yesterday was great

Dave took a personal day yesterday to come to the fair hearing regarding Calvin's eligibility for regional center services.  This is the first personal day he has taken while on clinical service. (he had swine flu a few years ago and took some days off but I think that would count as a sick day).  He called his co-worker Chiazo to tell her about it and she put herself on call for the night. He had to call her back and say, "I am not coming in all day - you will need to round at my hospital and cover the cases."

In the early morning Dave and I got up and got ready for the day, showers and nice clothes for the hearing. The kids got up and I got the girls ready for first day of school. So fun!

Dave and Calvin took off around 7:30 to go meet Dr. Marshall, our expert witness, a neurosurgeon Dave works with. (Former chair of the department. Possibly the most cited expert on traumatic brain injury, which applies to epilepsy since epilepsy causes brain injury). Anyway, we wanted to be sure Dr. Marshall met Calvin before the trial so Dave went out to his house to discuss the records and to allow Dr. Marshall to interview and examine Calvin.

I took the girls to school and then dropped off Jo at Jessicas where we also met Pete who was watching Calvin.  As a side, let me mention that being gone for less than 8 hours creates a huge amount of stress and work trying to line up babysitters for 4 kids. (esp. when one is Calvin who cannot go with just anybody). We are thankful to all of our kid helpers. Both girls went home with friends after school.

The trial started at 10am.  It lasted until about 2:45pm.  I would like to just talk about a few great things. Maybe another full report will come at another time.

  #1. We were VERY well prepared. At the end of the day the opposing "team" said they have never seen a family so well prepared. I give my dad 100% credit for the fact that we were prepared.  We were supposed to have the trial July 10th. Around July 4th I showed my dad the packet of paperwork from the regional center and he told me that I should prepare a presentation including extra witnesses and make a professional presentation if this was something I cared about. We asked for a continuance and got the date of Aug 21st.  I also give credit to my two lawyer brothers for helping me compile paperwork and allowing me to talk about this hearing non-stop for 6 weeks.

#2. The judge was a very nice guy and was genuinely interested in understanding the case, the details of Calvin's medical information, etc.  he asked additional questions to every witness trying to get information. I was a little worried that it would not be a "Fair" hearing, but we felt that it was.

#3. The opposing counsel, about and hour into the hearing interrupted what was going on and said to Dave, "I know you! You were on the team of Dr's that helped my wife when she broke her neck. Thank you for saving my wife's life."  This comment was on the record in the middle of testimony. Later, off the record Dave talked a little to the counsel to ask how his wife was doing and try to remember the patient of about 4 years ago.  The counsel did not ask a single hostile question to any of our witnesses. I do not know if that is normal or not but we definitely felt that perhaps had warmer feelings toward us than he might for the average case. Of note, opposing counsel did not know much about our case at all and was mostly there help with formal presentation of case. He had obviously not studied the file. That might be the reason why he had no questions for us as well. Personally, I think it would appear to be pretty poor form to haggle parents of disabled kids who are crying, begging and pleading for help so I am not sure that they would ever be very hostile. Who knows. In any case, we were blessed to not suffer through any hostile questioning.

#4.  Nobody on their side had met Calvin or seen his MRI (which became a topic of debate).  nobody on their side really reviewed the records carefully either. The psychologist said he did, but when I started questioning him he had to look through the records to find answers and it took him a long time to find what he needed. He absolutely didn't know the records as he claimed to. At one point in his testimony he said even though he didn't' meet Calvin he pretty much knew him from how carefully he reviewed the records numerous times. Um, lie. He was totally caught in that lie and his counsel was shaking his head listening to him talk b/c it was so ridiculous.

#5. Being married to a neurosurgeon is awesome. (see #3.) and because there was no possibility of their team mis-construing the medical information with Dave there to rebut their comments.  I actually feel I am very knowledgeable of Calvin's medical information and knew more than anyone on their side about Calvin's disease but the fact that Dave is a neurosurgeon makes him a second "expert witness" so his testimony is considered expert. Nice.

#6. Our witnesses were great.  Paula Clifford - church/personal, Jen Swope - director of Calvin's school, Dr. Marshall -expert medical witness, Dave and myself. My dad attended for moral support and to drop a few lines of help here and there.

After the trial since we hadn't had anything to eat or drink we stopped for lunch on the way home. 3:30 is a great time to do lunch. No wait and lunch prices.  We shared an entree, salad and dessert.  We were in and out in 30 minutes. It was good to unwind a bit after such a big event. It was kind of like taking a big test where you prepare and prepare and stress and then all of a sudden it is over.

Anyway, we gathered up the kids and went home to spend the afternoon. It was nice to have Dave home all evening with us. He is rarely home before kids go to bed these days so it was a treat. He went swimming with them all, including Jo who loved it. We did our father's blessings for school starting FHE, we put the kids to bed and watched 1/2 of a movie (still gotta get up early for work)!   He also took Lexey out for a slurpee for a daddy/daughter date. A jam packed daddy day! The kids were so happy!

All in all a great day.  So nice to have a day with Dave home all day. Dave went back to work this morning and says the 10 days to the judges decision will fly by!

We feel very blessed and are so thankful for everyone who prayed for us and also for those who helped us prepare for the hearing and of course those who came to testify.  No matter the outcome we are glad that we had a smooth trial and that we feel everything was fair and that we were able to do our best. We hope the judge will find that the law rules in Calvin's favor. It is certainly our interpretation of the law that Calvin is eligible for services.

What are services at the regional center?
Basically, they would take on Calvin as a client and provide all medical, dental and other care he needs. Kids like Calvin and those more seriously disabled, require a lot of care and need trained professionals to help with behavior therapy, provide respite care for parents, training for parents and family, etc. etc. Regional center would arrange and pay for all of these things.  We wouldn't pay any more medical bills for Calvin or co-pays for medication. This would be a nice perk, but mostly we need the behavior support which we simply cannot afford out of pocket as it would be 10-20K/year.