I stopped by the Post Office today after dropping William off at the Children World Preschool to send the form and the report to HealthNet insurance company to start the process of receiving ABA services from them. This is the report that Dr. Kyle from RCOC prepared after our meeting.
The package is supposed to arrive on Friday. I’m expecting a phone call from them next week to go over the process of how William will get the ABA benefits.
We got home from Carrizo Plain National Monument around 9:30 PM last night. William woke up once around 2:30 AM, coughed a bit so we used the nebulizer to help him breath then he went back to sleep.
When I took him to Mrs. Hana’s classroom; he started to cry when I about to leave.
Mrs. Hana told me this morning the he didn’t cry long, only for about 5 minutes after I left but he was not happy at all during the Speech therapy session.
Saturday Apr 8 – 9, 2017
It has been raining a lot in California that the wild flowers are blooming every where, the press calls it “Super Bloom”; it has been so long that we have a good wild flowers year so we decided to check out Carrizo Plain National Monument where people say that the flowers are in full bloom. It’s a 4 hours drive from Santa Ana so we decided to stay 1 night in some town near Carrizo Plain so that William would not feel tired of too much driving. I booked the hotel in Santa Maria town without knowing that there’s no road that goes from Soda Lake Rd to 166 thus we had to drive a big circle to get to our hotel in Santa Maria (58 –> 101)
Spend 1 night in Santa Maria @Best Western Plus, right off on freeway 101 on Broadway st.
Saturday, left house around 6:20 AM, William woke up when we carried him to the car and would not go back to sleep. First stop is at Gorman (there’s no wild flowers at all on the hills) to have breakfast at Carl’s Jr.. Continue driving on 5 N – 166 W – Soda Lake Rd to enter the Carrizo Plain National Monument on the South entrance. There were not that many flowers on the south of the park, lots more flowers at the north of the park. We drove along the Soda Lake Rd, then stopped by the Goodwin Education Center for some information. They said the best flowers found on the Elkhorn road. But it was 3 PM and we didn’t have much gas left so we decided to go to the hotel and visit Elkhorm Rd tomorrow. Lunch time William refused to eat the spaghetti soup that we heated up using a small slow cooker plugged into the cigaret plug, so I gave him a bottle of water and then he felt asleep.
To get to the hotel we’d have to take 58 and then 101, it’s about 2 hours drive; but along the 101 we stopped at the Avila Beach and Pismo beach so the drive didn’t feel that long. From Avila town, before going back to 101 free way to get to the hotel, we stopped by a McDonald, bought some chicken nuggets and Strawberry Banana smoothie, Moca Frap because I thought William might be hungry. William only ate 1 chicken nugget but he ate lots of fries. I tried to feed him the smoothie but he preferred the Moca Frap better. There’s no gas or restaurants along the 58 but it’s a very nice curvy road along the mountain. Finally we got to the hotel around 7 PM. William loved the bed, he climbed on it when we first got in. Our room was 226, at the end, on the 2nd floor. Pool and Spa is under construction so no access at this time. Gave William a good warm bath, then we fed him spaghetti soup, he finished the whole can. Tim & I had a quick diner: instant noodle.
Next morning, after breakfast at the hotel, left the hotel around 8:30 AM, stopped by a Mexican market near by to get a pack of hot dogs and jello for William because yesterday he didn’t eat the spaghetti soup; and there’s no foods sold inside the park. We chose 101 – 166 – Soda lake road – Elkhorn road. So we started at the South entrance again and then made a right turn which is next to the information stand to get to the Elkhorn Rd. The road is uphill and then down hill. It’s a dirt road so whenever a car pass by, dirt is all over the place. No internet service, no phone signal, no GPS, no maps so we were kinda lost after a while driving because we were not sure if we were on Elkhorn road or not. Lucky for us we met some nice people camping along the way, they gave us a map and told us to keep going. William at this time is too tired of sitting in the car seat so I let him out to sit next to me; our car was moving very slowly so I would not think that would be dangerous to William. Finally we reached the destination the we were looking for: hills filled with purple and yellow flowers. We made a right turn to the parking area to get closer to the hills. Here I met my friends Phuoc & Hanh and their little 3 year old boy Minh. Then I hiked 1 hour further into the hill sides while Tim stayed in the car to watch William; he was sleeping.
The next crowded spot: Wallace Creek; lots of people stopped by this place and hiking on the trails. The hills were filled with lots of flowers than other previous hills at that we stopped at. William was now awake and didn’t look happy so we didn’t stay long at this location.
Continue on the Elkhorn road and make a right turn to get to freeway 58, we were surprised to see lots of yellow flowers along the road and the hills. We stopped here and took a few pictures and then headed home because it was getting late.
Stopped by the In and Out burger at the The Outlets of Tejon to fill up gas and have dinner. William must be hungry because he ate some piece of burger with cheese and lots of fries. He especially loved the lemonade. We got home about 9:30 PM. William ran straight to bed, happily sat on the bed and play with his toys.
There was lots of driving in this trip but this was the first time that I’ve seen so many flowers in my life. They’re so beautiful and Tim was so nice to watch the boy and encourage me to hike to watch flowers if I want to. Thank you hubby!
It’s spring break time at the Mitchell Child Development Center so we send William to Children World’s Preschool full day for the whole week. This morning I dropped him off around 8:30 AM; he was greeted by Ms. Mo and a cute little girl. She held him up high and and then put him down to hold his hand while I was there. Mr. Gary said she would come to comfort William when he’s upset and give him juice to calm him down. Next time I’ll ask for her name.
Today at lunch time I tried to call HealthNet Insurance to find out if our policy has ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) benefits. Spent total of 40 minutes, talked to 3 different representatives and finally I got my answer: our policy covers ABA services fully, we don’t have to pay for co-pay either. Jennifer, the Case Manager, who was the last person I spoke with, sent to my email an Assessment Form, asking me to fill it out and to send the form back along with the report that I got from Regional Center of Orange Country. Once they receive the form and report, someone from the Autism Center will contact us and will work out the the next steps.
Monday 4/3/2017 9:00 AM. Had an appointment with Kim Than, our new service coordinator from Regional Center of OC; Thuy-Nhi Vo, Early Start Service Coordinator was our service coordinator but she only takes care of cases for children that age from 3 years old or less. That’s why our case is transferred to Kim Than. She came to our home as agreed; a very nice & young lady. She asked us a few questions about William (when he throws tantrum, what he does when he’s mad, how’s his health, his eating. etc). Then she went over the services that RCOC can offer: ABA services, Respite and Daycare.
ABA: RCOC only covers the ABA service expenses if our health insurance does not cover; they can also help to cover the copay. We need to pay an annual fee depends on the family income, max amount is $200.00.
Respite: RCOC will help to pay the expenses for someone to babysit William; but we have to share the cost depending on the family income.
Daycare: same as Respite, RCOC will help to pay the tuition fee; but we have to share the cost depending on the family income. RCOC will pay only $8.75/hour, we have to pay the difference plus the shared cost.
The meeting lasted for about 40 minutes.
So what we need to do:
Came late around 6:15 pm, people were taking down their booths so there was nothing left for William to play. William found a balloon stand; he liked it so much that he kept touching it. Then a man came with a truck to take the balloons away; I asked for 1 but he said he was asked to take all so he would not give any balloon to William. I pulled William away from it so that the man could do his job; William kicked his legs, cried and would not leave the spot. So we took him to the pond in Garden Grove library and eventually he stopped crying. We had a fun time sitting on the rocks watching the little waterfalls , the little birds and enjoying the nice fresh air breeze.
Picked up William at Mitchell school around 1:10 PM today. As usual I stopped by the back of a bus which is parking in front of the school gate so that William can touch the lights. I read out the letters and numbers on the license plate and asked William to point to them. He got them all right. I also tested him on the color of the lights: yellow, red and white. He got them right also.
Took him to the car, put him in the car seat and handed him a bottle of milk. He finished half of it and started to play with the Mickey Mouse books. Then I fed him some sausages (some day he would eat it, some days he would not) and he ate all 5 slices. Once he done with the sausage, I handed him his milk bottle again so that I can finish it up.
Then I drove him to the Children World Pre-school; where he would be taking his afternoon nap.
Around 7:30 PM we sit William at the dining table, give him the iPad so that he can watch videos from YouTube while we prepare for his dinner. His favorite videos are Mickey Mouse, Chip & Dale; and now he loves to watch Bryan’s Review of the Lego land Hotel, especially the elevator with lights. He’d would dance around in circle, run back and forth or just sit down on the floor while listening to the sounds from the video. When he gets excited like this it’s hard to get him back to the dining table; but sometime he’d sit still at the table and imitate the sounds.
His dinner usually is rice with ground pork and a cup of chicken/beef broth. Follows with a cup of spaghetti soup; and dessert is a small up of canned fruits.
Usually this takes about 1 and 1/2 hour to 2 hours for him to finish his dinner. We tried to switch videos to force him to sit still but he always knows how to get back to the ones that he likes.
It was a nice afternoon with nice clouds so we decided to check out the wild flowers at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa, which is only 10 minutes away from our home (corner Adams and Placentia).
William loved it so much that he was running around non stop!
