Autism - Round 2

In the midst of my oldest son getting diagnosed with Autism, I had a baby, a boy, and the cutest freaking little cherub ever!!  Jackson arrived 2 weeks after Franklin's official diagnosis.  So I was at home with a newborn and a new diagnosis of autism and the doctor handed me a prescription for OT and Speech therapy for Franklin and said "see you in a year".  That's it, that's all our medical community has for you when you're newly diagnosed.  More on that later....

A year into therapy Franklin turned 3 - Jackson turned 1 and I went to the doctor just to get a physical because we switched insurance and I wanted to meet our deductible so we weren't paying a bunch of money out of our pocket for speech and OT therapy.  Well at the at physical and mammogram I was diagnosed with State 1 Ductal Carcinoma - Breast Cancer, and felt like I was living in a massive vat of SUCK FEST.

I had to take a few months off of my strong research and search for stuff for autism and deal with the inconvenience of cancer (and I'm almost 5 years cancer free, and do not take that lightly)  I couldn't think of the seriousness of cancer because it paralyzed me.  So for 6 months I was surgically treated and had 6 surgeries to remove the cancer, get a hysterectomy, and reconstruction.

So a 1 year old, a 3 year old 20 hours a week of ABA in the house a week, a full time working husband, recovering from cancer at about 15 months Jackson started to lose some of his vocabulary, starting to fall behind, and crying constantly.  He was different than Franklin, but I had this horrible feeling in my stomach that he was going down the path of autism.  He just wasn't doing the things that other babies did.  He would obsessively cling to one toy, crash his body into things, no sensation of pain, babbling gone and loss of about 30-40 word approximations that he had.

I felt him going into the abyss of autism, and one of our in home supervisors also recommended that we go to the neurologist and have him thoroughly checked out.  Because even though it was something we all suspected you don't get very far in the system without a doctors diagnosis of autism.

At about 21 months Jackson received his diagnosis of autism and it felt like I was hit in the stomach with a club, and it hit my husband especially hard.  But I had to plow through the feelings and get down to the road of treatment, and off to the races with 20 hours of ABA, and some OT.  So just when I thought I would be able to get out and move amongst people, I became more locked into my house than ever.  25 hours of therapy for Jackson, and 25 for Franklin, I was locked and stuck in home therapy or an office waiting room waiting for the kids to finish therapy.  I was almost a year cancer free, and started to fall into a very dark place, and very sorry for myself, and I couldn't see past the pain. I was lonely and angry, and scared, and determined to get myself healthy and help my kids.

ABA therapy and school have worked for Jackson and caught him up like they were supposed to.  However, the developmental and behavior challenge that make him "different" than neuro-typical children are there and in someways probably always will be.  Jackson's needs and abilities are on a total different place on the spectrum than his brother Franklin.  His needs are still significant and very different than Franklin's.  I heard this phrase after Jackson was diagnosed  "You've met 1 kid with Autism, well you've met ONE kid with Autism", and it couldn't be more true.  While both my kids have a diagnosis of autism it manifests itself so differently in each of them it is almost fascinating if it wasn't so baffling and painful.

Jackson is now 5 and about to enter Kindergarten in the fall.  Thank you for following us as we design our lives by autism.