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fair_haired_lass Vice Captain
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 Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:41 pm
I figured I might as well put up my son's diagnosis story up.
His name is Sutton and he was a surprise from day one.
I hear alot of women say that they had warnig signs or that they suspected something was wrong before their child was diagnosed with autism. I really had no clue. I don't know if I can blame that on me being a new, young mom, or me being in denial or oblivious to the problem. His doctor always seemed concerned that he hadn't started speaking, but he was barely 1 year and I had known plenty of children that hadn't started speaking until well past their twos. I'd never been worried.
At his 18 month check up, his doctor recommended that we see the developmental specialist. I didn't have any objections though I didn't see much need for it. No one told me about what this meeting would entail. I was under the assumption that it would be like any other doctor's appointment. It was scheduled for 1pm which is round about when he usually took a nap, but since I thought the appointment would only be around 30 minutes long, I didn't think it would be a problem.
Boy was I ever wrong!
I wasn't taken to a regular doctor's room, I was taken to a conference room with the developmental specialist and a psychiatrist. The meeting turned out to be 2 and a half hours long and there was no 'check-up' involved It was an evaluation. Had anyone ever used the word 'evaluation' I would have had more of an idea what to expect! I had been put through many of said situations before as a young child. I would have never considered taking Sutton to one around his nap time.
After two and a half hours of Sutton screaming after they would give him a toy and take it away... the two doctors left the room for fifteen minutes. The specialist didn't come back as he had something else to do apparantly. The psychiatrist came back in, told us that they believed Sutton was autistic, handed me a good 3 lbs of pamplets and informational reading, then sent me on my way.
Its a good thing that the state of Florida has such an excellent early intervention program. Because had they not immediately taken control of the situation and put Sutton into therapy for me it probably would have taken a year for me to sort everything out. He was in therapy before I completely understood what was going on.
People that don't have children can't really understand what its like to hear something like that. It sounds really awful, but for me, it was almost as if my child had died. I had all these expectations for what my son was going to be and do when he grew up. All of that went away because everything was so uncertain. It took me a long time to come around, and I blame that fully on A, not really knowing anything about my son's diagnosis, and B, the way his diagnosis was handled. Reading photocopied informational pamphletes all by yourself is no way to learn about something that directly affects your family for the first time.
I still feel very angry towards the doctors involved, which is something I've had to put aside since that developmental specialist is now my son's primary care physician. We're in the military so we don't really get a choice with things like that.
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Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 8:19 pm
 A dragon dreams...
Wow. That was nice of them. /sarcasm]
My doctor actually spent time on explaining my Aspergers. To which, I am grateful.
Just hang in there!
...of what she might be...
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Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:10 am
I'm glad you got it caught early. I spent almost 17 years not knowing why I couldn't act like normal kid's my age.
But autism and aspergers isn't really that bad we get to see the world in a diffrent light then nerotypicals
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:46 pm
I was 18 when I finally got the diagnosis. So many years of telling people all the signs, and having everyone dismiss it and tell me to just be normal. So much pain. Hopefully, younger generations will have less trouble.
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