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| Three Day Old Piece of Perfection |
When Olin was around nine months old, he got his first (excruciatingly painful) ear infection, that seemed to last FOREVER… it took two rounds of antibiotics and one round of steroidal drops to finally rid Olin’s ears of that nasty infection. He wasn’t crawling yet; wasn’t saying “hi,” “bye,” “mama,” or “dada,” but the doctors didn’t seem to mind, and I didn’t think anything of it either. At around ten months, Olin had his first hearing test because I complained to the doctor that Olin wasn’t responding to his name, and I feared that his ear infection did some damage to his hearing. He continued to have six ear infections over the course of twelve months, which just fueled my fear for his hearing. My focus was Olin’s hearing, so I made sure he had every hearing test that existed to rule out any hearing loss. He had a rudimentary audiology exam ten months, and they confirmed at that point that he did not have fluid in his ears, so there was no need for tubes (phew… sigh of relief for the nervous mommy). Me and Olin packed up our bags and moved back home to Southern California without fear of his eardrums bursting in flight (I said I was a nervous mommy). It was also around this time that I first observed how Olin seemed to realize when printed products (books, magazines, etc.) were upside-down, and he would always turn them the right way. I would put upside-down books in front of him all the time and show people how he would pick it up and turn it the correct way. Olin also started crawling like a little speedster, and my worries for his gross motor skills slightly diminished.
The next Well Baby Check-up was when Olin was around 12
months old, and, as I said, we were now in California.
At home, I noticed that Olin became obsessed with shoes, but not just
any shoes; only ones with laces. I
didn’t realize the extent of his obsession, until we were sitting in the
extremely crowded waiting room at Pediatric Partners, and Olin crawled around
and untied every shoe lace he could find.
I laughed and chased him around the waiting room until we were finally
called back. Dr. Winter told me Olin was
in the 90th percentile for height and weight, and that was no new
news to me. The doctor noticed that Olin
was sitting in my lap and asked me if he was walking unassisted yet. I shook my head “no,” but said he walks
holding onto furniture, but just won’t let go.
Not a huge concern still at that age, but I was told to make sure he was
walking by 18 months. Then the usual
questions of developing language were asked… and those were easy to answer: At
this point, Olin was still making his cute cooing noises, but even those were
seldom anymore. In 2007, there still
wasn’t much written or discussed about Autism, and it wasn’t even something
that crossed my mind still… but here is a little checklist that is now highly
recognizable:
If by twelve (12) months of age, your child:
Ø
Is unresponsive to his/her name
Ø
Has little to no verbal development
Ø
Makes little to no eye contact
Ø
Displays obsessive behaviors
*if any or all of the above
statements are true, you should discuss concerns with your doctor and insist on
a screening for autism or any other developmental disorders, and you should
contact your regional center immediately to see what kind of services your
child may qualify for.
Then when Olin was 15 ½ months old, he finally started walking on his own… VICTORY!!!! Olin still had no spoken language, and still didn’t respond to his name. If eye contact was successfully established, it was fleeting. He didn’t point or gesture to desired objects… he was just… there. I was still so concerned about his hearing, so we scheduled a B.A.E.R. test which had to be administered in San Diego at the Children’s Hospital, and was a ten week wait. At 18 months, Olin had his B.A.E.R. hearing test. They don’t give you the results immediately, so we had to make our follow-up appointment with our regular pediatrician for the results. As we sat in the waiting room, Olin scurried out of his chair and crawled all over the floor untying every person in the room’s shoe laces, and I tried to laugh it off that he was just a little rambunctious, and still obsessed with laces. We were finally called back, and I was told that his hearing was perfect… but no sigh of relief this time (don’t get me wrong… it’s not that I wanted my son to have a hearing impairment… but at least it was some kind of explanation for me). I was still in the dark as to why my doe-eyed, curly-haired little boy wouldn’t look at me, or give me hugs and kisses, and seemed to not hear or understand the meaning of the word ”no.” I was lost.
A month later, Olin’s obsession with shoe laces and various
other objects that “tie” or “dangle” in any way, shape, or form continued to
grow. He loved spinning the wheels of
cars, but covered his ears at the loud noises many toys cars made. My mom told me that I should try and get more
evaluations for Olin, because, let’s face it, at this point it was obvious that
there were significant developmental delays, but I hadn’t the faintest idea
where to start! There’s no handbook for
this. Every parenting book teaches you
step-by-step, year-by-year of typically developing children, but there was
nothing to prepare me for developmental delays and the steps you should take if
you notice any. I started with the
doctor, and he gave me a piece of paper with information for the Inland Regional
Center. I put it aside and didn’t give it much
thought… this paper told me nothing. My
mom continued to hound me (thanks mom) about making phone calls and making
appointments. She could see my
frustration building, and asked if I would like her to just make the phone
calls for me. So I gave her every piece
of paper I had, and she went to work.
In March 2007, three months before Olin’s third birthday, we
finally had an appointment with IRC… and the appointment was three months
away! Three (very quiet) months went by,
and Olin’s very first Case Worker knocked on the door. After a few hours of questions and
observation, she agreed that there were significant delays, and said Olin’s
infant education services would start soon.
She explained that someone would come to our home twice a week to do
educational drills with Olin, and help develop skills that were clearly
behind. She also said that the next step
would be making an appointment with the child psychologist, and she said she
would call me as soon as she found out the next available appointment. Child Psychologist? Whaaaa????
I asked the following question: “What is the Child Psychologist
for? My son doesn’t even talk,” (I’m
shaking my head as I type). She
nonchalantly responded that a Child Psychologist is the one who must diagnose
Autism. There it was. The first time the word was uttered:
Autism. I brushed it off and figured it
was just a formality, because my happy, huggable, timid toddler didn’t “seem”
autistic to me (again, shaking my head).
January 9, 2008 seemed to take forever to arrive. Me and Olin, with my mom in tow, trekked up
to the Inland Regional Center
and met with the Child Psychologist. She
handed me some papers that asked somewhere in the range of a million questions
(I lost count). While I was filling out
the questions, she decided to observe Olin in the waiting room around the other
children. I tried to focus only on the
questions I was supposed to be answering, but I couldn’t help watch as my son
walked around this waiting room filled with children, and didn’t engage one kid. You would have thought that he was alone in a
room. He looked around as if nothing
else existed (a quality I now admire). I
finished the questionnaire(s) and we headed into her office. It was then that I realized she was wearing a
cardigan that could be tied at the waist, and she had it untied and dangling…
CRAP. I knew Olin wasn’t going to focus
on anything else. At this time, I still
considered this whole diagnosis as some kind of “test” and I thought that if
the environment was perfect, that he would “pass” this test, and not be considered
autistic, or at least be considered only mildly autistic, or high-functioning,
because everything I seemed to read about talked about “high-functioning” and
“mild autism” but I was so wrong. She
tried to get Olin to play with various toys, and Olin showed no interest. When she brought out a toy that Olin had
trouble figuring out, his solution was to pick it up and bring it to me. I told her he does that all the time (I thought
that was a perfectly appropriate way for a 2 ½ year old to ask for help… again…
shaking my head). She tried to get Olin
to put pegs in a peg board, no dice. I
sat there the whole time silently pleading for Olin to just do one of the
things she was trying to get him to do.
When she said she had enough data to make a diagnosis, we sat on the
couch and waited for her to gather up all of her papers. She pulled out this one piece of paper, and
unfolded it to reveal a huge scale. That
was the first time I ever saw an Autism Spectrum Disorder scale. I saw the end that was labeled “mild” and
realized it took up almost the whole scale, followed by “moderate” with a
decent sized chunk, and “severe” with just a few inches on the end. She took out a pencil and began to explain
the scale, then she dragged her pencil along the scale to indicate where Olin
was on the Autism Spectrum. With my eyes
focused on “mild” her pencil darted over the beginning of “severe” and I think
my heart skipped a beat.
In all of my euphoric dreams of the future, I never had prepared myself for having a severely
autistic child, and I wouldn’t change him for the world. Olin and autism have taught me so much about
life, love, and humanity. I look back
now and, of course, I can see all of the signs that were slapping me in the
face: no spoken language, stimming/obsessive behaviors, little to no eye
contact, and the unresponsiveness to his name (though the latter two have
improved leaps and bounds over the past several years). I have since learned to live without fear and
worry, because all things will work themselves out, everything happens for a
reason, and life goes on…
*A special thanks to Beth Beattie @ Beattie Studios for these beautiful portraits at the end :) |
| Could life be sweeter? |
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