orders and multiple evaluations of our girl took place in August.  Luckily all the evaluations were in the same building and it's a wonderful place full of toys, learning tools and amazing resources to help Ellie overcome her boundaries.  She then got approved for therapy several times a week which was also part of the requirement for the benefits.

Going to this place as much as we have had to this past month (up to three times a week) looked like it was never going to work for our homeschooling bunch.  Limited availability of appointments forced us to go at nap time and mealtime and a few of us were slightly cranky about that :).  But after a month of going up to an hour and a half a week, Ellie is loving it and the kids and I are enjoying watching her.  We call it "Ellie school"!

I took the liberty of sending some pictures in with our documentation to show Ellie's "home therapy". There is a general understanding that therapy in a building is only a starting point for the real progress that happens at home. Here are the kids and their patient hard at work!

Ellie is getting stronger and gaining independence - a goal everyone agrees on!