New wheels?

This morning I stayed in Micah's class for a few minutes and his PT arrived (oops, forgot she was coming! LOL). They worked together some but his first thing he did was turn around and walk- QUICKLY- away from her! Then he fell on his face and hit his glasses into the corner of his eye. And cried.

You can tell how much he loves PT to start with by his reaction, but the bonk didn't make matters any better. He slowly warmed up a bit, he 1 hand walked with me a bit and took some steps but wasn't really interested in showing her ANYTHING. He mostly did the jello legs routine. We'll be putting his services "on hold" for PT until the end of May and then we'll see if he'll work with her more at the house or at the center where Emma sees her. He should be walking by then and ready to conquer things like steps and uneven terrain. We'll see!

We got to chat a bit as we tried to convince Micah to work with the PT, though, and I had Emma in there too. She mentioned putting the 'self propel' wheels back on E's wheelchair, but after talking about our safety concerns with E wanting to TOUCH the spinning wheels she agreed, not quite a good idea. She did suggest we consider getting a chair that's more fit to Emma's current and future needs now that she's SO MUCH more stable, has head control, and is sitting up well.

In fact, she has the mobility specialist coming out to the center she works in next Friday... and we could talk to him then about getting a new lightweight chair that is more specific to her needs. The current chair was donated to us by a friend of my mom's and we are SO GRATEFUL to have had it!! She has made LEAPS AND BOUNDS with her back posture because of the wheelchair and does very well in it! It had enough support to keep her upright when she first needed that and is so adjustable that we could use it for a very long time for her. But... she has almost progressed past a point of needing some of the features that it has, and would benefit from different ones that will help her to continue to grow and develop. Especially since she will be spending a LOT more time in her wheelchair once she starts school in August.

So, a call in to the mobility specialists, a call in to our pediatrician, and next Friday we'll be joining in the scheduled 'fitting' times at the center and seeing what the specialist has to say about her current and future needs and his suggestions for what would be most appropriate for her as far as refitting her current chair or getting one with the features she can 'grow' with and that allow her to work on the new skills she's developing.

We've met our deductible with insurance, and they have a set amount after that that they will cover for durable medical equipment... and it's not a very big number. I am hopeful that whatever she needs can be found fairly 'easily' since her needs are SO MUCH less now than they were 8 months ago when we were originally looking at 'seating' options after her open heart. I'll give an update after our meeting :)