Time at the Hospital

This last week and a half, Jake’s been up at the hospital, having his annual/semi-annual Cystic Fibrosis lung cleanout.  It started when he came in to have his sinuses cleaned out of growth and gunk, which had been causing cluster headaches last summer.  The headaches had faded, but the scans showed significant blockage, so they decided that it would be a good idea to clean it out anyway, and that it would probably prevent future instances of the headaches.

What I wanted to write about was our school principal, Mr Conley.  He brought his family up to visit Jacob, and to bring up a bunch of cards and letters from some of the classes at the school (including some beyond Jacob’s own class).

First of all, I think it’s cool that Mr Conley comes up and visits.  It’s cool that the other staff here at PCMC are surprised to see a school principal visiting a kid.  It’s also cool that we’re not surprised.  That’s just the kind of man he is.

Early in Jacob’s school life, we were in a different school district, and obviously at another school.  We started our relationship with them with an adversarial posture.  We went to the IEP meetings with the attitude that we were going to have to fight to get every service we were legally entitled to, and they were there with the attitude to fight to be forced to do as little as possible.  As you can guess, we didn’t get that far.

When we moved out to Eagle Mountain, we came to the school with an intentionally more cooperative attitude.  We were also fortunate that the people we were working with in the administration were also predisposed to a more cooperative attitude as well.  It was some pretty fertile ground to plant and grow a great working relationship.

Over the years that we’ve been out there, the few small disagreements we’ve had have been over things like how best to implement plans, rather than what services should be included.  The school has been proactive in their efforts and adaptations for Jake (Jake also has Cerebral Palsy, as well as Cystic Fibrosis, and is in a wheelchair full-time).

Maybe someday, I’ll blog about my IEP experiences, and more about how it works.