To Diagnose or Not To Diagnose

Wow, one week into this crazy ride and Heart and I are reeling. I've spent massive amounts of time on every website I can think to plug into Google. See the links on the right for the information I have been pouring through. I feel overwhelmed, I feel behind, I feel like I have to catch up to nine years of doing this parenting thing all wrong.

Medical diagnosis would only confirm what Heart and I already know. It's either HFA or AS and either way we are in for one crazy ride. Spirit is being Spirit, he's finding new Legos to focus on and new cartoons to add to his bank for playing with his action figures. Two of the major signs of HFA and AS being focus on object oriented toys and not being able to play in one's imagination.

I think we are leaning toward not medically diagnosing Spirit and just treating the behaviors that we can identify. It's not like a medical diagnosis would do anything in the way of assisting us with treating him which brings me to another point:

Dear Utah Legislators,

YOU SUCK!

Love,

Any Parent that wants to treat their child with Autism

P.S. Did I mention YOU SUCK!

Utah is one of the states that doesn't require insurance companies to cover autism in their insured disorders. Not much more to say other then get it done Utah.

I think that HFA or AS is kind of like a cruel prank. You think your kid is normal, and based on everything you can observe up to a certain age he or she is, then things start to happen and you feel like the asthmatic kid trying to run the mile and a half in under twelve minutes. Suddenly your friends come zooming by you and you realize that you just don't have the lung capacity to keep up. Spirit hasn't seen it, thank heaven, but the other kids are starting to lap him in certain areas. In other areas he excels and in most cases leads the pack, but there are still those other things lurking around the corner.

I can't think of a more frustrating way to discover that your child needs help. "Well sir we now know that your son has had this for close to six years, and had you known, well you probably would have done something about it, but since you didn't you have now lost those years forever, please pay the secretary in the foyer and we'll call you when that time machine is ready.

Meanwhile you head into the bathroom, not knowing whether to cry, puke, or punch a hole in the mirror, hoping that you can give the idiot in the reflection a black eye for all of the idiotic times you lost your temper, said something you shouldn't have, or expected more than he would ever be capable of being.

"And then the clouds opened up and God said, "I hate you Alfalfa."

Well Alfalfa I know where you are coming from, I just wish that the mortifying embarrassment of standing naked in front of Darla didn't have to affect Spirit so much.