Express yourself...

Because of Max's disabilities, he is eligible for a medicaid waiver in our state.  We make too much money to qualify for medicaid based on income, so Max gets medicaid through a waiver program, which looks at his income and his disability.

He is on the Pediatric Hospice Waiver, Hopeful Program, a program for children with a life limiting illness.  It affords him medicaid as a secondary insurance, but also other services, like respite, and expressive therapies.

Max has been on this waiver for about five years.  In those five years, we have used the respite service as his monthly service used.  You see, you have to use one service a month to prove that you need the waiver.  The only problem there, respite has been the only option for us to use, as there weren't providers for expressive therapies.  And while we have had respite providers off and on through the past five years, we are finally to a point where even the respite portion of the waiver isn't working, as there is one provider, and they can't handle the lifting and repositioning of Max.

So, I do what I do, and pushed back.  I made a fruckous and got him another service.  Enter, art therapy.

Max has been especially expressive this past year.  He made his music cd, and worked hard on several projects in school last year that expressed who he was.  Art therapy is fitting right into that.

The thing about art therapy, there is no goal.  There are no plans to get better, or improve.  It's just to be expressive.  Without the "work" part of it, Max really took off.

We put on his art smock...aka, pinched hospital gown, and asked him what color he wanted to start with.


Yellow it is.




And a little red.




And finally, after calling for Dad-Dad up from work with his talker, he added some blue.
That's when he pulled his hands in, and dropped the paintbrush.  This masterpiece was finished.  Time for the next one.


He started his second piece with yellow markers.  Then on to blue.




But, he said "get we my", and "my, my" a couple of times.


Finally he just pulled his hands in, like this, and stopped with the markers.

He wanted his colors from his supply.  Then he got more interactive with his picture.  First he wanted, orange, then black.  He told us this one was for Abbey.  He had something in mind for her picture.  In the end, it was a pumpkin, and batman. 

Next was play-clay, which he was largely unimpressed with. 

So, they ended with more painting, which he seemed to enjoy the most.  He's never used water-colors before, but really enjoyed them.  He was very particular about the brush strokes too. 

And was most proud of this one.  

Can you tell what it is? 

Max will get to enjoy art every other week, after music therapy.  It will be his expressive therapy day!  I can't wait to see what all he comes up with!