Travis' Journey

Winter, 2011

2011-02-13T15:23:00.000-08:00

Once again I am amazed at how much time has passed since I updated Travis' blog! Travis turned 4 years old on Dec. 4th, 2010. I am labeling this one by season since that seems to be as often as I get to write. :)

There were certainly a lot of transitions this fall for Travis with the ending of the Bridges program and not being enrolled in the public school's PPCD program this year. I think it was the right decision as Travis is really progressing, and his therapists thought he was likely to learn just as many negative behaviors at the new school as positive ones. It does seem that his therapy program is very "light" this year though. We are doing only 3 hours of private therapy per week, in addition to 2 hippotherapy sessions per week. He is doing fairly well in his "mother's day out" program with typical kids 2 mornings per week, although sometimes he has difficulties there and just Friday spent much of the day in time out and had to go to the director's office! That said, most of the time he does fine with the others. We are also doing gym classes with typical kids twice per week to give him a little more support physically as we had to drop his occupational therapy in January. Things are definitely coming along, most notably that some of the GI issues are finally abating and we are making good progress on the potty training front. This summer we will scale back on the private therapy and try a few day "camps" to test the waters with new surroundings and people. At least one of them will be for kids with special needs but some others will not, and that should give us a good idea of how much progress he's really made before figuring out next year's therapy schedule. I'm being optimistic and registering him for typical preschool 4 1/2 days per week for next year, hoping that he will be ready for that by the end of summer. Still taking it one day at a time...

As always, so grateful for all your well wishes and thoughts you keep sending our way. Much love and appreciation for all of you, and hoping all is well for your families and friends.

Summer update

2010-08-20T06:19:00.001-07:00

Once again, I'm amazed at how much time has passed since I wrote the last update! I just re-read the post for May and have to laugh thinking that I thought things would calm down in the summer. Ha!

We had a nice trip to our friends horse ranch in AK, although of course it was disappointing to have our "family" vacation without Jeff there! But it was mission accomplished as when we got back Travis started his therapeutic riding the following week without a hitch. He went weekly for the summer session (7 weeks) without a problem, but after a 3 week break before fall session started last Saturday, it was a little more difficult getting back to it. We spent the first 30 minutes of the 45 minute session trying to convince him to get up on the horse. But he did ride for the last 15 minutes so hopefully this week he'll remember and be ready to go. His horse is named Spirit and during the summer he really did enjoy riding. The instructor has them do many different therapeutic tasks: red light/green light games, treasure hunts where they have to reach down to grab things to put in their bags, even doing a puzzle while riding backwards on the horse. It's very interesting to watch as some of the kids who don't have a lot of gross motor control really respond to the horses - you can just see their whole bodies relax.

Unfortunately, we had 2 disappointing events this summer. Most importantly, the Children's Hospital that runs Travis' therapy program decided to shut the program down in mid-Sept. due to "budget cuts". And the PPCD program that he attended at our local elementary school was also pulled from our school for the same reason. The public school system has rezoned him to another school much farther away, so he can still attend at a new location and with new staff and peers. But it will definitely be a transition. Right now we're still looking into alternatives for the therapy program. Doing the therapies individually privately is much too expensive (the tuition we paid for the hospital program for 40+ hrs therapy/month would buy us only 5 hours of private therapy/month!) But the hospital is willing to let a private school in Houston use the same space to offer a half-time school program, and if there are enough parents interested this could be an option for us. Since we received a good amount of tuition assistance through the hospital, it would more than double what we're paying now, but at least it would be for the same number of hours per month as what he's getting now. I will be observing at the school this week to see how their academic program looks, and we will know if there are enough interested parents by the end of this month.

Needless to say, Travis is going to have a lot of transitions over the next 6 weeks or so. He will try attending Julia's preschool for typical kids 2 mornings per week as well. Hopefully by the next update, I'll be able to report on how things have worked out and that at least he's adjusting well to however his schedule looks. Keep fingers crossed for us!

May update

2010-05-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe that almost 4 months have passed since I've had a chance to write an update on Travis! Things have been quite hectic all along, but most recently Jeff has been working non-stop since the oil rig explosion (his company flies BP) and I've been struggling just to make it as a "single parent". All vacations are on hold at his job which is unfortunate because we are going to a horse ranch in Arkansas next week for Travis to - hopefully - get some experience on the horses which are very gentle and can work with kids with special needs. We have some very kind and gracious friends who offered to let us stay there for an entire week free, and we arranged it last September to be the first week in June which is when Travis' program at the Children's Hospital is on break. So we are going without Jeff... thankfully Nana and Papa are going too so I will have some help! It is about a 12 hour drive and I believe the closest big grocery store is a couple of hours away so it should definitely be an experience.

Overall, spring has been good and Travis is doing well. He's made lots of progress with speech (4-6 word sentences!) and being more interactive over the last few months. He also is much better with going to new places and meeting new people. The only thing that doesn't seem to be coming along too well is the physical improvements with his GI tract. Despite being on a strict special diet for 18 months, and a ton of different supplements and more recently different drugs, based on the stool and urine tests he isn't making much progress with getting rid of all the yeast overgrowth in his gut along with several pathogenic bacterial infections and imbalances. At 3 1/2 years old he's still not had normal stool, and this is a bit distressing since we hope (someday) to be potty trained. We started with a new MD a few months ago and I'm hoping we get some better results soon. But, on the bright side, his behavior has overall been pretty steady so that's something to be grateful for.

On the Son-Rise (home program) front, we had a great experience in April when we had a consultant from the east coast come for 3 days to work with Travis and help us improve our program. Over that time she worked one-on-one with Travis in his playroom for about 9-10 hrs, observed each of us work with Travis and gave us feedback on improving our techniques, ran a group meeting for us, and even did a session with Travis and Julia in the playroom together. It was great to see how well he did with her in the room (she certainly was very skilled and got wonderful responses, eye contact, and flexibility from him) but even more exciting was to hear from her how well he's doing. We track his progress on the Son-Rise "developmental model" but we're never sure if we're accurate in our assessment, and it was great to have her professional opinion about where he's at, which was even farther along than we had thought. It also made me feel more relaxed about the various approaches we're taking (home program, TX Children's Hospital, PPCD in the public school, diet, supplements, etc) since it seems to be is working for him. Since progress is always so much slower than we would like, I can't help but wonder sometimes if we should be doing more or less of some things, and it was really nice to have some reassurance.

Well, I think that covers most of what's been happening on our end. Julia had her last day at preschool today and the public school PPCD class will end for Travis next week, so summer should be a little more relaxed with only Travis' TX Children's program to attend. Both kids will do swim lessons this summer, and Travis finally got a slot at the local hippotherapy program (after almost a year on the waiting list) so he will start riding a horse just a week after we get back from the horse ranch. Talk about perfect timing! Hopefully he'll have a good experience on our trip and be excited about riding a horse when he gets back.

I'll look forward to updating more soon!

Jan/Feb update

2010-02-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Hope all of you are having a wonderful start to 2010! We are still getting settled but at least all of the unpacked boxes are now located in the garage and not the house. :) It has been a busy first month of the new year with lots of changes for Travis (and all of us):

First, Travis settled into the new house very well. The first couple weeks there were some tantrums for wanting to go back to the old house (which, ironically, he was calling the "new house") but after a little while he's gotten used to it and especially likes his new room, which has Thomas the train in it. The rest of us are getting used to the new place too - Julia loves her "princess fairy" room and Mommy and Daddy are slowly getting adjusted. Although this is my 9th move since graduating college it's the first one since having kids and seems exponentially more difficult...!

Travis settled back into his program at TX Children's quite easily after the holiday break. This was a relief since his main therapist went out on maternity leave and we weren't sure how much he would miss her. But his other therapists stayed the same and he already knew his "substitute" so it went quite smoothly.

He also started the PPCD program at our local elementary school 3 afternoons per week and seems to like it. He gets to take the school bus home all 3 days and to school as well one day per week (the other 2 days I drive him since he goes straight from his hospital program Bridges). Needless to say riding on the school bus is the most exciting part!

The only thing left to get going again is the home program, which has been lagging a bit between the holidays and moving. Now that we're more settled (and mostly unpacked) we'll be focusing on ramping up again in our new space. Also a new doctor to see this month. Hopefully we'll get some good feedback on Travis' progress with the diet/supplement regimen Travis has been on for the last year.

Thanks to everyone for all the good wishes in our new space and holiday cheer!

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season!

We're busier than usual this year as we sold our house and closed on a new one today. We'll be moving the 23rd so holiday activities will probably be overshadowed by packing and unpacking this year... but we don't have to be fully out of our house until the 28th so we have some flexibility.

The Son-Rise training program I went to last month (called New Frontiers) was wonderful and our TV room in the new house will be able to double as Travis' playroom for doing therapy which will be great. He also will start preschool next month so there will be a lot of transitions for him to adjust to.

Wish us luck - will look forward to updating on everything next month!

November update - lots to report!

2009-11-08T07:54:00.000-08:00

Hi all! Hope this update finds you well. We've had a busy couple months with some changes, the biggest of which is that we decided to put our house on the market to sell or lease. Since I am still out of work and Travis' medical costs keep coming it seems like the logical thing to do. The good news is that Travis is still making great progress and this is VERY motivating for us to keep all the outside interventions going as long as possible! We've already had a few showings and are hoping things will move quickly, but if it takes awhile the silver lining is that we get to stay here longer as we do love this house and will be a little sad to leave. It's definitely a challenge to keep the house "ready to show" with an almost-3 and 4 year old in it!

Happily, I have some great examples to report of the progress Travis has been making lately. First, his speech is really improving, with much better articulation and new words, as well as 3 word phrases ("I want ___"). Second, he is starting to play with Julia for several minutes a time without any outside support (this is actually an accomplishment for both of them!) It seems like very 'typical' sibling interactions - i.e. more times than not leading to crying and fighting - but this is a very good sign about the potential for his social skills to expand to others in the future. Third, he started taking swimming lessons and is doing great. A physical therapist had recommended aquatherapy for him and we decided to see if he could handle regular swim lessons first (MUCH cheaper, more convenient, and also he can learn to swim!) and after just a few sessions getting used to going with the instructor by himself he is loving it. Hooray!

Other highlights this month include dressing up for Halloween to attend his "school" party and going trick or treating around the neighborhood , and also playing the game "1,2,3, poke!" which allows me to give him his B-12 injections while he is fully awake instead of having to do them late at night while he is sleeping. A great convenience.

Travis was also evaluated this month for transition to the public school system next month, after our state early intervention services will end on his third birthday. We've just started the process but it looks like they will recommend that he attend an afternoon preschool class at our local elementary school for kids with special needs (PPCD). So we'll see how it goes and probably give it a try if it looks like it could be beneficial.

The other exciting news this month is that I'm getting ready to attend the third Son-Rise training at the Autism Institute of America next week, called New Frontiers. This course focuses on developing and updating the curriculum for your child's program as he progresses. I know that I will learn a lot based on the first two trainings and also get a mental/energy/emotional boost from interacting with the other parents there who have kids with autism and are doing the Son-Rise program, so I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm sure I will have much to report next month too with the holidays coming and all these changes going on... have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Sept update

2009-09-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is having a great start to the school year!

Ours was short-lived as we were all home with the flu this week. Julia hasn't actually had a full week of school yet! But hopefully all will be back to normal next week. Travis has a new doctor (autism specialist) to help with the biomedical/dietary interventions and it was nice to hear that she felt we were on the right track, given that it's been a year now that we've been working on his diet and supplementation. He also started some listening therapy which he does at his therapy program/school and also at home, twice a day for 20 minutes. Now that he's used to wearing the headphones (they are very bulky and cumbersome) he's getting much better at listening.

We also had an amazing offer from some friends who have a horse ranch in Arkansas. Travis is currently on a waiting list for horse therapy (maybe you've seen or read "The Horse Boy"?) and they are starting a hippotherapy (horse therapy) program for autistic kids on their ranch and offered to sponsor us to come stay there for free! It is just incredible. We are going to take them up on it at the end of May/first week of June next year during one of Travis' breaks from TX Children's. Since we didn't travel at all this summer (partly due to Travis but also since I'm still out of work) it will be really nice to look forward to a nice family vacation next summer!

Hope all of yours was great and you're happy that we're moving into fall...

Summer update

2009-08-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is having a great summer! I can hardly believe it is August now; at the end of this month Julia will be 4 yrs old and Travis will really have a "big sister" to look up to. She will start preschool for 5 mornings a week instead of 3, which should make it easier fitting in with Travis' therapy. He is doing great going full-time at 4 mornings per week, although he had a little bit of an adjustment after the 2-week break last month. We will have one more week off later this month, and then it should be pretty steady until holidays.

Travis is saying a lot more words now, and most of them are even understandable. He can say all of his therapists names, and repeats any new name you tell him. We're still spending a lot of time on the dietary interventions, and he's slowly starting to try new foods. The big news lately is him drinking vegetable juice, as I've been juicing for him for several months and now he's finally actually drinking it. Hooray! Also, he's been playing with Julia more which is wonderful as she is a good model for him. We had some outings (zoo, children's museum, aquarium, etc.) and for the most part he handled them really well. We still experience tantrums daily but it seems that many of them are very short-lived.

So, a very hopeful and optimistic time for us... we've even decided to try and tackle potty training. Send us good thoughts, we may need the help!

June update - Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day! Hope all you daddys, granpas, papas, etc enjoyed being celebrated yesterday.

This month has been a bit bumpy as progress goes. Travis is saying more words and gaining strides with language (he loves to sing Old MacDonald and the ABC song), but has had some set backs behaviorally with extra tantrums and attention seeking requests. We were a bit disappointed to find out from the latest stool sample that the yeast overgrowth and bacterial imbalances in his gut haven't improved, and we are revising his supplements once again with some additional diet changes. He seemed to have had a reaction to something - whether it was from one of the new supplements or the toxins from the yeast die-off due to the new medication working we're not sure - but now seems back to normal for the most part. The most exciting change this month is that he is now "full time" at Texas Children's Hospital/Bridges program, where he now receives therapy 4 mornings per week (Mon-Thurs) for over 3 hours each day. Julia went to "school" with him last week for a very interesting day... the idea was to use the therapy sessions to encourage their interactive play so that we could use the same techniques at home, but of course neither one was interested in playing with each other - they both just wanted to play with either Mommy or the therapists!

Anyway, we are hoping that the next month will be smooth sailing. Travis will have a 2 week break from Bridges (they had one week off this month and will have another week off in August) so with all the time off from therapy this summer we plan to have some outings at the zoo and the Childrens Museum. More soon!

May update - Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day! Hope all of you moms, aunts, grandmas, godmothers, etc. are having a wonderful day today.

We are doing well. Julia and Travis were both sick recently, but now have recovered and so we are back to school. Travis had a little bit of hard time adjusting after being sick (tantruming much of the day, not wanting to eat, etc.) but other moms of autistic kids tell me this is very typical for these kiddos. Seems like the after-effects lasted longer than the illness! Unfortunately we have passed the germs on to Nana and Grandma so now they are suffering too. Hopefully this will be the last time for awhile!

Meanwhile, things are moving along. Travis had a field trip with his "school" to the zoo which was very interesting. I don't think he actually saw any animals (except the coy in the decorative pond and a squirrel) but he certainly enjoyed running up and down the steps and ramps to the exhibits, as well as the grates in the concrete and the yellow "caution, wet floor" signs. Travis is also in a new "big boy car bed" that our wonderful neighbors, Lou and Tino, gave us. It is a toddler bed the shape of a car and his crib mattress fits right inside. It has been a bit of an adjustment being "free", and I still have to go in every night and transfer him from the floor into the bed, but he and Julia love it and have a good time jumping off the new bed onto the floor (about 6 inches!) He is also talking much more and says "bye bye" to almost every object we encounter each day.

Also fun has been watching Julia and Travis interact more. They jump off the car bed together, run around the house, and Julia is always helping to remind Travis to "use his words". It's pretty funny coming from a 3 year old prone to crying fits herself when she doesn't get what she wants! More next month...

April update - Son-Rise training and Easter

2009-04-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday. We missed having Jeff home. We saw the Easter Bunny at the autism playgroup that meets monthly, and Travis loved him! He says "yunny" now for bunny (along with many other words) and he was so taken with the bunny that he would cry and tantrum whenever we guided him away so another child could have a turn. It was kind of funny, but eventually we had to leave so that other kids could have their picture taken with the Easter bunny (without Travis in it!)

It's been an exciting month for me - I attended the Son-Rise Maximum Impact training course at the Autism Institute of America March 29 - April 2 and it was AWESOME! Thank you so much to all of you for all your help and support in getting me there. I thought I had understood the program pretty well after the Start Up training Jeff and I attended in September, but this time I really got a deeper understanding of the Son-Rise attitude underlying the program and more confidence in how to be with Travis in the room, train volunteers, ideas for our team meetings, etc. Not to mention the wonderful connections I made with other parents who are doing Son-Rise at home as well - hopefully we will be able to support each other as we continue on our journeys with our children. I am definitely more excited than ever about working with Travis and supporting his development, and I can't wait to attend the next Son-Rise training, called New Frontiers. That program focuses on developing new curriculum as our kids progress, and should be wonderful for me since Travis has already met many of our original goals (improvements in eye contact, joint attention, and starting to make words). I'm hoping to attend in November later this year.

Travis also started attending his Bridges program on Mondays, so is now attending 3 mornings a week. It doesn't look like he'll be able to add the 4th morning (Wednesdays) until summer since there's not a slot available until then, but he loves it there when he does go. It is fun to watch him be excited to see his three therapists, Erica (speech), Alison (Floortime), and Michelle (occupational), all of whom say he's making good progress.

More next month... hope you all are enjoying spring!

March update

2009-03-05T12:48:00.000-08:00

Happy March! Hard to believe how fast the time is going. Travis is doing great ramping up at his new "school" at Bridges/TX Children's. He just started going going for the full morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays (speech, Floortime, and occupational therapy) and will hopefully add Mondays and Wednesdays in April to make over 12 hours per week. We're ramping up a little slower than we hoped, but he seems to be adjusting just great. And at the end of this month I'll attend one of the advanced Son-Rise training courses at the Autism Institute of America, called Maximum Impact, which should help me keep our Son-Rise program on track. We lost one of our volunteers to relocation across town (hopefully temporary), but both Grandma and Nana have been doing extra room hours so Travis is now getting about 10-12 hours per week in the blue room. Awesome! I'm still on the job hunt, but so far most of my leads have been out of state, which won't really work for Travis right now. Thanks to all for all the helpful emails, advice, and support!!

email problems

2009-02-03T20:27:00.001-08:00

I have been trying to send out an email today to friends and family updating them on Travis' progress and directing them to this site but have been having lots of email problems - I'm very sorry if you received the message multiple times!! Seems that some got multiple copies and some didn't get it at all... gotta love technology. :)

February update

2009-02-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

Hello to all! We're finally settled into 2009 with a few changes in Travis' schedule. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to handle the group therapy class he was taking as well as last semester, so we had to drop out of that. But the wonderful news was that he was accepted into the full program at Bridges/TX Children's Hospital, so they will be increasing his therapy services there slowly and hopefully by the end of March he'll be "full-time" - 3 1/4 hrs per day, 4 days per week. The program will have Floortime therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy. We are thrilled! Especially as our Son-Rise home program is still ramping up very slowly. After 2 months of focusing on that, I now need to turn my energy to some serious job searching...! But between Grandma, Nana, and our 2 volunteers we are getting about 6-10 hours per week in the room working with Travis, which is not bad at all. We are still recruiting new volunteers, so if you know anyone local interested in helping, please let us know. Also, if you know anyone in the medical/healthcare field who might be able to give me any advice/potential contacts for Ph.D level positions (especially part-time), please let me know. I've been doing cancer research for the last 11 yrs but am wide open to expand my skills to a new area...! Hope February is a wonderful month for everyone.

Happy Holidays and 2009!

2009-01-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and are enjoying the new year! We certainly had fun visiting family and Travis did incredibly well traveling. It was a far cry from last summer when being away from home was so difficult for him, and really emphasized to us how much progress he is making with all the intervention. And, of course, he is getting older - we celebrated his 2nd birthday a few weeks before Christmas.

We are really excited about our Son-Rise program getting off the ground, and we've got 2 volunteers and 2 grandmothers trained and starting to log some real time with Travis in the "blue room" where we work with him. We've also started holding our Son-Rise team meetings. Travis loves going in the blue room to play; so much so that he often throws a little tantrum when he wants to go in the room and there's no one scheduled to work with him! Also, he's enrolled in the same group speech/OT therapy class he had last semester and is starting some Floortime therapy (which we also participate in) 2 times per week. We also are still using the state services for play therapy, so Travis' schedule is very full. When people ask me how I like being home after being laid off, I usually say I'm anxious to go back to work so I can rest! :) But job searching is on the back burner a little bit for the next month or so while we try to ramp up our Son-Rise program and get the logistics down of all his new activities. Right now he is making more and more speech-like sounds, and knows about 10-15 signs. He is really interacting well with others - even strangers - and is initiating playing some simple games. We are thrilled to see him learning new things!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-12-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Hope everyone had a happy one. Ours was a little unsettled, as I was laid off 2 days before the holiday. But the day itself was lovely, and Travis took a long nap which allowed all of us to enjoy dinner peacefully. Hopefully the lay-off will provide me with the extra time to get our Son-Rise program really moving, as starting off has been going slowly and full of ups and downs. One potential volunteer was unable to join the program, and it's not certain about the other one. But we do have a couple of other potentials learning about the program, and hope to have at least a couple team members confirmed by January. We leave to visit my brother Rob's family in Florida on the 19th (where we'll also meet my other brother Rich's family), so with the travel and holiday festivities 2009 will be here before we know it!

November update

2008-11-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

Well, we're slowly getting our Son-Rise program up and running. We've been recruiting local volunteers by posting flyers and using word of mouth. If you live locally and have anywhere you think you can post one (churches, service groups, etc.), please let me know and I'll email it to you to distribute. We now have 2 potential volunteers we've started training, along with Grandma and Nana, of course! Papa built a beautiful door for us with a one-way mirror in it, and we've started videotaping our training sessions so we can use them for feedback and also to send in to Son-Rise later for professional consultations. Travis is doing great in his group therapy class, with another month to go before the semester ends. He was finally accepted to start the individual Floortime therapy class this month, but we've decided to hold off for financial reasons because we can't do both the group therapy and this one at the same time. He's also getting used to the GFCF diet, although he hasn't embraced any new foods yet - he just eats the GFCF versions of the same few things! But he has made lots of progress this month with saying many more sounds (and even some approximations of words), interacting almost all the time, and learning the signs for cookie, help, and bubble. He's also starting a new regimen of dietary supplements and we're slowly swapping the old formulations for the new ones. Another great addition this month is the playset Jeff built in the backyard. He loves it, and so does Julia. It's too back the cold weather is coming, but since this is Houston we expect to still be able to use it a good amount during the winter. :)

Back from Son-Rise Start Up

2008-10-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

We're back from attending the Son-Rise Start Up course in MA! It was an awesome week, although Jeff and I were both exhausted after our return and of course we missed both kiddos madly. Hooray to Grandma and Nana for holding down the fort! The training was intense but very positive and inspiring. We're excited about getting our Son-Rise program up and running. We set the playroom up the day after we got back with shelves and a mirror, and all that's left to do is get a door for the bathroom with a one-way mirror that we can use to observe for training purposes. Next we are working on recruiting volunteers, both to work with Travis in the playroom (we call it the blue room) and also for others who might be able to watch Julia for an hour or two to allow us to go in the room with him. Meanwhile, Travis has started at his group therapy class twice a week, and hopefully will settle in there. Also, we've started him on the gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet, so he's really making a lot of adjustments this month. Boy, is he missing his macaroni and cheese! After a few days of refusing to eat anything but scrambled eggs (the only "old" food he can still have), he's starting to experiement with the GFCF versions of some of his familiar favorites.

Hurricane Ike

2008-09-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

Well, it's still slow going getting things moving for Travis' therapy. We finally heard that one program that he is on a waiting list for will let us start individual therapy in early November, and then evaluate him for admission into their full program after 2 more months so hopefully Travis can get a spot in early 2009. Meanwhile, another school he is on a wait list for has a group therapy class twice per week that helps prepare the kids for admission into the school, and Travis was supposed to start there this week but it was postponed due to the teacher being ill, then a switch in the days he would attend, and finally Hurricane Ike. So now we're not sure when he can start...! We have evacuated to San Antonio since Jeff had to go there to relocate an airplane and we didn't want to stay behind to weather the storm without him. We're not sure when we can go back (basically whenever Jeff's company decides they want the airplane) or when the power will come back on, so we'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully our kittys Smudge and Sushi made it through the storm ok on their own! We're thankful that it sounds like the damage to our neighborhood was minimal and look forward to getting back home. Both Julia and Travis have done remarkably well being taken out of their routine and entertaining themselves in the hotel room without their usual toys, but I'm not sure how much longer they're going to last... :)

Travis on the Web

2008-08-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

Obviously, we have finally gotten Travis' web site up! Thanks to all who have been asking and sending love our way. We are looking forward to attending the Son-Rise training in just one month and starting our home program to help Travis. Meanwhile, he is receiving some therapy through ECI (Early Childhood Intervention), services provided by the state of Texas. We have also looked at 6 special area schools/programs, and are on a lot of waiting lists! Please feel free to post comments and suggestions, or email with questions.