Preparing to return to school

Elijah is a few hours into wearing his ambulatory EEG monitor. He looks like a cute pirate, with his bandana and missing teeth. :) We will bring him back to the clinic tomorrow so Dr. J can review the results. We're praying hard for no seizure activity. I don't think we'll actually get the results for a few days.

The past few days have been filled with visits from various people from Elijah's school as they do testing for his upcoming special ed re-eval. The DHH (deaf and hard of hearing) teacher performed a few fun tests where E had to listen to directions about how to color a character on a piece of paper. An audiologist stopped by today and performed different hearing tests that I found interesting. When she put "noise" between her and Elijah and spoke words to him, he could not decipher what she was saying. I think he repeated maybe 2 of the 30 things she said back to her. He also became very fidgety and did a few verbal outbursts during the "noise" portion. It was very obviously bothersome to him.

I chatted on the phone with his school PT today and she plans to help him on and off the bus for a few weeks (so thankful for this). Have I mentioned that he will be going back to school on Monday? Yikes! We'll start with half days for a few weeks and go from there.

The school audiologist will visit his classroom sometime next week to make sure his desk is situated in the best possible place considering his situation. Elijah's special ed case manager, who has been doing his homebound schooling at our home, spoke with me at length tonight about Elijah's transition back to school. She is doing everything she can to make the transition as smooth as possible for him. She plans to talk to his classmates tomorrow about his return to school, which I think is so super thoughtful and helpful. She will tell them why he has been absent and also explain about his hearing difficulties (if they want to get his attention, they should maybe tap a shoulder or make eye contact first).

Yesterday we got a cherished visit from Elijah's kindergarten teacher (and her super adorable blue-eyed baby!), Mrs. B. Oh how we love her! She and Elijah have such a unique connection and it was so much fun to see them interact. It reinforced to me the importance of him having a teacher who gets him and who can be silly with him and who has compassion for his history and also loves him for who he is. I tried to talk her into maybe teaching second grade next year. :) I think she's going to stick with kindergarten, dangit.

Once things settle down, I will write a SAM-ONLY post! Sammy, our sweet boy, is ridiculously cute and adorable. He melts our hearts and we all love him so much. Thanks for reading!