When I first started this blog website I intended it to be for me to critique foods and restaurants that I tried, hence the name of the website: Smashed Bananas.

Since then there have been so many twists and turns, and so little time…I have also found that I am not the best at keeping  up-to-date with posts (this I should have known, since I wasn’t good at keeping a daily journal when I was an adolescent).

Now I also find that the nature of what I want to share has changed too.  Yes, I still will always be a foodie at heart, but that just doesn’t fit as well into my life anymore (especially having 2 picky eaters in my household).  😛

Today I find that my interests have shifted…er, they have been forced to shift.  Let me explain: A little over 2 months ago, I noticed that my then, 21-month old son had lost most of his language ability (spoken, signed, and receptive) and he was also experiencing some repetitive behaviors.  The warning bells went off in my head and I immediately ( and frantically) made an appt. with his Pediatrician!!!  The doctor agreed that there was development regression, mostly because I’m a compulsive freak and had such good records that we KNEW exactly how many words he knew at his 18 month check-up, so we were able to chart the amount of regression.   She was also concerned and immediately referred us to specialists in the pediatric neurology & developmental fields.

In my Naivety, I thought that once we had the referrals it would be a few weeks before we’d get a diagnosis and start our son in some therapy.  SO WRONG!

The process to diagnose your child is a long, drawn-out one, especially if you go through the Insurance-provided  path to get there.  The medical community wants to rule out every rare disorder and condition known to man, so that when they do present the insurance company with the actual disorder they can say that they were thorough in their approach and diagnosis.  In the end it will be 5 months before we get to a point of having a full diagnosis.  Not that we don’t have an idea of what is going on already, but I find the professionals in the medical community are scared of saying a certain word, even though that’s what everyone is thinking.  It’s likely that it’s some form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, but none of the MD’s, speech therapists, case workers, nurses, etc… want to acknowledge that word.  Truthfully, I’d be better with that diagnosis than some rare metabolic disorder, but they won’t bring up the word unless you say it first.  This is insane to me because by being afraid to speak about it, you give this word and the fear of it more power!  🙁

So…  we finally have my son’s speech evaluated and hope to get some therapy for that soon ( I just found out that the INS may not approve this at this time).  His developmental evaluation is months away, and in the meantime we wait…and do more tests.  I am learning to be patient, but I know this is the lull before the chaos.  Once we have the diagnosis (whatever it is..) we will then be full-steam into therapy every week…so I guess I shouldn’t complain about all this waiting.

I need to keep plugging away; need to do it for my son.

Tags: autism, diagnosis, life, micah, scared, son
Filed under: Micah, My Life