Back to School Shopping, Special Needs Style

Okay, so most of my kids went back to school almost two weeks ago.  We got the requisite pens, pencils (mechanical!) paper, notebooks, etc.  Add in the kleenex and other special grade school items.  I actually felt pretty good that, in spite of being in the hospital leading up to that day, we had just about everything in the basement.

It may be a good thing that Aaron's start date was delayed.  I'm still a novice when it comes to this back to school Aaron style.  Didn't realize that I have to have oxygen pre-authorized from the insurance.  Fortunately, the oxygen provider is willing to work with us, or he'd be out for another two weeks.

Then there's the training of his private duty nurse.  I think we've got a great one.  He and I and Aaron went down to meet with the school nurse and therapists and teacher and principal yesterday.  I loved that when we walked in, his principal exclaimed, "Oh, Aaron!  Your pictures just don't do you justice!!"  And before we left, he was flirting with all of them.  It's going to be a good year.

By last night, I had all his bags packed so his nurse could go through them.  'Cause see, if he's REALLY needing something, it's not good if it can't be found.  It's not zero on a test, it's life and death, you know, kinda the "really big test."

So just to give you an idea of what we're looking at, Aaron has a variety of items that MUST go with him, and they're in different bags.  There's the ventilator (breathing, you know, he kinda likes it) and some extra vent supplies in the corner pocket.  Then the suction bag with various bullets, catheters and so on.  His feeding bag (lunch bag, anyone?) has his feeding supplies, pump and some other miscellaneous things like a rain poncho, small fan and an allen wrench, cause that's what's used on all his wheelchair connections.

Then we have the "go bag."  That's probably the most important after the vent itself.  Inside that, I carry a mini-hospital room.  There's his extra trachs, his ambu-bag (for when he decides he wants more personal attention than he can get from the ventilator) stethoscope, emergency g-tube kit, and on and on and on.  That one actually is probably more important than the ventilator.  When he was lifeflighted, they didn't take the vent, but they took this bag.

If you really want to know what all we travel with, you can click here to go to our lists.  Or just find the link at the top of the page.

Anyway, just for good measure, he does have a backpack, you know, the kind that all kids carry when they go to school.  That's for notes back and forth with his teacher, any school-type things that he brings home.  'Cause this kid is going places.  I'm so excited for him to do this.  It almost reminds me of 17 years ago when Deborah started school.  She was so ready, me, well not so much.  But I knew it's what she needed, and has been so wonderful to watch her and her siblings blossom.  I think it will be for Aaron, too.

School days, school days

Dear old Golden Rule days