ECI visit - Kelly

Luke 4:40 "When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them."

I have good news and great news!  I should have posted sooner but honestly - we have been having too much fun.  The weather has been good and our back yard is one of the coolest places to be! lots of toys, lots of water, lots of dirt and grass, lots of popsicles.  of course kyle is kind of on the sidelines for now - but he is enjoying the outdoors too!

good news first - I talked with a hospital Medicaid representative - the person who is actually over getting us coverage for the first 10 days of kyle's life.  I spoke to her - so I have her number, she is working on it and hoping to have it all accomplished (get this... ) before she leavers her job in a week.  Ya - i finally meet her, find her and get her to work on it and then she leaves....  but she says she is going to try and have our case finalized before she goes!!!!  we are almost there!  this is huge - not just in money but HOURS upon HOURS of frustration that will be out of my hair.  the medicaid thing is very beneficial though so the frustration is worth it.  I talked with the hospital rep when I was looking into all this friday (some of my hours on the phone for the medicaid stuff!) and she has become a friend of mine over our stay there - she is awesome - anyway, she was telling me what my insurance and medicaid have paid out to the hospital for kyle since his birth!  are you ready for this - BCBS (our ins) have paid over $714,000 for Kyle's stay and Medicaid has made 2 payments, one for over $500,000 and one over $250,000. Can you believe that?  anyway and this is just the hospital and nurses.  the nurse practitioners and doctors and all the add-ons he has seen are separate!  crazy.  anyway - provision - it has been huge!

okay - for the GREAT news!  we had our ECI visit - our first physical therapy one - actally we met with an occupational therapist.  She did kyle's evaluation and strangely enough for their reporting they will only allow the therapist to rate kyle for being 2 months corrected.  meaning instead of correcting for the 4 months and one week early that he was they can only give him 2 months.  so when the grade him he is being graded like he is a 3 month old instead of a 1 1/2 month old.  so basically don't panic when I see their notes.  (if that makes any sense - I have NO idea why they do it that way.) but anyway - I look at kyle like he is a 6 week old - not like he is 5 1/2 months old.  This is how we should gage his development.  So they evaluated him and he scored as follows:

If 100% is average:  87% cognitive, 93% communication, 85% social and emotional, 80% physical, 80% adaptive behavior.  BUT GET THIS.... this is for Kyle's birth age - meaning for a 5 1/2 month old!!!  so when you translate it to what it looks like for kyle - cognitive he is like a 1 month old, communication like a 3 month old (who knew as a member of the sherrill clan!), social-emotional like a 2 month old, physical like a 1 month old, and adaptive behavior like a 1 month old.  This was all really great news for me.  Kyle is very mildly behind in some areas and ahead in some areas according to their evaluation.  ECI will be seeing him once every other week for now!  

Thank you so much for those of you who are still praying for kyle and for me too.  ECI gave us some homework and Kyle is working hard everyday to achieve his milestones!  He is proving to be like jadon once again in that he likes his "homework". We have lots of fun!  His therapist says she does not see any major signs of CP right now either!

I will keep updating - this week we go to the high risk Pedi - we will see about the oxygen!  and next week is neurology and cardiology and hematology!  

We are praising God for Kyle's growth - everywhere I go I am meeting people that have been touched by Kyle's story (we are starting to venture out now!) and all of it is so encouraging to me.  thank you to all of you.