Lucas Camilo

Spring seems to be slowly arriving in Washington DC, with beautiful, sunny days still interspersed with cold temps and the occasional wind-storm or freezing rain.  We’re excited about getting out outside for some walks with Lucas, hopefully as soon as this weekend when Burke’s parents are in town for a visit. The transition that spring represents also has us thinking about larger transitions down the line: the likelihood of leaving DC in the not-so-distant future and moving back to the Pacific Northwest.

For a couple years now we’ve talked about the possibility of moving to either Seattle or Portland, despite our friends’ great lobbying efforts to keep us here.  Both of us grew up in the Northwest, our families live there now, and the mountains, rivers, and Pacific Ocean are in our blood.  In the long run we imagine ourselves living in the great states of Washington and Oregon, and as we think about finding a more stable living arrangement – since the mid-90s, neither of us has lived in the same house or apartment for more than 2 ½ years– it’s logical to make the move sooner rather than later.

And yet there is a lot that we love about Washington DC that’s going to be hard to leave.  We’ve managed to build a wonderful community of friends and fellow rabble-rousers, and leaving DC would mean leaving that community behind, not to mention some of our favorite organizations in the world.  We moved to DC in the fall of 2007 and yet it feels like we’ve been here a lot longer.  In a city with a reputation as a transient hub (at least amongst it’s more affluent, white residents), we’ve manage to encounter a much deeper sense of community than we ever imagined when we first arrived.  It’s because of such great friends and community that it’s hard to even talk about the possibility of moving.

The other challenge, of course, will be moving with Lucas.  We’ve developed quite a network of doctors, specialists, therapists, and nurses who are part of Lucas’s team, and re-establishing that network somewhere else will take time.  For now at least, Lucas needs to be in a good-sized city that has adequate resources and support for people with disabilities.  We’re confident that both Seattle and Portland will do the trick, but it’s nevertheless daunting to imagine the process of building a whole new medical and therapy team.

So as we start to think about moving, there’s a lot that we need to investigate and have in place.  Having sufficient health care insurance in place is essential, and part of the reason we can’t just move next month is that we need to ensure we’re on a family plan that can move with us (at least temporarily) as we transition of from DC to the west coast.  Then there’s secondary insurance and the eligibility requirements and waivers necessary to get Lucas on a Medicaid-funded program locally that will cover things like nursing and equipment that may not be covered under our primary insurance.  We’ve started to reach out to parents of special needs kids in the Northwest to investigate these things, and are planning trips to Seattle and Portland in the coming months to set up meetings and continue these discussions.

And then there’s schools.  Lucas is only 18 months old but we’re already starting to imagine what it’s going to be like for him to go to school.  What are the public schools like in each place in terms of their accessibility to and integration of children with disabilities (especially medically fragile kids like Lucas)?  Are there other schools specifically for children with special needs that are worth considering?  What kind of parent and support networks exist?  (And will there be books about disappearing ladybugs, Lucas asks?)  These are all questions we’ll be looking to answer in the coming months.

We know some of our blog readers live in the Northwest, while others live in different parts of the country but have a lot of experience thinking about these challenges.  We’d appreciate any thoughts, input, contacts, and connections you may have that will help us along our way.  We’re excited but also a little intimidated about this process, and would appreciate all the help we can get.