Thursday, 15 September 2011

• Looking for Peace of Mind

  

  
  

  I've known something was different about my oldest child shortly after his first birthday. Being my first baby, I had obsessed over the child books, pouring over the milestones he should be at, and although I never admitted it out loud, comparing him to my best friends baby, who had been born exactly two weeks prior to Blake. When we would talk over the phone, she would remark "Oh, hes running all over the house" "He said 'ball' and 'Mama' today!" and I would wonder what exactly was I doing wrong to make it so that Blake wasn't up to where he should be. His first birthday passed, he still wasn't talking, or walking and he had just recently started feeding himself. This was also when his obsession with vehicles and wheels came into play, but I will get into that later.

  At almost sixteen months, he finally started walking, and it was a big weight off my chest. I thought to myself: "this is when he starts catching up really quick." But alas, whereas my best friends boy had dozens of words under his belt, Blake was notably silent. Where kids younger than him were babbling, he was silent, other than the occasional 'Mamama' (which was never actually referring to me). Other parents would tell me "he'll learn on his own schedule" but something was nagging me that something wasn't right. I figured that since other people had children who were slower to pick things up, they might be right, so I waited until he was 25 months before I finally got him evaluated for speech therapy.

  It was the therapist that noticed Blakes behavior. I had noticed it, but never paid it much mind, just thought that it was normal child behavior. We worked so hard on trying to improve his eye contact, and it has improved, in the past eleven months, but I'm not sure its a significant amount. Missing a session with her was like taking two steps forward, one step back. All the progress we made seemed to go right through the window. Good habits disappeared, patience dwindled, and his attention span was significantly shorter if he so much as missed one session. During one session she asked me "how often does he do that?" referring to Blake laying on the floor rolling his car back and forth while he stared at the wheels. I thought about it, and told her that if you added it all up throughout the day, I'm sure it would be well over several hours. She made a note in her book and we continued on with the session. The next session she asked me "does he do that alot too?" as she pointed to him staring out the window as the cars went by. At this point we had gotten him to repeat many of our model words, and there were several that stuck, such as 'truck' and 'car'. He was labelling whatever went by, as he hopped up and down. The process would go "Car!" (hop hop hop) "TRUCK!" (hop HOP HOP hop) "truck" (hop hop) etc. I told her that he also did this for at least a total of two hours a day. More writing in the book, which was then followed by other questions, and I had no idea where it was going.

  "What foods does he eat?" "Chicken nuggets. Mac' and Cheese. Pancakes" "Does he line things up?" "His cars, usually on the window sill" "How often does he jump in place?" "I don't know, whenever hes not really into something" "Does he tune you out a lot when hes doing something?" "You've seen it. Of course he does". This eventually led to many things, which led to me planning on getting him tested at a nearby center for autism. And I couldn't be more scared.

  Three more weeks until he gets tested, and I am going out of my mind with worry. I've read and re-read just about everything I could get my hands on. The first time I read the symptoms that could be a sign of ASD, all I could think was 'Oh my god, they're talking about Blake". I have no idea how to even begin handling this. I'm a single mom, with two kids. Struggling to pay the bills and get through life, and I can't help but feel jealous when someone is talking about their child saying this or doing that, because I would love for Blake to tell me something, rather than repeating something he heard in a movie. Most people I know don't even know that there's a good chance of him placing on the spectrum. I feel weird telling people about it, and don't even know how to begin explaining it. How do I explain to people that the reason I always leave him with his grandmother when I go shopping is because not only do I have two young children, but that Blake would have an absolute meltdown the moment we got into the store? How do I begin to explain that I HAVE to have certain days of the week off, because if Blake misses his therapy sessions, it gets that much worse? I'm hoping getting him tested will at least give me some peace of mind.

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