March on!!!

We have made it to March and as someone who grew up in Florida and now lives in the northeast, I am going to enjoy these two warm days while I can! I see snow in the forecast for next week and I personally prefer a little less snow. However, my husband and kids seem to enjoy the weather here cold or warm.

I left off last month where we finally got a diagnosis from our new pediatrician of PPD-NOS that would allow our son to begin to receive speech therapy and occupational therapy only to find ourselves needing to move just a few months later! It was heart breaking because we felt like we had spent several months trying to get established and to get him the care he needed and we were not only moving we were leaving the state! So that meant starting all over again. He had just received a recommendation for a physical therapy evaluation in the weeks leading up to our move so that would have to wait until we got settled in our new home.

It was in our new location in the state of Pennsylvania that we were able to get an evaluation from a developmental pediatric specialist. Sadly, these things don’t happen quickly when you live outside of a major metropolitan area. Once we established ourselves as residents and set up initial evaluations, it would be about 7 months before we our son had his evaluation by the specialist. After this evaluation from a team of people that included the developmental pediatrician, he was given a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. I got the news from someone at the facility where the testing took place a few weeks earlier and by this point my husband and I were quite certain that this was the news we were going to receive from them. However, I will tell you in that moment, while sitting in that little room, I had no idea what to ask or how to respond. It felt a bit strange because he had already re-started speech therapy and occupational therapy and even had his physical therapy evaluation which led to that being added to his current supportive services. So, our day to day situation didn’t change at all. We just had a new diagnosis for our son. I wish I would have asked on the day of receiving the diagnosis…what else can we do to support his developmental needs. What I didn’t realize at that time was that his physical needs were being addressed with speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy but his social/emotional needs were not. It would be much longer before I would get a handle on this next hurdle.

I find myself at the point of school bus drop-off again. So, I will continue again soon and wish everyone happiness and wellness until next time.