Life Planners™ Newsletter
April 2007
by Mike and Linda Moran
Monthly advice on how to write your child's Letter of Intent,
also known as a Life Plan
Medical
History
Part 3
Download our free sample
Letter of Intent
(All sensitive and identifying information has been changed.)
About this issue of the Life Planners newsletter
This issue of the Life Planners newsletter is the third in a five-month series on medical considerations. Last month we took a close-up view of the medical resources section of your Letter of Intent. We included an excerpt from an actual Letter of Intent for you to view.
This month we will cover a new medical topic—medical history. For those of you with medically fragile children, this may be a very long section. Yours may need to be written in many sections and perhaps with date headings.
If your medical history section will be long, consider including references to documents that reliably exist elsewhere—you do not necessarily have to repeat information in your Letter of Intent.
The sample below is brief because the child, although disabled, has been remarkably healthy. However, even for this child, the section below could be more extensive.
As with all sections in your Letter of Intent, use your own judgment as to how much information to include in the medical history section. And remember that this is a working document—you can always add more later.
Medical History—overview
Following is the Medical History entry from an actual Letter of Intent:
Medical History
Daniel has been remarkably free of medical problems. He has been much healthier than many children with Down syndrome. Daniel has no unusual medical care needs, except for increased vigilance (through checkups) for certain medical conditions that are common in people with Down syndrome.
Birth
Daniel was born six weeks prematurely. He had some breathing problems due to lack of surfactant in his lungs in his first week, but rebounded marvelously and was released from the hospital at age four weeks.
Diseases
Daniel contracted chicken pox in December of 1997. (Both Annette and Elizabeth did then, too, and Derek had it in December of 2000.) Daniel has not had any other noteworthy diseases.
Allergies
Daniel has not been tested for any allergies. I have allergies to trees, grass, pollen, ragweed, dust, and mold, so Daniel may have inherited some allergies as well.
One unusual food allergy common in people with Down syndrome is called Celiac disease. Sensitivity to gluten (found in wheat, barley, rye, and oats) causes vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, and arthralgias (joint pains). Daniel does not show the symptoms of Celiac disease, but allergies can change as a person ages, so he may develop it in the future. One study showed that 19% of people with Down syndrome have Celiac disease, compared to 2% of the general population. To test for Celiac disease, serum screening is recommended for two antibodies, antiendomysium antibodies (EMA) and IgA antibodies to transglutaminase.
Operations
Daniel's tonsils and adenoids were removed by Dr. Joel Levitt of Short Hills, New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Hospital in December of 2001. Daniel has had no other operations.
Hospitalizations
In addition to Daniel's outpatient surgeries, he was hospitalized only at birth for his first four weeks of life (after being born six weeks prematurely).
Immunizations
David's immunizations are up-to-date.
Diagnostic Testing
Daniel's evaluations at Valley School have included some standardized testing. It is in the special education files in the file cabinet in the garage.
Genetic Testing
Daniel has been tested and confirmed as having Down syndrome (Trisomy 21), in which the 21st chromosome has three copies instead of the usual two. Daniel was found to have the most common form of Down syndrome, non-disjunction. Daniel was not found to have any other genetic problems.
This month's Life Plan tip:
Use our sample!
In our newsletters, we've referred to "an actual Letter of Intent," and have included excerpts from it. Where did we get this sample, anyway?
It's our own son's Letter of Intent from a few years ago, with all sensitive information changed, but with the integrity of the document kept intact. This plan was written by two writers (us) without a lawyer.
As we've said before, the Letter of Intent is a document that is written by caregivers or parents, and is not a legal document. In fact, this kind of document cannot largely be written by a lawyer, since most of it is about information that only you know. Yet it is an essential document to have—in the event that something happens to you, it will be pored over by whoever takes over your child's care.
We realize that not all of you are writers, and even for us, it was a time-consuming task to create our Letter of Intent from scratch. But you don't have to!
Now, you can download our Letter of Intent, which is in MS Word format, and muck with it all you like.
So if you haven't yet started your Letter of Intent, get started today, using our sample as a template. And if you have already started, feel free to cut, paste, change, alter, join—whatever suits your fancy.
Don't forget—in order for the sample to become transformed into your child's Letter of Intent, it will have to change a lot, but it's still better to start with something rather than nothing!
Also, please don't hesitate to give out copies of this newsletter and our sample Letter of Intent to friends and special-needs professionals. We only ask this—if you know of any disability-related web site that might like to link to us, would you recommend our newsletter as a worthy link?
The link is: http://www.betterwaypress.com/lifeplanners. You can even e-mail the link right now to someone:
Thank you.
A thought to ponder:
"Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can."
John Wesley
Direct all technical questions and comments about this site to
webmaster
Last Modified: Wednesday, 06-Feb-2008 07:23:05 PST
Betterway Press
All rights reserved.
Betterway Press