When Cedaica brought Phoenix to Weisman Children’s Pennsauken location, she was not sure what to expect. She didn’t know how long it would take or how much her daughter would progress, but one thing she found out right away is that it felt like a family. “Even though it is a company, it doesn’t feel like a rehabilitation center. I would never know if anyone was having a bad day. Everyone is always welcome and happy with smiles. I have never been disappointed with anyone I have worked with. Everyone has different techniques and everyone has brought something to contribute to her development and therapy.”
Cedaica thinks this type of environment, care, and trust is what led Phoenix to progress as much as she has over the last three years. “Recently, when we were driving home from one of her therapy sessions, Phoenix said her first sentence. ‘No one can catch a rainbow, it is virtually impossible.’ I was just so happy. My daughter, who I was unsure would ever be able to make a sound, spoke to me. All I could think was that without Weisman Children’s and this therapy team we would not be here.”
One of those therapists was Phoenix’s occupational therapist Michelle Schwartz, MS, OTR/L, who stated Cedaica was just as instrumental to Phoenix’s development and responsible for where she is today. “We need parents to buy into therapy because we need that carryover and we need the parents to join and make it a collaborative effort. When a patient comes to us, we truly are a family now. We always have to make sure a parent knows they are a team member. I never want them to question why we are doing certain things in therapy. We want to work on things they want us to work on and we want them to see and understand why we need to do certain things. Cedaica more than did her part in Phoenix’s journey.”
Even still, Cedaica credits Weisman Children’s for guiding her and providing her the tools she needed to help her child succeed. “Weisman
Children’s helped me accept what I needed to do for Phoenix. I wish more pediatricians would recommend Weisman Children’s to parents. In my experience, parents who have special need children are not always given the proper information for success. You need to be able to teach parents and educate them and Weisman Children’s does that. The Weisman Children’s team helped me learn about what Phoenix was experiencing, provided me online resources for reading, and explained everything to me involving Phoenix’s therapy sessions. They have already given me information on what to do when she is a teenager, when she is 21 and all of that. They have relieved a lot of my panic as a parent.”
She concluded, “I did not know Weisman Children’s was going to be with me for the long haul. It has been three years and they have been with me on this journey with my daughter. I could not be more thankful.”