On Tuesday, Aug 25th 2009, Elise was finally diagnosed with autism. She is 2 yrs 10 mths old. We'd pretty much figured it out a couple of months before then, but we'd struggled to find anyone to diagnose her. Her pediatrician shuffled us off with a referral to a developmental pediatrician. Her therapists don't diagnose as that's not their specialty, the Early Intervention folks were waiting until she aged out at 3 to provide a psychological evaluation and the developmental pediatrician has an extensive waitlist. Fortunately (funny way to put it), our landlord's son is autistic. They started this journey almost 10 years before us, so when I expressed my concerns, our landlord provided me with the name of a wonderful doctor who'd managed to set them on the correct path regarding their amazing son, Nicholas.
The doctor is a child psychiatrist. She follows bio-medical intervention methods and therapy before attempting prescription drugs for problems. Exactly what we are looking for right now. Right away, she is helping us resolve Elise's sleep issues and constant constipation. As we'd already assessed, how can she optimally learn if she's chronically sleep-deprived and constipated? Elise now takes Melatonin 1/2 hour before bed. She no longer spends hours playing in her crib before falling asleep and is averaging a "normal" 11-12 hours of sleep each day. She also started 1/2 capsule probiotics with breakfast (40 billion cfu lactobacillia, so nothing mild there). She's obviously more comfortable and it's only been 4 days on it. We've also started giving her fish oil 1/2 tsp daily with dinner.
Even more importantly, she has connected us with a partial hospitalization 12 week ABA program at UCLA so that we can work intensively to determine how Elise learns. We are waitlisted for it and the wait can be quite long. Also, our insurance doesn't cover it, so we have to start fighting that battle soon. In the meantime, she helped us navigate our Early Intervention services enough to start getting some ABA hours funded with a service provider she highly recommended. At this point, finding her at this time is the best thing we have going for us. The more I learn about autism and ABA, the more convinced I am that Elise will really benefit from this.
The last 2 weeks have been a whirlwind of hurry up and wait. I'm really excited to get started and hope the pace keeps moving quickly. Just when I start to get really discouraged, Elise manages to provide hope.
For instance, last weekend, hubby and I were discussing homeopaths. Elise has had good results with our chiropractor and I'm open to trying a homeopath with his recommendation. Hubby, being more scientific minded, is much more skeptical. Anyway, we were discussing this in Elise's room while she was in her crib. When hubby left, I looked at her and told her not to worry that we were going to help her in anyway that she wanted and needed us to help her. Then, I told her that I believe in her. She was holding my hand. When I told her "Elise, I believe in you", she squeezed my hand, looked right into my eyes and smiled. This is not something that Elise does easily.
This past Weds, B (her twin) and she were taking a bath. B, my little charmer, tells me, unprompted, "I love my sister". I told him that she loved him too. Then, I guess because I was feeling really sad that day, I told him that I hoped someday she'd be able to tell him that herself. He looked at me like I was a bit crazy and told me "She tells me she loves me all the time". As if, how could I not know this? God bless the innocence and truth that little ones are able to see so plainly.
Anyway, right now we're just trying to learn a lot and navigate the insurance and treatment mazes. Already I can tell that we're in for quite a ride. Of one thing I am certain - Elise will reach her full potential, no matter what that may be and what it may take to reach it. We are all behind her 100%.
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