Myles Thomas

Myles Thomas Wickliffe

Today, May 27, 2020, is the 15th birthday of my son Myles. He is a very special child. He is funny, has an awesome smile and has the brightest eyes I have ever seen. I thought today was fitting to start this blog, because everything I do, I do for him, my family and other individuals like him. He was born very quickly on May 27, 2005. I had a very short labor and it seemed very typical. It was not much different than the birth of our first son who is two years, two months, and two days older, nor the birth of our daughter five years later. So, of course we were surprised when he started missing key milestones. At his check-up we raised concerns about his head control or lack thereof, the fact that his legs seemed to go straight out when he was on the changing table, his rolling over early, his significant issues with reflux and the fact that he didn’t seem to be attempting to crawl. At the first few appointments that we raised concerns, the pediatrician assured us that all children develop at different rates, so we did not have any real cause for concern at that point but that we would continue to monitor his development closely.

At nine months old, we took him to the pediatrician for a typical check-up and the pediatrician uttered the most devastating words ever, “We are going to refer him to a neurologist.” Working in health care and working with neurologists every day, I knew this was not good. When you need to see a neurologist, especially at such a young age, my belief was that something is seriously wrong. I called my husband when we were leaving the doctor in uncontrollable tears, but I had to pull myself together and take charge because that is what I do. We called to make an appointment with the neurologist and the soonest appointment they had was months out. So, I called a Neurologist I worked with, who just happened to be the leader of the University’s Neurology department and she got us an appointment in about a week and a half. We saw the pediatric neurologist and he was immediately diagnosed with cerebral palsy based on the neurologist’s initial physical assessment. I remember my husband saying, “Is it going to be obvious that something is wrong with him?” The neurologist gave a definitive “yes” and went on to explain that cerebral palsy has different levels of severity and he assessed him as being moderate. I get emotional every time, still today, I think about his condition and the quality of life he will not have in terms of experiencing relationships with individuals other than his family, marriage, children, college, etc., all of those milestones that we envision for our children before they are even born.

So, this is my driver, securing as high a quality of life as possible for my son and other individuals with intellectual, development and physical disabilities. My son will depend on someone or multiple people for the rest of his life and I want him to have many people who truly care about him and love what they do as much as possible. I want this for all individuals with intellectual, development and physical disabilities, which was the genesis of Milestones Services. Our mission is to provide high quality services to adults and children with intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities and help them achieve their developmental and life milestones. However, as I got caught up in the day-to-day operations of Milestones Services, I knew that we had to do more. I felt that our reach as a single provider was not significant enough to impact the quality of life for as many people with developmental and intellectual disabilities as possible, which is how Milestones Provider Solutions was created. As a provider I know how disheartening it can be to get caught up in processes, procedures, regulations, financial, billing, training, and all the activities that are necessary to help ensure quality, but do not really speak to our ability to take time to truly think about lives we are impacting outside of the regulations, procedures and protocols. Therefore, our goal at Milestones Providers Solutions is to assist as many providers as possible, deliver high quality services by allowing a day-to-day focus on the lives they impact, not the administration of programs.