My name is Shannon and I live in Augusta with
my four-year-old son. I left TANF four years ago and now I have two
part-time jobs. I work as a C.N.A. and as a substitute mail carrier. Last
year our income was about $12,000.
My son was born with Sensory Integration
Dysfunction. He didn't speak a word until he was two years old. His speech
and fine motor and gross skills are delayed. It's hard because I have to
translate so that he can be understood. He gets very angry and frustrated
when people don't understand him and sometimes that sets off a bout of bad
behavior. Right now he gets speech therapy three times a week; occupational
therapy once a week; and behavioral services once a week. I'm so thankful
for Head Start - it's been tremendously helpful for him. Now he has a
vocabulary of about 200 words.
It is very important that I spend as much
time with him as possible, taking him to therapy and then reinforcing those
activities over and over again at home. It's very hard to find a childcare
provider where he can really be safe because he needs to be watched very
closely all of the time. I almost lost him a couple of years ago when I left
him with a provider who didn't watch him carefully enough. He got a toy
struck in his throat and was rushed to the hospital. It's been very
stressful at times, but we have grown together and we're both starting to
see some real progress. Right now my biggest goal is to get him ready for
kindergarten. It's taken a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a lot of
energy, but together we're getting there.
Without Medicaid, I never would have been
able to get him the services that he needs - he never would have made the
kind of progress that we've seen. I figure that I'd be thousands of dollars
in debt right now without it - or my son still wouldn't be speaking or
walking without hurting himself. Because Medicaid now covers low-wage
working parents, I too have health care that is very important to me. I get
severe migraine headaches almost every day. My doctor has had to try many
different kinds of treatment and prescription drugs to help me control them.
Sometimes my headaches are so bad that I get sick to my stomach and have to
leave work. I've even had to go to the emergency room.
Some people may take health care for granted,
but not us. We are very grateful to the Medicaid program. I've watched my
son go from not being able to say a word to speaking understandably in
sentences because of the help we've gotten from Medicaid.
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