Gabriel Peyton Philipp
A.K.A. The Sensational Kid!

My son Gabriel was diagnosed with SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) in October 2006. What a journey it has been so far! I first want to thank all those who have been there from the very beginning. To my Mom & Dad what wonderful grandparents you have been for my boys, and how you have really been one of MY major rocks to lean on when all of this started. Your love, and prayers and continious support is always with me and has certainly helped me through all of this! To Jacquie, you have been such a corner stone in our lives and your love and support, encouragement and help will never be forgotten! Scott and I appreciate all that you have, are and will continue to do for Gabriel and the rest of the family!

My Journey from the Beginning…
01/01/07

Gabriel was born a premie (born a month and a half early). With that he spent 2 weeks in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) at UCSD Hillcrest Hopsital in San Diego, CA. Every premie baby out of that hospital is signed up with the “UCSD Infant Special Care Follow-up Program”, where they are assigned a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner who basically every 6 months does a follow up review and assesment of them. So Gabriel was assigned to Martha Fuller who over the course of his visits had some conernes with Gabriel. Some red flags popped up that prompted her to really stay ontop of Gabriels care.  So the last visit mid September, she suggested and set up for us an IDA (Infant-Toddler Developmental Assesment) Evaluation through the goverment. Well after the evaluation it was clear that he qualified for goverment/county assistance. We were assigned to this wonderful program called “Early Start”, in which they also did an evaluation on Gabriel and came to the conclusion that he was to get about 20 hours a month of Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy and Infant Education and still no diagnosis.

So at the end of September 2006 Gabriel was set up to start receiving 20 hours of therapy starting the first of October 2006. We had just gone through a huge ordeal with our first son Christian with a tooth abscese which landed him in the emergancy room and then into the hospital for 5 days with osteomiolitis in his bone where the tooth abscese was. (That in itself was a traumatic ordeal that our family had gone through.) And now, we have been set up with all this therapy for Gabriel with a months time.

All this was happened in pretty much a months time. So it was a bit overwhelming for me to handle, especially since we did not have a specific diagnosis for what was wrong with Gabriel. I was not only worried about Gabriel but I was also concerned with the financial aspects of having that much therapy each month and how we were going to manage that. Luckily because it is a goverment run program it was set up so that we as parents did not have to pay for these sessions (you ever wondered where your tax dollars went, well some of it goes to programs such as these that assist and help out families in need), and the therapist come to your house (A safer and more familiar place for the child). So that was a major weight off our shoulders. Now it was just a matter of scheduling hour long sessions with the different therapist, so that they not only didn’t overlap with each other, but there was enough time apart to give Gabriel a bit of a break between sessions.

Later on that year, he was also diagnosed with having provisional Autism. His hours then increased from 20 hours a month to 63 hours per month. With additional services under the Autism Coordinator to recieve every day for 2 hours ABA Therapy (Applied Behavioral Analysis).

Because of all this therapy and assistance, Gabriel is now showing interaction with people, started eating solid foods 3 months before he turned two, and is now using sign language and pointing for things. Which all of this stuff he didn't do before....

More to Come...

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