A Rough Start

Happy 2017!  

I hope this new year has started off on a positive note for you and yours. It has certainly been a rollercoaster for my family.  Lots of transitions, changes, discoveries, and resolutions.  Its hard to believe so much has been crammed into 23 days.  It hasn't been an easy time, but I'm hopeful that we're coming out of the worst of it.

As you know we've suspected that Oliver has Dyslexia.  It's a hard diagnosis to make made even harder by his age.  So many of the symptoms can be developmentally normal and outgrown.  The beginning of kindergarten was agonizingly hard for Oli.  My sweet even tempered boy began throwing massive tantrums. Getting to school on time became a struggle because of his refusals to get in the car. We began hearing him say things like "I'm dumb", "I'm stupid", and "I'm a loser". 

My heart broke on Thanksgiving when he cuddled up in my lap and with big tears in his eyes told me "Mama, I'm sad.  I don't know why I'm sad, but I am." As a person who has struggled with depression I knew just how he felt and just what he meant.  My baby was trying to tell me, in the only way he knew how, that his struggles had become too much. I reached out for help soon after.  

The saving grace in this situation has been our amazing elementary school.  They have gone above and beyond what is expected of them for Oliver.  In September we met to request speech testing so that the school district could take over his therapy.  During this meeting O's learning struggles were also discussed. The meeting was adjourned with the understanding that only speech would be assessed at that point.  Without going into too much detail lots of behind the scenes discussions took place and it was decided that it would be best to also test Oliver for a learning disability. To get the district to agree to test a kindergarten student is almost unheard of.  This was truly the work of God.

In early January we were called to school to discuss the results of the testing.  I was a nervous wreck and couldn't sleep for days leading up to the appointment.  I walk into the room and see a woman I don't recognize sitting at the table.  She introduces herself to me and explains that her position is on the district level. At that point I think that either I've gotten the reputation of being "that mom" and they are expecting me to pitch a fit when they tell they aren't going to do anything to help Oli or they've found something really awful in his testing and she's here to explain it to me. Thank goodness it wasn't either of those options.

She starts the conversation off by explaining that she likes to start with the "big picture end result" because she knows that's what parents are anxiously awaiting. I liked her already! She flips to the end of a gigantic packet and points to a page that contains all of Oliver's testing scores.  Only one area is highlighted in blue.  The area is phonemic awareness.  Out of all the testing done on Oli this is the only test that he didn't perform extremely well on. In fact, he did really, really poorly on it.  She explained that a deficit in this area usually indicates dyslexia.  She went on to say that typically in a child as young as Oliver they take a watch and wait approach, but there were several other red flags that made it important to get him tested for dyslexia now.  

Upon hearing the news I immediately burst into tears.  I was just so relieved that I wasn't going to have to fight for more testing.   After taking a deep breath we finished the meeting and set a date for the end of March to discuss the results of the dyslexia assessment.  We all feel confident that Oliver will be identified as dyslexic and we can start getting him the help he needs.  What a blessing that this can happen for him in kindergarten as opposed to second or third grade when identification usually happens. 

I've tried to start this section of the post a thousand times and there's no easy way to do it.  It's the biggest change my family is facing and because of so many pending legal issues I can't discuss it in detail.  When I married F I wrongly assumed that physicians started their practices and that was that.  They didn't move.  Their jobs were stable and didn't fluctuate... I mean everyone gets sick and has babies, right?  I had never heard of noncompete clauses, employed physicians, hospitalists, locums physicians, income guarantees, RVU's, the list goes on and on. I am now completely fluent in this language because it has consumed my marriage for the last 7 months.

In June it was decided that F wouldn't be returning Cedar Park Regional in the new year.  We needed a change and were hoping that we could move his practice closer to home.  After a summer and fall full of introductions, dinners, contracts, negotiations and renegotiations we thought we'd found the perfect place.  We spent the holidays celebrating our good fortune and F went to his new office January 3.   He came home early that afternoon looking especially stressed.  "There's a problem with the new contract"  and negotiations began again.

These 20 days have been a series of "what now?" moments.  Just when we think we have it all figured out another kink in the plan shows up and we have to spend another 3 or 4 days figuring out what to do. We have been in negotiations with 2 hospital systems.  One local and one not.  One has been an absolute joy to work with and one hasn't.  One will be a traditional set up and one will require F to work out of town a week at a time in a critical access hospital.  There are pros and cons to both.  We think we have everything settled.  As soon as everything is signed I can fill you in on all the details.  Until then please pray that this last part will go smoothly without any surprises.  F and I don't like surprises anymore.