Today marks the day of my Handsomes 3 year diagnoses of Autism.... (deep breath)
Its a very bitter sweet day for me and I thought I would write a little about that day.
I clearly remember all the work it took to even
get him the diagnosis of what was wrong with him, all along hoping and praying it wasn't the big 'A'. I had heard of autism, but didn't know anyone with a child who had it. We ruled out hearing loss, and a few other developmental disorders that it possibly could be and then started with AZ Early Intervention, they came in evaluated him, talked to me and then told us we needed to go and see a Psychologist to get him evaluated. The big day was Friday, October 13, 2006.
Handsomes Dad and I loaded him up in the car and drove to the Psychologists office. We waited in the waiting room for what seemed like hours. It was the same routine I had been through SO many times already, 'Fill out this paper work, stating all his history from birth to current, along with all of my history, his dads history, and all the information about my pregnancies and so on and so forth. After filling out the 15 page booklet :) we went back.
She was a very nice lady and while we were in their she asked us lots of questions while she watched our son play. She pointed out things to me, that I never noticed before, like... " You see how he plays with those blocks, he doesn't play with them the way a child should, he picks them up looks at them and then throws them"
After many questions and lots of pointing out of what our son is doing. She sat back and asked me, "How long have you thought something may be wrong?" and I told her " Since he was about 15 months old"
And then she said it, " Unfortunatley, I see alot of this lately...." pause " Have you ever heard of autism?"
My heart sank " Yes.." and then she said it
" Your son has autism.... I would put him in the category of Severe to Moderate, seeing as he is so young he may be able to make some progress" " Unfortunatly , there is no cure, with time and therapy he might be able to make some progress and talk, but I can't say for sure what kind of progress he will make. I
can tell you that the more intervention you get for him the better it
may get."
Throgh the fog of crying I heard what she was saying, but was so overcome with fear, grief and disappointment for my son. We sat and listened to her, and took all the paperwork she had for us and she walked us down the hall. I politely excused myself to the restroom, where I completely fell in to tears. All I could think of was " How can this be?" Why my son? Haven't we struggled enough already? Why does Handsome have to struggle? What will we do?
I tried desperatly to hold it together for my son, I didn't want to upset him.I was so glad his dad was there cause he was so good with Handsome.... AS I was about to walk through the door, I heard the Doctor tell his dad, this is going to be a rough road, some children progress a little further, but most don't.... you will walk through alot of feelings, and its okay that she is upset, let her work through it, I"m sorry this has happened, and she left.
I dried my eyes and walked out and held it together, We really didnt say much on the ride home as we both were in shock of it all. Glenn tried his best to reassure me it would be okay and if I needed him he would stay, but I knew he needed to go to work.
I dropped his dad off, drove down the street parked the car in a grocery store parking lot and called my sister. I remember when she answered the phone I could barely speak, she heard me crying and said " Are you okay? What did they say? Do you need me to come and get you?"
I finally was able to form the words. " Handsome has autism" She told me to come to her store and she would meet me outside, she did and she comforted me and told me it would be okay. I'm so blessed to have such a caring, loving family, they were all there for me (again) when I needed them. After crying for along time, I calmed myself down and drove to my sisters house, where all my family was. They loved on me and Handsome and talked with me and told me what I needed to hear, we will work this out, and Handsome will progress.
Now three years later, it feels like I have been on this Journey so much longer. When your child has autism, it takes lots of time and dedication on your end to find out how you can recover your child. Thankfully, after making the decision to quit my fulltime job and dedicate everything to Handsome, I did start to see progress. The first thing to go was Casein, we did start to see progress! Thats when he started to talk, and it just progressed from there. I continued to read everything I could get my hands on about autism and biomedical intervention. The more I read the more it made sense for my son to start doing more of it.
Deciding to get Handsome 'biomedical' intervention is the best and most important thing I have done to start to recover my son! I am so grateful to everyone who has ever helped my son, for if not for you, he would NOT be where he is today, 3 years later and STILL RECOVERING!
Much Love,
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