Saturday, 07 May 2011

• Questions, Questions, Questions

   

  

  Just how old does my autistic kid have to be before I stop being asked how old she was when she crawled?  Or said her first words?  Or what her Apgar score was?

  That last one, I have been asked a million times and I have no idea what it is.  Apparently, I was given my daughter's score when I was in the hospital shortly after delivering her.  I don't remember anything that happened to me in the maternity ward except that one of my friends brought me six huge chocolate chip cookies that I ate in one go.

  Every time that we start with a new doctor, school, or therapy clinic, I have to fill out a raft of paperwork that asks variations of the same questions that I've been asked a million times before.  Does it really still matter?  And if it does, I'm gonna need more than just that little 1/4 centimeter long space to answer.

  When did she crawl?  Well, she started scooting on her butt when she was about 11-12 months, then she gradually lurched more and more forward until she was leapfrogging with her legs behind her, until she finally crawled "right"/reciprocally at 19 months.  So I guess the short answer is 19 months, but I'd like her to get credit for some mobility before that.

  First words?  How do you answer that when your kid starts saying words, but then loses them, and then doesn't say much of anything except "word approximations", which is a diplomatic way of saying that she made the sound "gah" for every word ending in the letter G, for years afterwards.  Do I say the age she was with the first round of words or the second?  Cuz there's like 3 years in between.

  Not a good sign

  Then there is the patient history checklist which I always love because it clues you into the symptoms that the doctor/clinic/provider thinks are somehow insightful.  I've seen everything from "floating stools" and "long eyelashes" to "inability to tan" and "red ring around your anus".  

  I'm never sure how honest to be in the family history section.  Anxiety? Depression?  Mental Illness?  Dementia?  Do they really need to know?  Hmmm... I could go the blame-your-mother route.  That's always seemed to work for me in the past.

  And as long as I'm lying, I might as well keep to myself her daily ration of chocolate and red dye #40 when I fill out that food diary.

  I'm quite sure that I've spent dozens of hours that I will never get back filling out forms on behalf of my daughter.  And invariably, when we get to our appointment, it is almost always the case that no one has bothered to look at them.  Which really chaps my anus.

   

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