Happy Birthday to me...

Yesterday was my birthday, an occasion I'd just as soon skip at this point in my 50-something life...but my wonderful family didn't see it that way. While it was a day that actually started out badly (I woke up very sick to my stomach, bad stomach ache, terrible headache...can you say "stress"?), it turned out to be an absolutely lovely time. My wonderful husband took the kids to school and let me stay in bed, a gift in itself. By mid-morning, I had determined that I wasn't going to die so I got up and went about my day.


The most important thing on my To-Do list was to fax info to a friend who works in a legal aid service in Boston. An adoptive mom herself, she offered to advocate for us with MassHealth to see where our son's disability application was in the process and if we needed to provide any more documentation...and then my birthday present arrived. Shortly before it was time for the kids to come home from school, our friend emailed me with the news that our son's MassHealth application has been approved! This means that we will now be eligible for many more services for our boy and the state will fund those services, including in home therapy, a therapeutic mentor, a crisis stabilization team that will work with our family, and more. It will also mean that if our boy needs to return to the hospital in the future, he will have many more options for longer-term care without the worry of the insurance refusing to pay. I simply couldn't have asked for a better birthday gift...peace of mind for all of us and hope for our child's future.








After that, the day just got better. My DH suggested we get takeout for dinner so I didn't have to cook. It was just our family for a dinner of Chinese food, a favorite with the whole family, and a birthday cheesecake, a favorite of mine. My husband and kids were very sweet, lots of hugs and thoughtful, heartfelt gifts. Everyone was kind and forgiving, trying to get along in spite of a bit of acting out from our boy...and even our boy was really trying to hold it together. Anyone who knows what we've been through in the past few months knows that that's a gift in itself.