Therapy

I'm pretty much addicted to reading blogs. I read all kinds but the majority are written by parents of special needs children. I often find out new therapy techniques and activities to try with Romy through them.  They've become an invaluable resource.

As most of you know, Romy gets speech, physical, and occupational therapy provided by the state's early intervention services until she's 3. Once she reaches 3 she'll start developmental pre-school and her therapy will probably be reduced quite a bit. Our insurance will cover maybe two additional therapy sessions but that's about it. Not that I'm complaining about our insurace. It's ridiculously wonderful- Romy's 3 quarters of a million (yes, million!) dollar NICU bill? Completely covered. Romy's super fancy $5500 stander? No money out of pocket. It's one of the amazing perks of being a military brat, most things are fully covered.

Nonetheless, I want to get Romy into some alternative therapies that aren't covered by our insurance like music therapy,  hyperbaric oxygen therapy, hippotherapy and maybe even adult stem cell therapy. The latter being extremely expensive (Think 20k or more) and would require us to leave the country for treatment. There's a million different things I want to try and as long as it won't hurt or endanger Romy- we'll try it. We aren't looking for a cure we just want her life to be as easy as possible and we're looking to give her every opportunity to get there. Even if none of them help at all, at least we tried. Now that Romy is older, stronger, healthier and as curious as ever, I think it's time to start pushing forward to those types of treatments.

First up, music therapy. Romy responds so wonderfully to music. She dances, sings and is just happier when she hears it. So we met with a music therapist today and she was really great. Romy responded really well to her and didn't freak out when she picked her up and took her to a room that didn't have me in it. Romy is usually mute around unfamiliar people, but was chatting up a storm with this complete stranger. Originally I wanted to place her into a group setting, but decided to pay a bit extra for one-on-one therapy instead. The idea was that she'd focus more that way. She'll go for 30 minutes every week.

This summer we're going to try hippotherapy (there's a link in the previous post) I've researched it a bit and there's a program here on Oahu that provides it for special needs kids at a minimal cost. It's on the opposite side of the island so that might only happen every 2-4 weeks depending on their openings. A great opportunity nonetheless.

I'd like to start Romy on  Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (or HBOT) within the next 6 months. There's a clinic that offers it close by but it's going to cost a pretty penny. I'd like for her to go 3-4 times a week for an hour each time for a full month.

Last but not least- we have Adult Stem Cell therapy. Some may find this extreme, but I'm talking about adult stem cells. Meaning we would use Romy's own stem cells and not the controversial embryonic stem cells. It's not yet available in the US (although there's said to be clinical trials going on) and we're in a bit of a time crunch. Children the age of 4 and under are the ones whom respond the best to this treatment. Most special needs parents take their child to Mexico, China or Germany to get it done. It's still too much of an inconceivable (monetary wise) goal to worry about right now, but I don't want to cross it off the list completely. We've got some savings in the bank and maybe some fundraisers in our future. Hopefully we can get there.

Thankfully, Romy is growing up during a really wonderful medical science boom. So many different things are available to her that didn't even exist 20 years ago. I think she's gonna be just fine.