An Autism Diagnosis

April is autism month, every day is autism day in our house. It is actually kind of ironic really as 2 years ago in April our oldest son was diagnosed with Autism and seizure disorder April 14th 2009 will forever be etched in my mind as a day that I wish I could erase from history, I know that I have never actually written about how I felt when we received the diagnosis and to be honest up until recently I never really thought about it from a rational point of view that is. I reacted, I didn’t think, I allowed my emotions full out free rang over the situation, Even though my husband and I had been already talking about the scary “A” word it still did not prepare me for that dreadful day that the doctor actually said the words out loud, funny how when something is said out loud it makes it that much more real. I knew it was bad when she looked at me and handed me a box of tissue, never a good sign when you are in a doctor’s office. Surprisingly though I did not break down in the office looking back I think that my mind and body had gone numb I remember the doctor saying to me that she was certain that G had Autism, she handed me some brochures and told me that she was willing to take him on as a patient and that the seizures that had started the whole journey to this point were a secondary concern I don’t remember anything else about that meeting though I know that there was much more to it than that, I remember driving home in a daze and thinking to myself how? How could this be real, at any time I was going to wake up and this was going to all be a bad dream. I walked into the house and came face to face with my little blue eyed angel, I hugged him and then the tears started and I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t stop hugging him, I looked over his head at Andrew and our eyes met, and he knew without saying a word he knew!

The next few weeks went by in a blur when I wasn’t crying I was mad and looking back now I know that I was not a nice person to be around, I hated the world and even worse I hated all of my friends and family, I hated them and their perfect kids and their words of advice and concern, I was mean to them ignoring their calls and snapping at them when they said things that seemed stupid and redundant, I was mad at my parents and Andrew’s parents, mine because my mom and dad were overwhelming me with info and Andrew’s because it seemed like they didn’t care they just seemed to be ignoring the situation. Looking back now I realize that they too were dealing with the diagnosis in their own way, their first grandchild had just been diagnosed with autism a completely unfamiliar territory, my parents like myself research the hell out of everything and wanted to help us the best they knew how by providing support and information and Andrew’s parents had also been researching but wanted to give us some space to adjust. After the anger and tears started to disappear I went into overdrive I needed to learn everything that I could about this disorder and I needed to learn it all right away! I started to make phone calls and filled out enough paper work to give me carpal tunnel, I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that G got everything that he was entitled to and I was going to learn everything that I needed to help him, I thought that by researching the hell out of the subject I could become an expert, little did I know then that years later I would still be learning and when I think I have something figured out it goes and changes on me, such is life.

This diagnosis played havoc on our marriage and at one point I even said that horrible D word, it took me a while to realize that Andrew was hurting just as much as I was, he just dealt with it in a different manner where as I threw myself into it head first, he was withdrawing from the situation, or so I thought. I wanted him to read all of the books and join the support groups but he wasn’t at that point yet, he was still mourning the little boy that we thought G would be, the little football player and the happy go lucky little man that would do great things. It came to a point for me however where I had to say it, I love you but my priority is our son and if you can’t step up and start to become a part of this family again then I am willing to do this on my own, after all I felt like I was already doing it on my own. I devastated him( remember earlier when I mentioned that I was not a nice person, this was definitely a low point for me, he was grieving the death of our “normal” son and I had just told him that I was going to leave him.) Our lives had officially hit rock bottom and something needed to change and it needed to not only change drastically but fast.

In walked my guardian angel, she came in with a strong shoulder and a bag full of information and she said the words I needed to hear, This is not your fault. I didn’t even realize it until she said it, but it was true, I was blaming myself, all of the what if’s and if only’s came raging to the surface and together we faced all of these horrible demons, once I had dealt with these demons I was then free to take a deep breath and look at the situation from a whole new perspective, I stopped being mad at Andrew, I realized that he too had been blaming himself, we did what we do best we started working together for our son. We realized that what we had been doing before to raise G still worked after all he was still the same amazing little boy that he had been just a few short weeks before, just now there was a name associated with all of the little quirks that he had and that we loved so much about him. There is never a day in our lives that we forget that our son has autism every morning and every night when I open the cupboard to get G’s meds ready I am reminded of this fact, some days are easier to forget then others but now it is just a part of our lives. “life is not about the milestones, it’s about the moments” and we have learned to make every moment count. G may be diagnosed with Autism but there is so much more to him than that, and he will defiantly still do great things.