Day 93 into Day 94

Whoo Hoo!!!! Josh went in the pool at SEDOM!!!! And, he had a good time!!!! Emily was with him the whole time and the note (and an email from her) was that he really enjoyed being in the pool! YEAH!!!! He had to be prompted a couple of times and he did have sensory overload afterward when they finished in the pool and went on to the Home Living Center, though, but, hey, baby steps! And, the overload could have been in anticipation of the HLC - they sometimes use a mixer in there to make foods and the mixer always gets him (the noise). But YEAH! on the pool!

The staff have added a new phrase to the Josh-spectrum of behaviors - meltdown. They are defining it as somewhere between a sensory overload (when he just lays down and won't move - but not a PNES) and being a poop (sort of normal 12yo pain in the neck kind of thing) - he will bat at staff members during a meltdown (as if he is telling them to just leave him alone, I guess), and he had one of those yesterday. But, otherwise, he had a pretty good day.

Josh also did really well with the buses yesterday (except one coming from the HLC back to school). In the a.m., I went to put his backpack on the bus, turned around, and there he was just walking up to the bus - no overload, no PNES, just walking to the bus! He did have a very short overload once he sat down in his seat, but it lasted only about 30 seconds. Coming home, Bonnie (the driver) thought putting him in the second seat would work better than the front seat (there's a little metal triangular brace at the bottom of the divider between the seat and the stairs - she started thinking that piece makes it hard for him to come out of the seat -fear of tripping maybe). Sure enough, he got out without any hesitation or problem. Smart woman.

We had a visitor yesterday also - the "facilitator" from the Mental Health Board came to do paperwork and meet us for the wraparound services. He participated for about 45 minutes and then, when we actually had to do paperwork, he went to watch a movie (and fell asleep!). During the meeting, he held her hand several times - a sign he likes her and trusts her (Yeah!). She's very nice, a former special ed teacher who also has a now-grown-up kid who had special needs (LD, BD, ED). The wraparound services will be interesting (will write more on that some other day).

So, with a few exceptions, generally a really good day for Josh! Yeah!!

On into Day 94!