Entering a Whole New World

This post might be really disjointed.  I have so much to say, but it's all a jumble in my head right now.  I'm sorry if it's hard to follow.

This last Wednesday, March 13th, I took Oliver for a well-check visit with a new pediatrician.  Our previous one hadn't been listening to any of our concerns (unless they become un-ignorable) and the last time I'd tentatively approached the idea of more global developmental delays than just speech, in Oliver, he smirked and laughed off my concerns, even interrupted me several times.  He tried to appease me by silently skimming an Aspergers check-list, and then assuring me there was no cause for worry.  Not only did I feel like he saw me as an overly concerned mother to be placated and ignored, I began to convince myself that I was seeing problems where there were none, and I began to seriously doubt my own instincts.

Thankfully, I have people around me who are not so easily deterred.  My mother continued to express concerns, encouraging me to seek a second opinion; Andrew's mother expressed some observations that might indicate Oliver could be on the autism spectrum; and then my sister expressed those same concerns and asked if we'd consulted his doctor about possible autism spectrum symptoms.  Others have expressed their own concerns/opinions regarding Oliver's development in the last year as well, but it was really this sequence of events that pushed me to seek out that second opinion. 

I am so glad I did!

Our new pediatrician, Dr. S, completely validated all my concerns, and was proactive from the moment I met him in listening to me and moving forward.  In the one visit he asked me questions, observed Oliver, went through an autism risk assessment called M-CHAT with me, and last but not least he agreed that Oliver displays many behaviors and developmental delays that more than call for further testing and evaluating.

Dr. S gave us referrals to a neurologist and developmental pediatrician, as well as setting up a referral to the Early Childhood Intervention program who will do their own assessment and help us place Oliver in a preschool program that will provide therapy to address any developmental delays/issues he is diagnosed with.  That is the exciting part!  We finally have a medical professional supporting us and helping us move forward.  The hard part is that all of this will take time.  An ECI representative should contact us within a month to set up an in home assessment, the wait time to see the neurologist is expected to be about a month to a month and a half, but the developmental pediatrician has a wait list of 1 year.  Along with that, Dr. S told me that the neurologist will likely run a myriad of tests, possibly even an MRI. (I'm actually reading a book by Dr. Robert Sears about this whole process and there are string of things the neurologist may or may not test for, and it seems there are many different kinds of tests that they do.  The neurologist will likely be the one to make the diagnosis of autism, if that's what we're dealing with, which is likely. The developmental pediatrician can also make that diagnosis, but we probably won't see her until after all the tests are done with the neurologist.)

So, I want to refer back to that M-CHAT assessment now.  There are 23 questions on the assessment, 7 of which are trigger questions.  Dr. S asked me each question and I answered to the best of my knowledge, and then he scored it.  Out of the 7 trigger questions (referred to as the Best7 on the test sheet), only 2 must be failed in order for a child to be considered at risk for autism. According to my answers Oliver failed 5 out of the 7.  If you want to see what the M-CHAT test goes over you can find it here.  I'm not going to share what questions of the best7 Oliver failed right now.

I won't lie, coming away from that visit to Dr. S with a way to move forward and a fairly good idea of what we're facing, was a huge relief.  I've been struggling with the possibilities of what could be going on with him for months, and yes, autism was brought up and considered.  To finally not be the one sorting through all the different possible diagnosis, causes, etc. was a huge burden off my back.  However, today (Thursday, as it's almost Friday now), the enormity of autism spectrum disorders and the wide range of symptoms that Oliver could experience settled heavily on me.  There is so much I don't know about autism, and now so much I need to learn.  I've begun by buying and reading Dr. Robert Sears's book on autism and autism spectrum disorders, which so far has solidified my belief that Oliver is autistic.  For those of you curious, I will list Oliver's current symptoms in the next blog post (which I'll do tomorrow since I can't even keep my eyes open right now).

Regardless of Oliver's final diagnosis, one thing remains the same: Oliver is my wonderful, smart, fun little boy who I love very much.  A label won't change that, it will only help us understand him better, and hopefully allow us to help him more as well.