Dear valued readers: I’m so sorry to have taken so long after my last post, but I had computer issues. A quick recap: Luke was a failure-to-thrive baby, meaning he had a hard time gaining weight. He also had constant ear infections, which the doctors prescribed antibiotics for, one round after another, since not one of them touched the raging infection inside his ears, and he did not talk. Not one word. Not even “Mama” or “Daddy.” Instead, he would cry day and night, and tug at his tiny ears, until I was verging on the edge of lunacy. He had tubes placed in his ears and had a hearing test performed shortly after that, which the doctors announced was “normal.”
The diarrhea started just after the endless rounds of antibiotics began. Then shortly after that, a thick, white substance coated his tongue, which I determined to be thrush, which is a yeast overgrowth. Soon afterward Luke started exhibiting worrisome behavior such as toe-walking, lying on the floor and lining up toys until they were in a precise row, hand-flapping and echolalia, or the repetition of words or noises, which, in his case, were noises, since he was completely nonverbal. His hyperactivity reached a feverish pitch until I was exhausted and in tears by the end of each day.
It was around this time that Luke’s dad started staying at the office.
I couldn’t ignore the ominous symptoms that Luke displayed any longer. It was time to find answers. Since his hearing was “normal,” the only recourse would be to take him to a developmental psychologist. So one bleak winter’s day I bundled Luke up and drove him to the Marcus Center in Atlanta, an organization that diagnoses and treats autism. My husband came with us, one of the last times we were united as a family.
The doctors were very kind and compassionate, and went about evaluating Luke. Four hours later they sat my husband and I down and told us that our son had autism. PDD, to be exact, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder, which, they explained, is a milder form of the dreaded disorder.
I jumped out of the chair I was occupying, my arms flailing and my eyes wild. “My son is not autistic!” I cried. “How can you call it that when you know that he had a twin who wasn’t fully developed, and died?”
The doctor, a woman in her mid-forties with brown eyes swimming with compassion, held out her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t know what else to call it,” she said with a mournful shake of her head.
“By golly, I will find out what to call it!” I vowed. “I don’t care how long it takes, or how much it costs me. I’ll go to the end of the Earth if I have to. But I promise you right here and now, I’ll find out what’s really wrong with my son.”
And thus began my embarkment into no-man’s land, the mysterious world of autism, where no one seems to really know the cause of this heart-breaking disorder.
Over the course of the next several years, and after taking Luke to countless doctors, I was to develop my own theory as to what causes autism.
Tune in next time and I will tell you how the road to his recovery began…
P.S. please sign up for my free newsletter, which I’m in the process of starting! It’ll have plenty of tips and treatments that have worked for us, as well as the ones that didn’t. And thanks for your patience as I navigate the scary world of technology!
*hugs* Scarlett
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