How do you do it?

How do you do it?
I just don't know how you do it.
How do you do this?
How do you make that trip so often?
How, how, how.

I hear that an awful lot. I always have the same answer. I do this because I have to. I really do not have any choice. Sure I could not go. But is that really an option? This is my son here. I will do whatever needs be done to see him, and try to bring him home. If that means getting another job, ok. If that means no time or money for any extras and eating beans for dinner every nite, then that is what I would do. Thankfully for me (and my co-workers) I have not been reduced to beans every night.
Often folks tell me that they could not do this. I am so strong for being able to stand this. They don't know how I get through this. How do I get up and function every day? The truth is I don't. What choice do I have though? I have trouble sleeping, I have nightmares when I do get to sleep. I find that I am irritable. I have been told a couple of times by the gals that I work with that I am being crabby. ( I am just glad that I work with people who are not afraid to tell me I am being grouchy. Then I can try to adjust my attitude and not take things out on them.) I am often short tempered with my family. I do not attend any family functions because it hurts too much. I used to go to my sister's house with my mom and we would have dinner all of us girls. My sister's husband works on second and she has two little girls. I used to want to take my mom or my sister and her girls with me when I went shopping. Now I only take someone when I am going to one of the grocery stores that are about 40 minutes away. That way the cost of gas is offset by the savings that all of us receive. I have tried to go on a couple of family outings, but I do not have as much fun as I used to. I try to avoid family get-togethers. I feel like something is missing. And it is. My heart and soul are missing. My son is missing.

I have talked briefly to one of the pastors at the church that my sister belongs to and I rent a house from. They are willing to listen, but do not feel that they are qualified to help me in any way. This is beyond what they are trained to deal with. I cannot go to "traditional" therapy because that would be like waving a red flag in the air that I am "not mentally stable" to my ex and his attorney. Now mind you I would be getting therapy for the stress this is causing me and how to help my son deal with his stress and unhappiness.
I cannot talk to support groups because there are none. I do not fit traditional support groups because my child did not die and he is not missing. He is lost, but not in the sense of the support group. You cannot find support groups for this because of the "symptoms" of the diagnosis of MSBP. According to the "symptoms" if I talk about this I am seeking attention and must have this MSBP. If I do not seek help, then I must have it because I won't talk about it. So I have decided that there is no point in keeping quiet.
That is where this blog comes in. I get to vent out all of my feelings and start getting the awareness out there. This can happen to any mom out there. I get to use this blog to type out whatever I am feeling at the time. If I am frustrated and want to repeat myself 10 times over something that my ex said or did to my son or to me, then I can. No one tells me they are tired of hearing it, there's nothing we can do, or try to change the subject. If I put it on here, You can just skip over it. :) And that is okay. I know that there are not lots of people out there reading this and that is okay. It makes me feel better just putting it out there. In this very unhappy time of my life, I can at least get some satisfaction through this blog.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged! Lisa over at Living Easy has tagged me. Now 7 random things about me......





1. I am an animal lover, I would take in every animal that comes in my yard and every animal that someone dropped off if I could afford the care they needed.


2. I can't live without my cell phone, I take it with me everywhere I go!


3. I can live without cable-I do not have cable or satellite and have not for several years. I don't even get the "free" local channels with an antenna!


4. I love to read, I will read almost anything at all.


5. I hate to wash dishes. If I were not concerned about the environment, I would use disposable dishes.


6. I don't like beef or fish. I will eat chicken and some pork and occasionally will eat turkey but it is not my favorite either.


7. I love my diet pepsi. I drink loads every day.





This took longer than I thought.....





Now for seven more tags! I think I will have to go with the following:





livingdaytodaywithsuneday.blogspot.com She has also had difficulties and is helping her daughter. And camping! Look at the great pics!


http://4hatsandfrugal.blogspot.com/ I am sure she has been tagged already and will not play again because she is busy (read her blog and you'l see why), but I wanted to include her because I respect her and her abilities as a mom and wife.


http://chi-annie.blogspot.com/ I like to check in and see what yummy recipe she has up, and what kind of awesome deals she has at the stores.


http://frugalsuz.blogspot.com/ I could not pull off my cvs deals without her! I know she gives credit to others for the deals, but I find her site the easiest to read and understand!





That is all I can come up with as I do not read too many blogs and Lisa covered the rest that I read!

RULES: Now you list 7 random things about yourself and tag seven other blogs. I did not list seven, and if you don't want to, then don't. I don't think it matters at all! :) I like to make up my own rules anyway....

Visits

I do get to visit my son and I cherish every single second of these visits. I get to have a daily phone call now. I enjoy whatever time I have on the phone that my son is actually paying attention to me. I often get interrupted in my conversation because my ex decides now is the time he has to ask a specific question. It cannot possibly wait until my son is done talking to me. The super important things like did he get his laundry picked up. Isn't that earth shaking and an absolute necessary thing to ask right now? I will have to deal with all of that when we go back to court I guess.

We do have lots of fun on our visits. We have gone swimming, water sliding, hiking, shopping, cooking out, treasure hunts, video games, watch t.v., even gone to a local pumpkin patch a couple of times. We started out by going to a hotel and checking in early Saturday morning after I picked him up. We of course had to unload the van and take everything in. Then unpack the cooler into the fridge and put stuff away. We would then play all day. We would go swimming or climb the hill in the back of the hotel, play video games, play in the rain and splash in the puddles (that was really fun and obviously wet!). We just found all sorts of ways to have fun. We also brought my nesco cooker so we could cook food. We even had a Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel. What a feast that we had. My son loved helping us do all the cooking. It was sure strange though cooking everything in a nesco cooker or a slow cooker, but boy was it tasty. All the more enjoyable because I was with my son and my mom. When it was nice out, we cooked out on the grill that is out by the pool area at the hotel. My son really had fun with that as well. Then on Sunday, we would have to pack everything up and start loading the van about 2-3 hours before I had to take him back (to his dad's-not "home" though). It really was stressful and it kinda felt like the visit was over even though we had time left. Usually we went to the park and fed the ducks and geese or went to grab a bite to eat and then play on the park playground.

One visit we found out the campground down there has a water slide! We totally had to go and check it out! It was pretty expensive but it was really fun. My son really had a good time with it. I had to go on the slide with him because he did not want to go under the water in the pool at the end, but it was fun for me too!!! Then we drove around to check out the campgrounds. I talked to my mom and we decided to give camping a try. Now mind you I have no camping equipment...I am not really sure why I thought it would be a good idea, just knew it would be a huge difference in price. I was right. It was about 1/4 of the cost of the night in the hotel. And we could come as early as we liked on Saturday and stay as long as we liked on Sunday. Now we can get there and put stuff out before we get my son and don't have to pick anything up until right before it is time to go back. That really helped the visits seem longer than they had. I really felt like I had all day instead of a few hours in the middle of the day.

I have a full size van. The seat in the very back lays down into a bed. The two seats in the middle swivel around or come completely out. There is really nice carpet with a thick padding on the floor of the van as well. We have tried out many different ways of doing the weekend in the van. I think that we have found a winning combination now of how to have things arranged to allow maximum space and enough seats for all of us. We bought a cheapo gazeebo to put up and allow some protection from sun and rain. We bought tarps to lay on the ground with an old sleeping bag so we can lounge outside on the ground and play games or watch t.v. TV?!?! Of course I have t.v. I have a combo t.v. and vcr and a portable dvd player so we can watch any movies and plug in video games to play. I strap our bikes on so we can ride bikes around the park. We can play tennis or basketball, or we can lay around and just veg out. We have been having campfires now that it is not 95 degrees and my son has enjoyed cooking hotdogs over the fire. Recently we decided to let the fire do all of our cooking. We just wrap the food in foil lay it in the fire ring, light a fire and pretty soon- lunch! All sorts of things can be cooked that way, even pork chops!

We bring fans when it is hot, and I have a little space heater to plug in when it starts getting cold at night. I found out that we did not need a ton of camping gear. My son doesn't care about that anyway. He just wants to have fun and have someone to give him some positive attention. We have plenty of that to give him. We have lots of hugs and "I love you's" to fit in during our visits. Since I do not get to tuck him in at night, I make sure to give plenty to store up for the days I am not with him.

I hope to find a small motorhome, preferably with a generator, before it gets to cold out and we cannot camp in the van anymore. I have not found anything yet, but that is okay. I will find one when the time is right. I firmly believe that fate has a hand in all our lives. So when I am meant to find a camper, all the things will be right and it will just fall into place. Now if only it was time for my son to come home.

Where I am now.

Well, as I said, my son has not been home since March 4, 2007. That day will forever be etched in my memory. Much of the rest of what has happened has centered around the courts and their decisions. I will not spend much time on that part, until all of this is settled. I will say that as a parent my rights have been sorely violated. I had my son taken from me by my ex and the courts with no proof. Only a preponderance of evidence. Which in many cases simply means someone makes a claim and swears it is the truth. That makes it a preponderance. Isn't that nice? Makes one wonder what the purpose of courts and law is for. Why bother to have them if you are going to stomp all over someone's rights cuz someone else thinks you should?



The day that my son left, he was near tears. I can still see him sitting in the backseat of the car. He looked up at me with trusting eyes when I told him it would only be two weeks and he would be home. I would be waiting for him when they drove back. I called my son every night for 12 days. I called on the 12th day and told my son the wait was almost over, it was just a couple more days and we would be meeting again and then driving home.



I called on the 13th day and was told I could not talk to my son. In fact, I was also not to come and get him on Sunday. I could not have him back. Now mind you, it was around 7 pm on a Friday night. There was no way for me to get ahold of my atty, no way for him to find out what my ex was talking about even if I called him at home. The courthouse of course was closed. My ex said he would fax me the pages telling me I could not have my son back. Of course I have no fax machine, but my mom has one at work. We gave him that number. Oh yeah, he won't fax anything until tomorrow. I can just wait. So at this point I am near tears and just want to talk to my little boy to make sure he is okay. Nope. I can only talk when my ex allows. And he gets to monitor the phone call. He actually records them, I find out later. Which last time I checked in the United States, it is illegal to record two other individuals on the phone without the permission of the ones on the phone. Did not stop him. I spend the whole night crying. I knew something like this would happen one day. He told soon after I left him he would take my son and one day I would see. I can still hear the threat. Which is now obviously not a threat, but a reality.



This begins the next phase of verbal and emotional abuse I have to endure from this man. I have decided this is why women do not leave. Why should they? There is no one to protect them. If they stay, at least there is no chance of having the children taken and given back to the very man that abused all of them. I now know why women hide it and pretend the abuse does not exist. It saves their lives (most times) and some of their sanity. If I had stayed, I would have been abused, but would have been able to protect my child. Now he is in the hands of the man (I use that term loosely) who is very cabable of abuse and also very good at hiding it. He should be so proud of himself, he is able to manipulate a child. Isn't that something to be proud of? He is sneakier than a 6 year old. He can terrify a child. That is sure something to be proud of. Why we should all be so lucky as to be able to make a child afraid. Isn't that something that we should all do to our children? Isn't that called complete control over your child and making them obedient? That is how my ex looks at it. My son is obedient.

He is not obedient. My son consistantly tells me he got into trouble again. He got grounded again. He had to go to his room and stay on his bed all evening and night. He could not get up for anything, and had to get permission when his dad finally came back inside the house to even go to the bathroom. He had gone to bed without supper because he was grounded to his room and on his bed. Some of the groundings went on for weeks at a time. As far as I am aware the grounding to the bed for the evening and night only happened one night at a time. But all the rest of them, like grounding from playing outside, bike riding, t.v., video games, toys, outside toys, some of those went on for up to four weeks at a time. When asking my son what he was grounded for, he does not always even know why. Other times it has been because he told a teacher he wanted to go home; he told his dad he wanted to go home; he argued with his dad when he said something mean about me and my son defended me; he argued with his dad when my ex told my son I hurt him. In my humble opinion, this all is about trying to manipulate the child in to not saying what he wants and trying to make him believe that I hurt him. He also tells my son that he knows everyone and no matter where we go or what we do, he sees us. He repeatedly tells my son he is taking me back to court (when he actually is not supposed to talk about any of that anyway). My ex scares my son into not doing some of the things we like to do on our visits because he is afraid I will get into trouble with the courts - because his dad can see everything we do. I tell my son not to worry about it and there is nothing we can do until it goes to court and I will take care of it. It is not for him to worry about. This does not stop him from worrying though. The stress and worry my son has is present at every visit. I have to spend time doing "damage control" on every visit. I have to reassure him that I am not mad nor am I hurt that he laughed at a joke his dad made, at my expense of course. I have to reassure him that anything his dad says does not matter to me. I do not care what he calls me behind my back. (Of course he never says any of this to my face the coward) He can say whatever he likes. He does not matter to me. Only my son matters to me. I tell my son to do what he needs to do to not get into trouble with his dad. If that means laughing at a joke so he does not get grounded, then laugh. It does not hurt my feelings.

And the best part is I cannot call child protective services, because they will not investigate as I well know from past experience. And mostly because this type of "child rearing" is considered acceptable there. Where I come from it is called abuse. This is real abuse, not taking you child to the doctor, taking them for therapy, giving them doctor prescribed medicine. Advocating for your child is apperantly abuse there, while actual child abuse is just raising them. This is part of what is wrong with families today. Obviously there are many reasons we have problems in our families, but if advocating for you child and standing up for him/her is wrong, and abusing them is okay, there is no hope for our society.

However, there are wonderful people out there and they are advocates for families. I am going to be one of them. I will continue my journey to bring my son home. If only I can find the money. That is what a portion of all of this is about. I did not have enough money to fight the way my ex did. I will find a way. Just as I will find a way to get my story out there. I want to help protect the mothers and children from this witchhunt. Someone has to. Why not me?

The Next step

The Threats.





That is how I think of them. With capital letters. It is very scary to hear your child say they wish someone was dead. Even more scary when that someone is a parent. We all heard/said the "I hate you" line growing up. Usually as teens, occasionally as pre-teens. But when your first grader tells you he wishes his dad was dead and when he goes back to see him he is going to kill him, well, kinda scary. I took him to his regularly scheduled therapy session for his social skills with the nitwit therapist and she said she did not think it was anything to worry about. Nothing to worry about?! How do you figure? She just said that it was no problem. Even though he told how and when he was going to do this she said no worries! He even said why sort of. He wanted his dad dead cuz he would go to hell because he was bad and when he (my son) died he would go to heaven and he would never have to see his dad again. She said just let it go for now and let's see what happens next. At this point I wasn't willing to let it go. The next day he continued to talk about it. He was not ranting, he was just stating what he was going to do. Then he said he would kill himself so he could go to heaven now and would not have to go see his dad again. He was six. What six year old knows what all of this means and is able to put together death and never seeing someone again. I of course explained that this also meant that he could not see me again either if he was dead. (I did not want to get into semantics about killing one's self as being a sin and going to hell, after all he did not have a total grasp on death.) He just said that we would be able to see each other just not his dad. So, I called a group called SASS, and they come to your house and assess the situation to see if the child is in immediate danger and if they have any recommendations. They did not feel the child was in danger at the time with me as I did not have a shotgun which is what he said he would use. In fact I had no guns so none of his "theories" would work. They did feel he needed another visit with the therapist. Again she says nothing to worry about. It is all me that is having a problem....ME?!? I am not the six yr old making threats. I took the SASS referral to a facility that does mental health evaluations. They did feel it was something to worry about. They referred my son to a psychiatrist.





All of this takes place over a period of a couple of months and there was one visit in the meantime with my son going to his father's. This is what the nitwit therapist is using saying my son will not do anything because he had his chance and did not take it. What? So he did not do it yet so there must not be a problem?





My son gets his appointment with the psychiatrist who talks with both of us, then talks to me, then talks to my son. He then calls me back in and sends my son out to the receptionist again. He calls Child Protective Service. They will not investigate because there are no visible marks on the child and he has not actually followed through on the threat to his dad. So I guess that means that until you kill someone or attempt to kill them, there is no help; Threatening is allowed. This is all insane. The psychiatrist then decided that the only course of action is to admit my son to a psych ward. I say I need to think about that. After all, he is only six and that would be really scary to be away like that, for both of us.





I am near tears at this time. I call my mom and she comes over. We call SASS again. I do not want to admit my son. The caseworker comes in and tries to talk to my son, who of course has had enough and will not cooperate. Finally we give him a hairbrush (I think) and tell him he is onstage and would he answer questions now? Yes he will. She feels that my son is safe with me but does have worries about him going back to his dad's. She calls the mental health facility and they state that the child is not in immediate danger and will not take him. She calls the psychiatrist and he states that if I do not admit my son as per his orders, then he will call DCFS on me for medical neglect. She tells me this and now I am really scared. I do not want to admit my son to a psych ward. All of this (I hope) is a cry for help for someone to listen to him. Why does he think his dad should die. Why does he think his dad is mean, what is going on to make him think that? No one asked these questions. Or at least no one asked them and tried to make an actual effort to get my son to say. He was not very forthcoming with answers and everyone just let it go.





We did reach a compromise. Instead of admitting my son full time, he could go for outpatient therapy. He would go Monday-Friday for parial days and recieve therapy from several different people. The solution here? Tell this little boy that threatening to kill someone is mean and he should not say it. I still do not know why he made the threats. They did not ask according to the people that would actually talk to me. Then they tell me they want to call his father and gather information from him. I am reluctant. After all, if a child is being hurt by someone, you don't call them and say, hey this kid is ratting you out. She insisted that she would not tell him anything. She pestered me until I gave the number to her. She lied. She told him what was going on and that my son made threats, and she wanted to talk to him. Isn't that nice. Let's tell the man that was doing who knows what to my child all about the accusations he (my son) was making so he has a chance to come up with a good defense. When the time comes to end the two week session of daily visits, they ask me for an evaluation of their assessment and how they dealt with the situation. I told them they did not do anything except let his dad, the very person my son threatened to kill know that my son was trying to tell what was going on and that telling my son not to say does not mean that he won't do it. Now we just won't know what is going on in his head. They seemed shocked that I said these things, but if I do not help my son, who will.

My son goes back to school for a week or two before his next visit with his dad. He (my son) is very adamant that he does not want to go. I thought about telling his dad that he did not want to go, could we skip this one, but knew from past experience that he did not care what my son wanted, it was all about him (the dad). His dad would no sooner let my son miss a visit my son did not want than fly to the moon. So, I took him to meet halfway with all my trepidations, I watched him fight and argue about going, I told him he would be able to come home in two weeks. That was not too terribly long. It would be over before he knew it. I would call every day if he wanted me to. He did want me to.

This was in March of 2007. I have never brought my son home again.

The Jouney Continues

Autism.

Just hearing it makes a mom's heart go racing. Fortunately for me, my son is not "autistic".

After the visit with the nuerologist we made the appointment with the doctor that he referred us to. This one has a title of pediatric development and behavioral doctor, or some such thing. This doctor was extremely informative, very friendly, and most importantly was able to have a conversation with my son. Who wonder of wonders was not hateful to him. Actually, he bordered on chatty, which was rather unusual for him. Not always or for long periods of time, but cooperative. For once...

We come prepared with the forms that were filled out by relatives and teachers. Once he reviewed them, he had a whole other series of questions for me and my son. He observed my son in the room and talked with him. We had a couple of visits of this that each lasted for quite some time, certainly not the usual 10 minutes and we're outta there type of thing. As much as two hours. Which by the way is a really long time to sit in a doctor's office, for kids as well as adults. Finally the doctor is ready to give an aswer. It is not autism in the true sense of the word. He says it is something called Asperger's Syndrome. Say that again?! Asperger's. Oh yeah, and the reason he is so difficult is he has something called Oppositional Defiant disorder. So he's crabby and it's not something I did? Hooray! I thought I was doing something wrong. So the social difficulties are not my fault either? Hooray again! Not that I want my son to have any problems, it is just a relief to know I was not a complete failure at being a mom. I mean, my son has had me in tears before with his attitude and I thought it was something I was or wasn't doing. Now how do we fix it? Is it like the acid reflux, we just give a pill? (Kinda sad when even as adults we think that there is a pill for everything.) No, no pills, but we can help him.

As hard as it has been with me with his mood swings and irritability, of course it was even worse for my son. Who did not know why he felt the way he did. Or why the kids did not want to play with him, or why the kids were mean to him. Why was everything so hard for him. You know those questions you really can't answer as an adult to the satisfaction of a child.

The doctor recommends social therapy. Says social therapy will teach my son social skills, which he is seriously lacking. It should teach him how to interact with others, to figure out what they mean, learn how to make and take a joke. Learn how to be "normal", just like the other kids. Learn how to play with kids. Learn how to play. It takes a little while to find a therapist on the insurance that I had. There was not really a lot of options for therapy with the insurance we had. We ended up going to the local childrens services facility. We were assigned a social worker who I was not sure I liked but since we did not have any other options went with her anyway. I think this social worker lived in another world. She was trying to teach my son social skills that would have worked in the 50's perhaps. Or maybe in Mr. Roger's neighborhood. But after a few weeks, my son said he thought he liked her. He actually talked to her some. She still to me seemed as if she was missing a few important points, but if my son liked her, okee-dokee. I did not think she helped a whole lot, as she kept her head in Mr. Roger's neighborhood, but my son did learn to adapt some. They did discuss issues that my son felt he was having in school, things the kids "did" to him, and how he could have reacted differently and what the other child's response would have then been. I also talked to his teacher in kindergarten about encouraging him to join the other kids in play and she was more than helpful with it. She said that sometimes though he would ask the kids to play what he was playing with and when they said no they were already playing something, he took it as a personal attack that they did not want to play with him. The teacher was more than willing to help keep an eye on him and talk to him when that happened. I do believe just the teacher helping is what made improvement with his social skills. The therapist just was not up to par in my book. After a while my son started saying he did not want to go back to the social worker/therapist. No reason, just don't want to go. I don't like her anymore. No reason, just don't.

By this time he is in first grade and we are having all sorts of problems with the teacher. She is brand new and has strange ideas of what 6 year olds are capable of. Like writing 50 sentances in one evening. Yes, I said 50. Now I agreed that my son was in the wrong that day, but thought that was excessive. I made him write some, but not all. After all, this was a private school and the tuition I paid is what pays her salary. She works for me, and if I think 50 is too many then I am the parent and what I say goes. The response was that I was undermining her authority. Of course, this was not the first time I "removed" a punishment that I thought was too harsh for small children. With 6 year olds, you make them have a time out from recess or no recess, send them to the office to have their parents called. That would sure be embarassing. Or don't let them have the free time in class. You don't make them sit at the front office for an "inservice" at a desk all day like you would older children, or make them write 50 sentances in one evening. Now, I know that some of this is the Aspergers and some is the ODD (oppositional defiant disorder). You have to have very set rules and plans for the day for someone like my child. When things don't progress in the day like he thinks they should, or like yesterday did, it is just too much to handle. Then he tends to get out of control. He gets rather anxious and upset. And because my son who used to love school now hates it, I decide perhaps I need to start going to the school to see what the problem is. I start going on my lunch hour. This coincided with the time he was at recess. I did go when he was in kindergarten, but was made extremely welcome by the teacher. This teacher for first grade, not so welcoming. I would watch him interact with the kids, sometimes playing along with all of them. Sometimes talked to the teachers and parents out on the playground watching the kids if my son was standing in the time out area to see what his problem was. My concern was how can I find out what is going on if I don't go and see for myself. Am I supposed to take the word of a 5-6 year old child who doesn't have a good understanding of social rules and just jump to conclusions, or go and see? I would prefer to go and see. I do not believe that my son lied to me, just did not see things the way everyone else would. I would like to note that other parents go to the school and give time, check on their kids, or just hang out. It seems it was only a problem with me because I put some of the blame on the teacher. I actually now work with another mom with children at this school and she went all day everyday for two weeks to see what was going on when her son's grades fell. No one said anything to her. But she was not trying to make any complaints against a teacher.

I felt like I had a lot on my plate with everything that was going on in the therapy and at the school. My son made some progress only to fall back a lot. I was not sure if this was normal or not. The therapist just was not overly intelligent in my book. And I was receiving a lot of resistance from the teacher and principal at the school. All I wanted was to help my son and keep him from having such a hard time. Isn't that what all parents want to do? Smooth out some of the bumps in front of their children? I just did not want my son to be so unhappy. And at end of 2006 all hell broke loose. This is when the threats began.........

The Journey to Discovery

Now the journey to find out what is wrong with my little boy. This new pediatrician is an elderly gentleman and just seems full of confidence that we will discover why my boy keeps getting sick. First the food diary. Did not help find any answers but was interesting to see in black and white exactly what he ate every day. Next we tried an enzyme. I no longer remember what it was called, just remember that the doc suggested it since my son was puking up actual pieces of food. Thought maybe he did not have enough of the enzyme in the stomach to digest the food and it was occasionally coming up. We tried this for a while to no avail either.



And as if this was not enough to try to work through, my son's doc notices that my son is not really verbal yet. Have you ever heard of Autism? he asks me. I had in the general sense of "kids banging there heads on the walls or crib rails, flapping thier arms" sort of way. Oh NO my son is NOT autistic. Thankfully he let it drop and focused again on the episodes. So he sends my son to a (let me see if I can spell this properly!) pediatric gastroenterologist. (say that fast three times in a row.) This doctor is concerned by the length of the episodes. Says most people throw up once or twice and then are done not several times in a row, for hours at a time. He decides my son needs to have some sort of digestion test, a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. I did not even know what an endoscopy was. He told me in layman's terms that they would stick a scope in both ends to see what they could find. (Different ones of course, not the same one twice! of course hehe) The digestion test was first since it was painless. Basically I take him to the xray dept of the hospital, they feed him a special breakfast. I joke that it was radioactive, but it was treated so the techs could see it in the digestive tract. All my son had to do was eat and then stand still for an xray shot. The only thing they found was that his food digested a little slower than what was usual, but not abnormally slow. All was okay on this front. Next the scary tests. We scheduled the scopes. My son could not eat for two days prior, only clear liquids. Man and I thought he was crabby before. Try putting a child that seems to not understand what you tell him on a liquid diet and tell him he can't eat. Just have some more liquid when all he wants is food. We made it through the two days. Now is the day of the tests. I am terrified. He could have cancer; He could have a reaction to the anesthetic; He could not wake up; He could die on the table; I was a basket case. Good thing my mom was there. Plus I had not eaten anything solid for two days either. I felt bad because my little one could not eat, so neither did I. I look back now and think that I probably should have eaten so when the tests were going on, I was not so light headed and could have been a little bit clearer thinking. Well we know what they say about hindsight....



Anyway, the tests. The results were given immediatley. They took pictures with the scopes, how neat is that, and were able to tell right away what was wrong. Here is a picture of his intestines-we were looking for polyps (sp?) and anything else strange. It all looked fine. Then here is a picture of his esophogus. Look at these tracks. This is from acid reflux. My response- kids can have acid reflux? Yes they can, actually kids can be born with it.



I can't even begin to describe how glad I was that it was acid reflux, not a death sentance, yes I know dramatic, but I was scared. Now I knew why he was crabby, his throat hurt all the time. And his stomach hurt all the time. The doctor prescribed Prevacid. He did not have cancer- I was elated.



Of course none of this was as easy as it sounds. All together this took about two years, with many trips to the doctor, many different trials including a gluten free diet, and lots and lots of episodes of vomiting and diarrhea and a trip or two to the emergency room over it. I was just so glad of a diagnosis and something to treat it with.



In the meantime, with all of the "explosion episodes" going on, my doctor grows increasingly concered over my son's strange behaviors. He took an unusually long time to start talking. He collects strange things, like "strings". By strings I mean anything long: string, cords, bungee cords, rope, chain, straps, belts, you get the idea? He had to carry them around with him everywhere he went, including into the bathroom at bathtime. Strange indeed. I figured just a kid thing. I did notice however that he did not play well with others. This started at his daycare, playing beside, but not with. Ignoring the other kids, not cooperating when he did try to play with them. I then enrolled him in preschool thinking that he needed more structure in his daytime routine. He still had some issues. By this time he is extremely verbal. We call him the little professor because of the way he speaks using big words, almost always correct grammer, and not ever joking around. Very, Very serious. I just chalked it up to all kids are different. Some are just always serious, some always playful, just all different. The doctor tells me that he thinks my son's IQ is probably somewhere up in the 120-125 range. Which of course doesn't mean anything to me. My son is smart, my son is cute, my son is "perfect". Isn't that what all parents think? No, he says, not all kids are smart or cute, but this one is smart. Then comes the awful word of Autism again. He gives me a form that is to be filled out by all the folks involved in his daily care. By now he is in Kindergarten. The teacher fills out a form, I do, my mom does. We take these to the doctor and he now refers me to a pediatric neurologist. I can't help but think at this point hasn't my son gone through enough. Little did I know the worst was yet to come for my baby ( I use this term loosely as he at this point 5.) We drive over to the neurologist who of course is about 45 minutes away, not one in my town to go to. He gives me lots of questions and "examines" my son's behaviors while at this office visit. He asks my son questions, and since he is so verbal is able to answer anything the doctor asks. BUT, he is very hateful in all of his responses. The doctor leaves the room for a few minutes and I remember asking my son why he was being hateful. It was just because the doctor was asking too many questions in my son's opinion, he was busy playing with his strings and the doctor was bothering him. I tell him to be nice whether he wants to or not. The doctor comes back. His determination: Autism. He gives me a referral to a doctor who works with kids with delays and disabilities, in the same office at least. I am devastated. I am envisioning a life with a child with major problems and can't get along in society. Mind you his problems to this point have been relatively mild, just failure to develop socially, and the super serious attitude. And the ever present irritability.



I would like to mention at this time in my son's life, his father is adament that my son does not display any strange behavior, even though everyone, including the doctors, has seen it. He also was adamant for many months that my son never threw up when he was down there. Now that the diagnosis for acid reflux was out there and my son was very verbal and could tell me each time he threw up, his father did admit that "he has thrown up a few times, I guess."



After the prevacid was started, I think that my son only threw up a couple of times, when he had a stomach virus. Not more than once or twice a year. No more diarrhea like he had before either. What a relief to all of us.

Now I was going to have to deal with Autism and whatever that meant.....