I Hate School

At age 3, Ben started having ear infections. We got on the revolving-door plan at his doctor’s office. We got to know the names of all the antibiotics a doctor could possibly prescribe for an ear infection, as well as the cost, taste and frequency of the doses.

After several months of this, I told his doctor that maybe we should take things to the next level, meaning, maybe he should get tubes. She agreed, and we went to an ear, nose and throat doctor, who ordered a hearing test.

Ben’s hearing test, given near his 4th birthday, gave me my first official parental panic attack. Other panic attacks I’d had -- over a bloody mouth, a high fever or relentless vomiting -- paled in comparison to discovering that you’re child hears the world as if he’s under water. That my talking to him may sound , in reality, just like Charlie Brown’s mother talking to him.

I made countless breathless phone calls to annoyed appointment makers to get Ben into the ENT and then to the OR for tubes before he returned to preschool in the fall. Out on the street on his first day, he covered his ears when the garbage truck drove by. Everything was so loud! he said. I prided myself on a job well done.

He finished preschool without any ear infections, and we tested his hearing from time to time to make sure everything was OK. Since getting tubes, his hearing has never been better than borderline problematic, but it’s an improvement and is normal enough to satisfy his ENT.

Ben went to kindergarten last fall, and in December we had our first teacher conference. That morning, Brian asked me to mention Ben’s speech to her. “Are you sure?” I asked. “He seems fine to me.” Of course, the first thing his teacher brought up was Ben’s speech. The mom is always the last to know about these things. He could speak a self-created version of Japanese and I would probably understand him.

In January, the school’s speech therapist observed and listened to him. She said he was developmentally on target and sent home 50 different sheets of paper with 100 games on them all involving the letter ‘L.’ To this day, whenever the letter ‘L’ appears in a game, Ben walks away in disgust.

One weekend in May, Brian and I realized we no longer understood a word he said. He’d say, “Did you daryive in the cuyaya?” And we’d look at each other and say, “The hell?”

Later that month, we went to his yearly physical. He spoke to the receptionist and the receptionist looked at me for a translation. Ditto the doctor, who by the end of the appointment advised that I get the boy to a speech therapist, pronto.

My son was 6, and no one could understand a word he said. Sometimes, not even me.

I alerted his teacher. I called my insurance company. I set up a private speech evaluation. We received his evaluation, the one that described his speech as “well-below average” and “poor,” just a few days before his last day of kindergarten. I had Brian call the principal, because after my meeting with him about John’s preschool experience, Brian and I agreed that he would deal with this particular principal in the future. I am already the “crazy lady.”

The principal said they would either go by the private evaluation or decide to do one of their own, and it would happen in the fall. Good enough.

All summer I took Ben to speech therapy. He still goes, and his therapist says he’s still got some major issues. Nothing that can’t be overcome, but the speech problems remain.

This costs us $60 a month. I know it could be more. I know we’re lucky to have coverage, and that we can afford it and still eat and pay the mortgage (barely). But I’m anxious for my tax-paying-citizen status to kick in and for the public school to take over. Let’s get this show on the road.

Today I had my meeting with my “case manager,” the school psychologist, whom judging by today uses her wily psychological powers on parents as often as on kids.

We had the usual talk, she asked about his history, she described the process of the “initial evaluation,” which used to be called a “core” but they no longer use that word. She said they’d take him out of class two times for 30 to 40 minutes each time, and that his cognitive and speech abilities would be evaluated, as well as his social whatever blah blah blah. I asked if we would be reimbursed for the private speech therapy, and she said reimbursements only kick in after he’s evaluated. So, no. Sign here, she said. Fine, I said.

This is why I’m a writer. I have no ability to think on my feet. Because only then did I ask the million-dollar question: “What’s the time line?”

“I’ll give you that in just a minute,” she said, leaving the room to take a copy of the signed form. She came back and said they would complete the evaluation by October 31st, and by November 27th we would have another meeting to find out if Ben has been deemed worthy of speech services.

“You’re kidding,” I said. She studied me. “That’s almost a year from when his teacher alerted us to the problem. That’s six months from when no one on the planet could understand a word he said, even me. That’s another 13 weeks of us paying for speech therapy.”

“You could take him out of speech therapy,” she told me, with a straight face.

“We think it’s too important,” I said, without throttling her.

But in the car driving home I said, “Is that your suggestion? Because if it is, if you’re serious, then I wonder whether you have Ben’s best interests in mind. And if it’s not, if you’re not serious about us taking him out of speech therapy altogether for the next 13 weeks to let him backslide through 1st grade, then I don’t appreciate you being so flip, so cavalier, when it comes to my son’s speech problem and my families finances.

“And let me see that form, let me scratch it out and write that I’m not OK with it, that services beginning in December – maybe, if he qualifies – is not ok with me. And don’t tell me you have no choice, because the principal already told us you could have accepted the private evaluation rather than doing your own bullshit administrative process and delaying assistance for my son for three months.”

Maybe it’s good that I can’t think on my feet, at least sometimes. Maybe by Monday, when I plan to call this case manager, maybe then I’ll be able to speak to her without swearing.