Evening update:

I have information overload tonight. We’ve received a ton over the last 24 hours. Mostly all good information, just a lot of it.

Thanks to Mark’s cousin’s wife and Shane we’ve got some new info and contacts about the acquired brain injury programs along with the Early Intervention and Infant Development programs. These seem like they will likely be a better bet than Sunny Hill for Jack- although we will still go through that application process as well for now. Once we’re home and get in to see a pediatrician we’ll have a better idea of whether Sunny Hill is right or not. In the meantime we can start the application process for these other programs and set up some assessments and private therapy for our arrival. We’ve also been sourcing some options for pediatric, osteopathic and Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization practitioners as well.

The absolute first thing we need in order to do any of it though are translated medical records. We hope to get the preliminary report from the doctors here tomorrow to get that ball rolling. So far the translation services here have estimated a two week turnaround (!!!!) for the translated documents. And they still cost a pretty penny. I’m looking into some Canadian services as well to see if that can be expedited somehow but they need to see the documents to give an estimate.

So given that info, Matt and I are thinking over whether we should extend our stay here once again for another 1-2 weeks past June 8th.

We hope to ask the doctor here to have the weekend to think about it.

As for Jacky boy, he seems to be sitting up a little stronger with a little less support, and spent pretty much the entire afternoon babbling away. He ate an absolute ton, seems to be swallowing water (with juice of course 🤫) a bit better, and tried his best at therapy today- although he was a little bit tired and whiny. He’s teething. He’s got his second top molar popping through and still has this nagging cough occasionally.

Our friends set up a Go Fund Me page for us and we’re pretty floored by the support we’ve already received. It will be really nice to be able to arrive home knowing we can set up some private therapy, supplement anything that is covered and in the short term we both can continue to make Jack our primary focus rather than job hunting etc.

One thing I’ve really noticed is that Matt really elicits Jack’s physicality… and given that his biggest deficits are motor ones I think it will be really important for Matt to continue to be super involved in Jack’s day to day therapy.

And I’m here to torture him with snot suckers, butt cream and incessantly trying to get him to drink more liquids. Lol!