Mommy for hire

J had his appointment with the speech therapist this morning.

We were about 5 minutes late getting there due to traffic. Who knew that it'd take over an hour to go less than 15 miles? It took 20 minutes just to get through the first intersection past my house, and another 20 to make it another couple of miles to the interstate on-ramp. Ugh! I despise being late for anything, so my morning did not start off well.

Once we got there, she and J set to work on some evaluation where they looked at pictures together and he named them while she wrote down stuff on some sort of score card. Meanwhile, I filled out all the paperwork that I should have arrived early to do.

After the verbal assessment, she felt around in his mouth and had him play a funny face game with her where she tried to get him to stick out his tongue and move it from side to side/ touch his teeth, etc. They blew bubbles together and tooted on horns and played with some toys. He really enjoyed his session, and was upset that it was over.

The verdict? He has some weakness in the right side of his jaw and in his right cheek/lip. He also has poor coordination of the muscles of his face, as well as some general muscle coordination problems. The good news is, she's pretty confident that he can overcome it in time, and that the drooling will also improve. He has some lag in his speech, but she says that he's pretty much within the norm for his age group and that we'll work on that too.

Now for the bad news: It's going to be expensive.

I don't know why I didn't consider that before getting started. I guess I just sort of thought, rather foolishly, that we'd go, have our evaluation, then be sent home with some exercises and stuff, then go back in a month or so to see how he's improved. Ummm... negative. The cost for evaluation alone was ridiculous, and sent me scrambling home to transfer money before the charges bounced. And now we're looking at an undetermined number of weekly visits at $45 per 1/2 hour.

I'll gladly pay any amount of money to ensure that my son has every opportunity in the world, but man does it start to add up!

That said, I really like this particular therapist, and chose her based on both the fact that I know her personally, and she comes highly recommended by my pediatrician. But insurance won't cover her... and according to her, and to phone calls I've made to the insurance company that have been like talking to a brick wall, they don't cover a whole lot of anything anyway.

The only option I have right now seems to be picking up some extra shifts at work. Blech! But really, what other option is there? If I can figure out what I'm going to do with J, I'll be begging them tomorrow to let me pick up another shift, or find another VERY part time job on the side.

**Sigh**