Yesterday, after getting home from Leilani's 18 month check-up, I cleaned out her diaper bag and came across a form given to us at Leilani's speech therapy session last week. Given that we were in the middle of speech therapy with Leilani at the time, I only quickly skimmed it and threw it in the bag. I had forgotten about it for a week and when I came across it yesterday, I read it thoroughly.
According to the sheet, Leilani has an expressive language disorder. DISORDER??? That's a scary word.
What's really starting to get to me (in addition to the word "disorder") are Leilani's doctors. Her regular pediatrician barely spends any time with us when we take Leilani in for her check ups. Yesterday, our appointment started almost 20 minutes late, and when a nurse finally called our name and we went into an exam room, we still had to wait another 5 minutes for her actual doctor, who then spent a total of 10 minutes with Leilani. This doctor is supposedly a really good, so that's why we chose her. Her lack of interest is starting to piss me off. Mike isn't as upset about this as I am and he thinks I just need to relax.
Leilani's speech therapy is another issue. Every week, it seems the doctor forgets who Leilani is. She always references activities Leilani did from the previous session that never happened. It seems she keeps confusing Leilani with her other patients. It gets really annoying. And this diagnosis sheet she handed us a week ago was actually something filled out by the original doctor who evaluated Leilani 2 months ago. None of the info on the sheet was ever explained to us. I had to Google what an expressive language disorder was. Leilani's speech therapy takes place at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, which is supposedly one of the best hospitals for kids. Something like #4 in the country. They sure aren't living up to that ranking.
What I'm going to have to do is just be more vigilant on my end. I've pretty much let a lot of this ineptitude slide, and that's my fault. I need to go into tiger mother mode.
Here's what you need to do - you need to call the head of the department at Children's Hospital and request another therapist and explain why. It is completely unacceptable that the therapist doesn't remember Leilani each time you guys go.
ReplyDeletePediatricians and doctors in general are excellent for treating patients who are sick. It is prevention and sincere interest that aren't their specialties.
It is definitely time to convert into tiger mommy mode so that Leilani can get the help that she needs. Love ya!