It's hard to believe, but Zadie will be 3 years old in less than four months! Since Early Intervention only covers children until they're 3, we had the option of getting her evaluated to transition to the school system for preschool. We decided to see if she qualified. We had the initial meeting with the child study team for the school system last week, and they agreed to do a psychological, social, educational and speech evaluation on her.
We're not sure whether she will qualify, since she really is doing quite well, with speech being her only issue at this point, but her medical issues may help her get qualified.
In nursing coverage news, the insurance company approved Zadie's nursing hours until April, when they will be reviewed again. They usually approve in six month increments, so I'm not sure why it's a shorter period before another review. I do wonder if it has to do with the bronchoscopy she'll be having in March; they might be waiting to hear the results of that.
I had posted this on Facebook and haven't mentioned it here yet, but Zadie's GI doctor has discontinued her overnight feeds! She weighs over 30 pounds now, which is around the 50th percentile. This is amazing progress considering just over a year ago, she was in the 5th percentile for weight. We have to make sure that she at least maintains and ideally gains some weight in the next month or two. If she does, we have the option of completely removing her feeding tube! This is such exciting news! We will most likely keep the feeding tube for at least some time, since she still has the trach and will be having procedures and possibly surgeries in the future. The feeding tube is a very good thing to have at times. I'm really proud of how far she has come. When she was born, she couldn't even suck from a bottle, and there were several months where she took nothing by mouth. Just 2 years later, the fact that she's thriving without the aid of the feeding tube is really remarkable.
Zadie's current favorite word is NO and her current obsessions are turning lights on and off and closing doors!
