Well, it's been a while since we updated. It's been a tumultuous few months, but I feel like they've been worth it and for the best! First of all, our Christmas holiday was wonderful. We spent time together with just the four of us, and it was semi-quiet and just wonderful. The kids got way too many new toys, but it's just been great to have them so occupied! I got a fantastic deal on some storage from IKEA. It's called TROFAST and it's just fantastic! It's basically plastic bins that slide into a wooden frame. I've attached a couple of pictures of the kids new play area.
So on to our adventures of the last couple months! On New Year's Day I spent most of the night at the ER with McKay, who suffered anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction) to my Trader Joe's English Toffee. He just had a little bite, and he had difficulty breathing, swollen lymph nodes (he had a large double chin from this!), hives, vomiting, and diarrhea--all from just one little bite of the outside (chocolate with almond's & cashews). So, we carry an EpiPen with us all of the time now. Luckily we haven't had to use it. We cleaned the house out of anything that even possibly could have tree nuts. In early February, we saw an allergist at Yale that did some blood work on McKay. His test came back as a Class 5 allergy to Cashew (the culprit on New Years!) and Class 5 for Pistachio as well. He's got a Class 2 allergy to Hazelnut and a Class 1 allergy to Brazil Nut. I'm officially the parent that's going to gripe about nuts when McKay starts school--I never thought I'd have to be that parent...
So on to the next child, and the next big news of our year so far--Adam. Most of you know that Adam has had a speech delay since he was a baby. We've had him evaluated every place we've lived, but all we got was "Yes, Adam has a speech delay, so let's get him some speech therapy." Well, more recently, we've begun to suspect there was possibly more to the delay than just a speech delay. Adam is incredibly bright, yet if you ask him his name or how old he is, he looks at you like you're playing with him. This is definitely not normal for a 4 and a half year old boy ready to start kindergarten! On the other hand, Adam can identify all of his letters, upper and lowercase, and he can write many of them.
I should start by saying that when we moved here to New Haven, we got a fantastic pediatrician at Yale. From the day of Adam's first physical, she has wanted to get down to the bottom of what's going on with Adam. We were in the process already of having Adam evaluated here with the school district at this time, but she went ahead and got us an appointment for an evaluation at the Yale Child Study Center. If you do a search about the Yale Child Study Center, you'll find that it is one of the best places in the world to have your child evaluated if you suspect a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), or Autism. It typically takes 6 months to a year to get in. Our pediatrician referred us, and then we got a call the same day to see if we would be willing to have Adam evaluated in 2 weeks! So Adam was evaluated on February 4th and 5th.
The results: Adam is autistic. It's amazing how this news changes your world. It changes how you see your child, at least in terms of realizing that they see their world in a different way. It was an incredible blow. But, I'm so grateful that I was able to get over my own feelings (for the most part--I believe they will always be there) to be able to get educated on how to become a better advocate for Adam. We are currently trying to get Adam an appropriate placement and education based on his new diagnosis. In many ways, this has been "therapy" for me to try to find out what Adam needs and how we can get it.
Part of the reason I haven't updated in a while has been because I wasn't sure how I wanted to break this news to "the world." Well, it seems that although I've only told a handful of people in my ward about this, the whole ward knows, so there's no reason to try to keep it a secret until I was comfortable talking! But just a note to any of you reading this: Please do not think of Adam as anyone besides the adorable, lovable boy he is. I love him just as much, if not more, than I did the day before he was diagnosed.
So, finally, I want to thank all of you who have helped Adam, and helped Jeff and I so far, educating us and helping us with the challenges of getting Adam an appropriate education. You all have been so fantastic, I simply cannot express how grateful we are.
