We begin our story with Logan at 18 months of age. When I think back to it now, I realize he wasn't talking as much my daughter did at that age. He was saying Mommy, Daddy and trying to mimic some other words. He received his MMR and a flu shot and we didn't think anything of it. At that time, we didn't know the possible dangers of Thermerasol that was used in vaccines to prolong their shelf life. To be totally honest, I can't blame Logan's Autism totally on that. I believe, that my husband and I have something in our genes that lay dormant in Logan until those shots. Once that happened, Logan's Autism had help coming to the surface.
We didn't notice anything until right before he was 21 months old and only that he didn't seem to be talking like we thought a child his age should. Since we had a girl who was almost 6 and a non stop talker, the doctor's excuse that he wasn't getting a chance to talk sounded about right to us. We mentioned it to several different doctors over the next 8 months before our daycare person approached us. She had recently been to a class on toddlers and what to expect and had seen something in Logan. It concerned her enough to mention it to a doctor she knew. He said the "flipping" Logan did with anything he could get into his hands could possibly be a symptom of autism.
Our daycare person was nervous approaching us about this but felt it was something we should be made aware of. She was so wonderful - she handled it with kid gloves; said to just tell the doctor that someone mentioned autism and that we wanted him to rule it out. I thank GOD for Ms. Gail for that. It was a very scary time for me, as right out of high school I had worked in the local school system and had seen severely autistic children. I was reminded of the movie Rain Man and it was terrifying to think that my baby could be just like him. It took us about 3 months from that date to the day we got the diagnosis that Logan was autistic. His diagnosis was severely autistic in speech and moderate for behavior.
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2 comments:
Terry, I just wanted to say THANKS for the stuff that you sent to me. It was a nice surprise! I have been reading your blog and appreciate your thoughts on children with autism. I watched Oprah the other day when Jenny McCarthy was on there talking about it. It takes a strong person to deal with this I know, but you have always been that. Thanks again for everything!
I'm hoping that this blog will help some other parent out there. I'm really glad to see how well Chase is doing. He's quite the little cutie and I love reading his latest updates. Keep them coming for all of us on the other coast!!
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