Most of you already know this, but April is Austism awareness month. It is also the birth month of my sweet son Alex. This year I vowed to post about autism in order to encourage others to learn, but life has gotten in the way and I haven't posted a single thing. There are so many things about Autism people should know, but most importantly, people should know Alex's story......
My pregnancy with Alex was simple. I ate regular, healthy meals. I was never sick. I went to every doctors appointment. Alex had all the normal prenatal testing and monitoring done, and there was never a cause for concern. Alex came into this world on April 1, 2001. He weighed 7lbs 15 oz and was perfectly healthy.
As Alex began to grow, he simulated the milestones of his older brother. He sat up, crawled, and even walked right on time. He would babble to himself , wave bye-bye, and play with toys. Alex loved to play peek-a-boo, eat green beans, play with toy horses, and read books. We had no reason to believe that Alex was any different from our oldest child. Alex attended regular well baby visits with his pediatrician and his development was never an issue.
Looking back, I can't precisely remember when the change happened. If it was all at once, or gradually. Alex stopped sleeping at night, and he had a series of ear infections that kept us at the doctors office. During this time, he stopped responding to his name, and quit following simple instructions (like go get your shoes). Of course I was concerned, so we went to the doctor and she agreed that we might need to have his hearing tested. He failed the hearing test, but the ENT felt like a set of tubes would correct the problem. I can remember feeling relieved at the thought of our life getting back to normal but "normal" never came for us.
The tubes corrected Alex's hearing, but now he was doing all these other strage things.... He was lining up similar objects in the floor (mainly tv remotes), hand flapping, and spinning himself in circles. He never slept, and if anyone messed with his system of organization it would cause a meltdown. He started missing his milestones at the doctor. First, it was because he didn't use enough words. Then his social skills were delayed because Alex preferred to be alone. Even his motor skills became delayed because Alex refused climb any stairs. He would just sit and cry. Alex's obsessions began to run our life. I was barely sleeping at night. Alex had suddenly became a picky eater. My boy who had loved green beans wouldn't eat them now. I would spend hours trying to fix him something that he would eat. He would only watch certain tv shows, read certain books, and play with certain toys. When I say certain toys, (I mean specific toys like trains) and they had to be in Alex's preferred order. If one of his trains was missing it would cause a full meltdown, sometimes lasting hours. Anytime we left the house he would cry inconsolably. He hated going to the commentary, the bx, or even out to eat.
After several weeks of no sleep, I felt defeated. I remember thinking something isn't right, but today someone is going to help me, help him. I loaded up all three kids and went to the pediatrician. They were only seeing "sick babies" that day, but I refused to leave. I am pretty sure I cried, and with in an hour I was standing in front of a doctor. A different doctor, who signed us up for therapy. We seen a physical therapist and a speech therapist twice a week for 45 minutes. We set goals for Alex some of them were like: "greet Nancy verbally or non-verbally when she enters the room". The goals seemed simple enough, the people were nice, but Alex could care less. Some weeks he cooperated and some weeks he didn't. After a year of therapy, We (his therapist and I) were frustrated with the pace of Alex's progress, so we decided to push for a real diagnosis.
As a side note, if you have ever been threw this process, you know it isn't quick or easy. When I looked at Alex, I seen a bright, sweet, handsome boy but it seemed like everyone was always talking about what Alex couldn't do.... What milestones he hadn't met..... Or how far behind he was. I am his mother for goodness sake. I had three children. I didn't need anyone to tell me he was behind. I need them to find the problem so we could fix it. Finally after three more months of paperwork, questions, and test, I was told to come back for an appointment. I won't say that this day was the worst day of my life, but I can say it is in the top three. In my mind, whatever was wrong with Alex had to be fixable, so to sit across from a doctor and hear that my son was autistic was heart breaking. I didn't even know what Autism was and I certainly didn't know of any other kids that had it. I cried for the next week. It was almost like we mourned the life we had planned for Alex. Once I stopped feeling sorry for us (Alex and me), I buried myself in research, books, blogs, websites, etc.... The more I learned, the more it all made sense. After I educated myself I felt like I was prepared to help Alex's therapist build a plan for him..........
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