How far do you travel for therapies, treatments, etc?
lite-bright
member
I always think about posting this when I'm driving DD1 down to her therapy play group on Thursdays, and I'm stuck in stop-and-go traffic because it's the height of the morning rush hour and we had to leave an hour early to make it on time. The same drive takes about 20 minutes on the way home.
I'm a SAHM in the 'burbs; I got really spoiled not having to get on the highway unless I wanted to. :P Yet another small thing that having a SN child has changed.
But I consider us pretty lucky. We were able to at least consider just about every mainstream ASD treatment, because there were one or more local providers. I grew up in rural Northwest Ohio, and it would've easily been at least an hour drive or more to get most kinds of private therapies -- if they were even available within driving distance.
What has your experience been? Are you able to find the treatments you want for DC? How far do you have to go to get them?
DD1, 1/5/2008 ~~~ DD2, 3/17/2010
Re: How far do you travel for therapies, treatments, etc?
We live kinda far out, for PT we drive to Fredericksburg, about 21 miles. Some of her dr's are in Richmond at VCU, although they have a Fburg branch I try to go to as often as I can. Her neurologist is in Woodbridge, and old neurosurgeon was in Arlington. We don't have time for a playgroup or anything like that due to..all of the appointments they have. If I were to go to the mall it's probably about 30 miles one way. This year for appts for Peyton we have traveled 1700 miles & 1261 for Morgan..
When we lived in Morgantown, WV, WVU Ruby Memorial was 5-10 minutes away, however it usually took forever & a year to see a dr. there and her neurologist was in Pittsburgh at Children's, anyway. Her cardio was in town though, as was PT, etc. I do miss being 5 mins away from everything, especially with gas prices.
I actually feel like more was available closer for Peyton in WV than here in VA in Fburg. The EI only has one part time PT, etc. The outpatient hospital has wait lists of 6 months for PT/ST..it's crazy.
we are rather spoiled because we live about 20 minutes from johns hopkins and kennedy krieger where all of his dr's are. his medical daycare is only 15 minutes from our house...of course it takes about 45 minutes in rush hour at the end of the day though. we just started doing outpatient PT at a facility that's about 20 minutes in the other direction from our house. all in all it's not too bad and we are very fortunate.
I am very lucky. We live in our county seat where the center for our county's birth to 3 is located. So we only have to drive 2 streets over (so maybe 2 mi each way?).
But all of his doctor's are about 40 minutes (with no traffic) so we try to schedule them as far out of rush hour traffic as possible.
Auntie,
I just want to say I love New Hope. it's such a pretty area. My mom and I always go to Peddler's Village, and DH and I stayed at a BNB in the area and did the train ride through town.
When I lived in another state while DH was deployed (it was a small town) I traveled 90miles roundtrip once per week for DS2 to have his therapy at an outpatient pediatric rehab place. Then if there were any other doctor appointments, I would make the same drive (it was the closest town where they had doctors covered by my insurance).
Here I only have to drive across town but after having had an hour commute one way every week, I'd be willing to drive that far again. Now for the big doctors (pedi neuro and pedi ophthalmologist) we drive about 7hr (1-way) but that is infrequent and has it's own special circumstance. Once we move to our new base, those same doctors will be 4hr away (1-way) if I choose to keep their care there. If I change children's hospitals, then those appointments will be an hour away.
I have current patients who drive at least an hour (in the middle of the day, when there's no traffic) for their therapies (ST/OT/PT) and to see their child's specialists, as do other SLPs/OTs/PTs that I work with. I used to see a little guy with suspected apraxia whose mom drove almost 2 hours one way for him to come to speech, because the SLPs nearest his hometown either worked with adults or didn't know how to determine if the little guy even had apraxia (turns out, he didn't).