So Many Appointments!

Susanne was excited that Paxton was finally going to have his first feeding evaluation with a speech therapist since being discharged from the hospital. Susanne had attempted to schedule this appointment with a number of other speech therapist, but they either did not have the experience with newborns or with his congenital conditions. After running into a lot of dead ends, Susanne decided to just schedule this appointment with the team of people that had evaluated him in the hospital. The unfortunate side to all of this was definitely the amount of time that it would take for Susanne and Paxton to get to the hospital. The appointment time that was available just so happened to coincide perfectly with rush hour traffic. It took Susanne an hour and a half to get to the hospital just to be seen within a 45 minute time frame to then have to turn around and go back home. Paxton, however, was well worth it all.

The appointment went well. The speech therapist was able to observe Paxton's resistance to the Mead-Johnson bottle. She was impressed with his interest in the pacifier, particularly his Wubba Nub, but this would not give him any nutrition. Susanne mentioned her interest in trying a different bottle such as the Haberman bottle. This suggestion came from Susanne's oldest sister and a close family friend, both of whom are occupational therapists. The speech therapist was willing to try the different bottle to see if it would make any difference. Thankfully, it did. Paxton was way more interested in the Haberman bottle than the other option. Susanne liked it much better too. The nipple was shorter, wider, and softer. It appeared to resemble the pacifier and human anatomy much more than the other one. Susanne's goals for the next few weeks was to continue to work with Paxton and the new bottle a few times a day. Hopefully, he would improve with the quantity that he was taking by the follow up appointment in two weeks.

Later that afternoon, Susanne had an appointment with the Social Security office to see if Paxton would qualify for any supplemental income. Susanne would not have even known that this kind of assistance existed if it were not for the recommendation and information provided by the social worker from the hospital. Susanne had spent at least three hours the night before filling out the application online. They asked a lot of detailed questions including wanting to know the name and address of every doctor that saw Paxton during his hospital stay. After looking through all of the insurance claims, the total came to 30 doctors. YIKES! Susanne also spent some time writing an essay about the medical conditions that Paxton had been diagnosed with. She made sure to emphasize the severity of each individual issue and the problems they may cause down the road. Susanne had decided to sacrifice some sleep last night to hopefully help decrease the time that would be spent at the Social Security office. Susanne and Paxton arrived on time for their appointment. They were almost taken back immediately which was a relief. The frustrating part was that within two minutes of being there, Susanne was told that Paxton would not qualify because her income was too high. In order to benefit from this program, the combined income per household cannot exceed $30,000 per year. One's chances of receiving supplemental income does increase with the more children that you have. The lesson learned here was that they do not look at each individual case to assess where the true need may be, but they support the people who are unemployed with lots of children. Seriously?

Moppy came over in the evening to help out with the overnight shift to hopefully allow Susanne to catch up on some much needed sleep. Moppy thought that this would be a good idea since tomorrow was Susanne's first day at work. Good idea, Moppy!