This has been another busy and productive month for us all.  The biggest news is that Kaiser finally conceded to providing the Modified Barium Swallow test last Thursday the 21st.  The test is scheduled for Tuesday, June 1st at 8:45 am at Zion Hospital in San Diego.  Lisa and I will be there of coarse to get the results first hand and ask alot of questions.  Should be interesting and informative.  We have remodeled our laundry room at home over the past month to provide Matt with a sink and mirror that he can now sit at and turn on the water for himself, comb his hair, shave and brush his own teeth, all that normal routine stuff that gets him more involved in daily living.  It’s working out pretty good, he is getting it figured out.  Lisa has been doing some amazing work with Matt over the past monthalso.  Really staying with an ever expanding routine of exercises and routines that are definitely getting Matt much more involved and stronger with very good results.  Spencer is noticing a big change in Matt with almost every session.  Matt’s core strength is gradually developing  to where we now are challenging him to adjusting himself from side to side sitting and standing.  Matt’s new glasses have also helped withMatt’s visual accuracy with the daily things.  We also have Matt’s schedule for SDSU worked out beginning June 9thand running threw the end of July.  That  will be 2 sessions per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Spencer’s sessions with Matt are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  We also have volunteer members from out church, Spirit of Joy coming out weekly to spend time reading to Matt!  Busy times now but we all think that’s why we see the continuing progress along withyour continued faith and prayer.  We’d like to thank you all so much!  When I figure out how to post some photos on this blog I will so for all to get a visual idea on how things are coming along although you can all visit Lindsey’s blog.  She keeps up with updated photos pretty well.  Oh yeah, Lindsey is busy organizing another golf tournament at Madera’s Golf Club in Poway for sometime I believe late summer or early fall.  This is all to support Matt’s continued private therapy.  On our last note, we would like to offer our deepest condolences to the Hickman family for the recent loss of their daughter Tara Hickman.  Our prayers and thoughts are with the Hickman family.

God Bless you all

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Today is Matt’s 27th birthday.  From where we were 1 year ago, we’ve come along way, still not where we need to be but we are in a much better place and continuing to move forward.  Things are still improving and we are still working very hard daily to get Matt back.  The latest is Matt is set to go to SDSU speech the beginning of June thru July, Spencer still comes out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and we have now come to the point once again having to confront Kaiser Permanente with a grievance.  The continuing issue of a very basic test for speech progression.  Kaiser has and is continuing to deny a Modified Barium Swallow test (MBS test) which simply put is a visual evaluation of Matt’s swallow reflex.  With this test they actually film Matt’s swallow to be sure the mechanics are all working well.  When Matt went to Sharpe Speech the very first thing Lance the speech therapist at Sharpe ordered was the MBS test.  Kaiser denied it then.  We also pursued this test months before while Matt was still in the hospital Kaiser Zion.  Kaiser denied it then.  We took Matt to Kaiser speech when he was first home, once again Kaiser denied the MBS test.  The Kaiser justification then was that “the MBS test was not conclusive therefore Kaiser would not pay for it as well as Matt is being fed through a feeding tube and that eating orally is a unnecessary luxury that Kaiser should not have to pay for.”  Now we have interviewed several private speech therapist for home speech therapy and they all tell us the only way to safely get Matt to eat food is for him to have a MBS test.  We are now in the process of gathering the documentation from the speech therapist that are strongly recommending this very basic, necessary and standard in the industry test so we can go back to the corporate criminals at Kaiser and make them pay for this or have to explain away another denial to the State.  We did ask the clinicians at SDSU who also strongly recommended this test and that is something they don’t do at SDSU for lack of equipment and the facility to do that kind of test.  This whole process is going to take a while so we do continue to give Matt a very little bit of food orally as well as give him water orally so he does not loose his desire and ability to eat and drink orally until this gets resolved.  I have also tried calling another facility to find out what this would cost privately and they won’t even give me a cost and they tell me that the only way they can perform this test is with a doctors order and that puts us right back to depending on the Kaiser system.  It’s such a screwed up system and when you are trapped  in this system like Matt is at this time, there are no alternatives and the corporates direct what kind of treatment you have access to and if you just go along with it, would have a very direct influence on what kind of outcome you as a patient would have.  But they do make the money don’t they.

Anyways, we will continue to advocate for Matt and get through this frustrating situation and move on to the next.  By the way, we did have a very nice birthday party for Matt, kept it small so he wasn’t overwhelmed and it turned out very nice.  A few close friends and relatives.  Everyone seemed to have a good time including Matt.  Lisa and I have also made the decision to get Matt out every week to the beach, movies, museums, restaurants etc.  He does very well with all of it and we are all seeing it as part of his therapy and is noticeably making a difference in his recovery. 

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