BIG Decision!

Over the past two weeks David and I have been trying to make a decision on where to go next with Kadence's treatment for scoliosis. It has been very stressful and very difficult.

Lets rewind to almost two weeks ago. It was a great Saturday afternoon and we received a letter in the mail from Shriners. As I opened it up, my heart sank. It was a letter telling us that we would now be responsible for all copays and deductibles and anything in excess of what our insurance pays. Well, this is a huge deal because our insurance doesn't cover ANYTHING done at Shriners. So basically we had to start thinking of what we could do. Since it was a Saturday we tried to push it out of our minds until Monday when we could call the number on the bottom of the letter to see what was going on. We hoped it was just a letter sent by accident or something....although we knew that wasn't the case. We were in a little denial.

Monday came quickly and I was in charge of making the call. I called and asked what we would do since our insurance doesn't cover any of the visits. The woman told me that they would try to work with us based on our income, but basically it was the same as any other hospital. You can get them to write off an amount and you pay the remaining balance. This was not good because Kadence's care costs well over $20,000 a year. We had no idea what to do.

I quickly got my mind brainstorming EVERY possibility. We could:

Stay at Shriners and try to pay- almost impossible

Stay for one last cast, then leave- meaning we would pay over $4,000

Go to Primary Childrens-We hated the Dr we had before

So with each one of these decisions also came other decisions. It was beyond stressful. When I called to get an appointment with Primary Childrens I mentioned that I didn't want the same Dr as before. Luckily there is one more Scoliosis Dr there so we could try him. I wanted to set up a consultation to try to help us make a good decision. Kadences back was too bad for them to really handle well, but that was 3 years ago and she has made some improvements since then. Unfortunately the soonest they could get us in was Nov. 3. This posed another problem because Kadence is growing out of her brace already and its starting to cause bruising. SO we were again faced with another decision. Do we wait until then and talk to the Dr....OR do we go get a brace from the orthotic company in the meantime and then go to the new Dr?

We decided on getting a new brace while we waited and then going to visit with the new Dr. The orthotic company explained they would need a prescription from Shriners stating that she was outgrowing her brace so they could get pre-authorization from our insurance. Oh goodness, this was becoming a headache!

David decided to call the care coordinator to ask for the prescription. He then explained why we would need to leave Shriners. Our care coordinator, Angie, said that we didn't have to leave. We could take a "means test" that would qualify us to still receive free care. WHAT?! We are days later, tons of prayers later, I got very little sleep for days and it could be back to normal?! Why didn't the other lady tell us that?! David did the means test over the phone and we are able to go to Shriners like nothing had happened before.

Great, right? NOPE. I immediately got a terrible feeling about going on with the casting as scheduled. During all our decision making we tried to weigh the pros and cons of every situation and in fact we were never listing getting a cast as a good thing. The past 3 casts have done the same exact thing and the brace she currently is in is holding her in a better spot than the last cast did. David and I had already decided that at her next casting we would ask the Dr if it was effective any more and if we could try going from brace to brace. Kadence has been super positive through all of this UNTIL this summer. She hates it and has a little bit of a hard time now. It is effecting her emotionally and mentally and we were told that would usually happen at 5 anyways. They try to make the smallest impact socially on the child so when it becomes a problem they stop casting. (We were just hoping we could go longer with her positive happy attitude.) I had received many blessings about the decision and basically one told me that David would be there to help me weigh the options and to give his input, but I would know what was the best thing for Kadence. (What a huge weight on my shoulders) They also said that I would feel calm and be confident in whatever decision I made.

Because I wasn't feeling calm or confident in resuming with Shriners as usual we decided not to. We called up the care coordinator and asked if we would be able to go from brace to brace there. She said she would ask Kadence's Dr's and let us know. After days of the Drs being in the OR all day, she finally caught up with them. Today we found out Kadence's Dr's gave the go ahead to go from brace to brace. HALLELUJAH! It is a decision I am very confident in, we have prayed about, and we are so comfortable with the staff that takes care of Kadence at Shriners.

Of course there could always be the need to go back to the castings, but we're going to try this out and see how it goes. Luckily the orthotics is inside of the hospital so they always do xrays the same day to make sure the brace is fitting in a way that is beneficial. I think that Shriners will keep a much better eye on her progress and help us make the best decision for her. Thank you all so much for your prayers and concern and most importantly your support and love. We couldn't do this without loving family and friends backing us up!