In Which We Find Our Van!

Big news-- we found our van! Shopping was a surprisingly painless process, as we didn't have a huge number of places to look or vehicles to look at. There's really only four types of minivans they convert in the U.S. right now: the Honda Odyssey, the Toyota Sienna, the Dodge Caravan, and the Chrysler Town and Country. Of those four, the Caravan and the Town and Country are essentially the same car with a different interior and brand name, so really it's only three cars to look at. We decided based on customer reviews, safety ratings, and reliability to go with either the Honda or the Toyota.

There are only three dealerships in our area that carry adaptive vans, and they're all privately owned, so they aren't bringing vehicles in from other sites or anything-- what they have on the lot is about it. Each of the vans has the same conversion package put in it with a couple of minor exceptions (such as what type of ramp the vehicle has); otherwise the only differences are in the luxury packages and color. We weren't interested in leather seats or a DVD player or anything, so I just went to each of the dealerships, looked at what they had in the Toyotas and Hondas, and then we picked the one offering the best deal. We'll be getting a 2008 Toyota Sienna-- the one in the picture! I'd brought Connor's wheelchair into the dealership and we used a standard wheelchair already there to see what the seating configuration would look like. With the Sienna we can fit Connor and Jer in side by side, and Jer can have his legs extended without any trouble. They're also going to install hand controls for free so that Jer can drive the vehicle himself! Once he lays off the heavy narcotics that is--driving is probably not a good idea right now. Anyway, we're absolutely thrilled about the van and can't wait to take it out for the first time. We'll probably be driving in a week or two! We have to figure out where we're going to go first. I vote for somewhere with chocolate.

On a side note-- all of these vans come with a remote system that opens the door, lowers the entire rear of the van, and deploys the ramp. That thing is awesome; reminds me of a space ship. I want to pull up in front of groups of little kids and deploy it just to watch them freak out. Can't wait to play with it.

In other news, this morning Connor and I headed off for his developmental clinic appointment. Once a year he has a half-day of clinic time where one doctor after another comes in and evaluates him. Then they all get together and write up a big report which we use for his schooling, to figure out what additional services or equipment he needs, etc. He's seen in two different clinics that alternate years; this year we were seen by the neurodevelopmental clinic. So over the course of about three and a half hours we saw a developmental pediatrician, a neurologist, a social worker, a physical therapist, and a geneticist.

A couple of things came out of this year's evaluation. The first was that Connor will be having physical therapy twice a week instead of once a week. The physical therapist said that Connor is right on the cusp of sitting independently, and so she wants a PT to focus exclusively on that for a few weeks to see if we can get him to that next step. How exciting! The second major thing to come out of today was that we are going to have Connor's DNA evaluated in a new procedure that is so specific it should tell us exactly which genes are missing on his chromosomes. This won't change anything for him of course, but it should help us in the future as they figure out more and more about the human genome and which genes do what. If we can help future families facing similar genetic issues we'd like to do it. We're also going to restart feeding therapy. So a lot of good things happened today!

This post is way too long and it's time for bed. I would start a separate blog about what's going on with Jer, but than I'd have to write two posts a day and I'm way too lazy for that. Oh well.

~Jess