STAR Center

Doug and I drove up to Denver last Wednesday to check out the STAR Center and sit down for an intake interview with the coordinator of the clinic. The STAR Center is an occupational/auditory therapy program specifically for sensory processing disorder started by Lucy Jane Miller, sort of the guru of SPD research and treatment. I mentioned in a previous post that we wanted to see if this was an option for Bode since his current therapy program, while effective, just doesn't seem to "stick" and is not realistic for our family (to continue as diligently for the next two years as we have been for the past year).

We walked into the office of the STAR Center and the room was covered in Boulanger's, one of my favorite artists. As the coordinator walked us down the hall for our interview i looked around at the gym and felt very emotional and thought, "This is the place for him!" We talked for about an hour and a half, covering everything from his pregnancy/birth/developmental history, what our specific concerns and goals are, what treatment he has had; etc. We took a tour of the gym and different treatment rooms (all fun. OT wouldn't work if it weren't just a lot of fun). All in all, it's awesome. It's intense. They combine OT with an auditory therapy that i think Bode would benefit from. We would drive up three days a week for an hour of therapy each day. After six weeks there's a two week break followed by four weeks of just two days of therapy each week. And then, hopefully, we're done. She said some kids never need to come back and others come back every 6 months or so for a "tune-up" consisting of a week or two of therapy.

This sounded great to me. After a full year of very intense home OT (approx 1 1/2-2 hours per day/5 days a week) the thought of spending just 30 sessions and possibly being "done" was very appealing. Then she talked to us about the costs. $900 for an evaluation. $6200 for 30 sessions of therapy. Of which $0 will be covered by insurance (they are not a part of any "network" and we have an HMO. We've always been happy with our HMO but know they won't cover a dime).

We've been mulling this over a lot. One of my concerns is, so, we pay $7000+ and what if we still don't see long-lasting effects? What if it just turns into a very expensive playdate (he functions so well once he's comfortable, this is how i felt when we went to regular OT. They didn't really know what to do with him since he seemed fine after a short while)? And other concerns. But we looked into ways to finance it so our savings wouldn't take such a huge hit. We were leaning towards doing it. I scheduled everything (and my summer calendar is crazy now).

Then i sit back and really look at Bode. He really is doing so well. Yes, we've had some major issues/regression in the past 3 months, but he seems to be turning around. We still have a long way to go, but is STAR the way to get there? We know that his current therapy works. Is there a way we can change it so it works for our family? So it's not such a bone of contention in the house? So we can maximize the positive from it and give it the time we've been told it needs for it to "stick."

Another concern with proceeding with STAR is my pregnancy. I had high hopes that this pregnancy would be different. Or at least as good as Keegen's where i made it to 28 weeks before needing bedrest and a lot of meds. I'm not doing so hot. At 19 weeks, I'm already taking one medication every 4-6 hours and another med is being called into the pharmacy right now (and i don't have the greatest confidence in my OB here afterall. I feel like he's blowing me off and i don't appreciate that feeling). I don't want to start therapy for B only to have it interrupted midway.

So Doug and i sat down and talked about things last night. Doug sees a lot of positive improvements with Bode and we agree that STAR is not for us right now. We're going to figure out how to make his home programs less painful and get B back on track. We'll just have to work together to continue in the right direction. We're a good team. We'll keep STAR in our back pockets. If we think we still need help in the future, we'll reconsider. I'm glad we looked into it and it's nice to have options.