the squeaky wheel gets the grease

man, i pretty much hate phrases like that and have no idea why i used it as the title for this post...

but anyway, i am glad that i chose to put up a little fight in regard to James losing his services from Far Northern Regional Center.. i got a denial letter for continued services, and i followed their appeals process, which includes requesting a fair hearing... i had a meeting with Andy Holcomb, a lawyer and former mayor of Chico, i believe??

anyway, to make a long story short, after all of the reading and research i did on my own, and then after talking to some experts, i pretty much concluded that i was going to lose the appeal and had almost given up on the hope for continued services for James...

But then the head of the regional center called me this morning to let me know that she had reviewed James' case and decided to keep him as a client for FOUR MORE YEARS!!! At that point they will re-evaluate...

WOW

so, you might be wondering, "what is the regional center?" It's basically a state program that provides a variety of services for James FOR FREE, like paying for Lora Gale to be our family's respite provider (basically babysitting James so i can get a break once in a while)... they also have purchased equipment for James, like his "star car" and adaptive accessories for his tricycle. And the best part is that they give us travel reimbursement for our trips to doctor's appointments out of town (like Sacramento for the neurosurgeon and stuff, and San Francisco for Spina Bifida clinic)... regional center has also paid for James' speech therapy in the past, but now that will be provided by the school district...

so, needless to say, we would have been missing A LOT if they would have dropped James' case.

This is the great news of the day :) Thank you, God, for providing for us and blessing us!

on to the next battle..... today i filled out the request for interdistrict transfer so that James can go to preschool at Loma Vista in Chico, where his physical and occupational therapists are... cross your fingers!