I am not sure how I feel. I kind of feel numb, yet I know there is something there. I feel a fog, like I am here, but not. Perhaps it is my mind’s way of protecting itself for now, just avoiding thoughts. When I talk about it, I feel a welling of emotion that begins to wash to the surface likes waves lapping the shore. I then quickly push it away and the relief of dull heaviness takes its place instead.
Yesterday, Bud had his evaluation with the pediatric behavioral psychologist. The visit lasted over 3 hours and I liked the doctor very much. At the end, she said “the bad news is,” and then caught herself and said not bad, but… Bud meets the criteria for a mild to moderate autism diagnosis. Dr. said she could diagnosis him with autism today, but she decided not to because he has a different “flavor” to him. She instead diagnosed him the ASD PDD-NOS. Most of you on here know that means the autism spectrum disorder pervasive developmental disorder otherwise not specified. She wants us to rule out some other things, and then come back and evaluate him again in 6 months.
Dr. said there might be medical things such as metabolic or genetic disorder or seizure disorder, at play. While he may still end up with an autism diagnosis if they find an additional disorder, she said either way it is good to know because it will help make him symptoms less severe if we treat the other issues. We now have to have our little man held down while a needle sticks him and decide on which distressing means we will use for the neurological testing. I want to protect him and keep him from all this testing, yet testing him may be a means to help and protect him. …continue reading
I am one of those annoyingly chipper optimists. You know the ones, where every cloud has a silver lining?! I can and do find the humor in almost every situation. Simply because I HAVE to. The truth is, if I don’t, I would probably sit in the corner and cry non-stop forever! Or sit in a bathtub full of Cheerios, playing with my rubber duckie until the men in white coats came to get me! Seriously though, I constantly remind myself that it could be worse, it could be much worse. Which is how I have gotten through so many things in life, the curve balls.
When a geneticist told me that my oldest son would need surgery at less than a week old I looked around the NICU and thought, my son has a pretty healthy heart, his organs in general were healthy. So, he had mild hearing loss at the time, he was intubated because he could not breathe on his own until after surgery. The point was, with that surgery, he would live!
When a few months later, another surgery later and two hospital stays later, we found ourselves in the hospital yet again for our fourth stay, I looked around and thought it’s not so bad, we’ve had some time at home with him. When he had an NG tube put in I was just thankful that they could get anything down his nose to help feed him. It was his nose that they had operated twice on. When he dropped enough weight to hit only 5oz over his birth weight, that was the first time I couldn’t handle a curve ball. I went straight down to the chapel and told God, if he was going to take my sweet baby boy, to do it now so he would not have to suffer anymore but, in the same breath I wanted to keep my baby so much I prayed that he would recover that day, I begged for it.
That was the last day things were bleak for him. He came home a week or so after that. He went through physical, occupational and physical therapy, early intervention and even graduated their program at 18 months! By 2yrs old when his “quirks” began to really show, I was ready to jump on board and ride the curve ball train again! …continue reading
