Our appt with Riley Developmental Pediatrics was Wednesday July 30th at 9. The doctor said he met all the 'diagnostic criteria' for autism, but she didn't want to diagnose him without him first seeing a psychologist. WHAT?! After waiting 6 months just to get in to see you, now you're telling us this?! The wait list for a Riley psych was another 3-4 months. For something where early intervention is so critical, I couldn't believe my ears! So, I checked with our insurance and called a BUNCH of in-network providers. Alot of them wouldn't see him because he's under 3. I did find someone who is the Autism and ADD specialist in his group who just happened to have a cancellation for Thursday July 31st at 11! So, we took it. We had a neighbor watch E, so D could go to the appt with us. The psychologist observed S, asked us a ton of questions and read through the diagnostic criteria as we shook or nodded our heads at each one. At least he read them to us, that's more than Riley did. He could tell that D was extremely stressed. He asked him how he was dealing with things after first hearing the word Autism from Riley yesterday. I believe that D thought it was just a phase, something that he didn't want to deal with until someone actually gave S that diagnosis. I, on the other hand, had been preparing myself. Well, it hit him like a ton of bricks. He cried when we got out to the car. I told him it's not the end of the world. S is still S. Now it's our job to get him all the resources we can to help him out. I have good friends who have sons with autism and now we can use their expertise as well as the IN Resource Center for Autism in Bloomington to find other appropriate therapies, developmental schools, etc. besides First Steps, which we will still use until he's 3. The psychologist said he was going to be very conservative about it for D's sake. He told D that "the writing is on the wall", but that he would see S one more time in a couple weeks. He's going to get the name of a pediatrician nearby who specializes in autism. He also wants to see us all as a family or separate to deal with the shock, sadness, anger and any other issues we face as we move forward.
Riley also took blood to do some genetic testing as well as testing for lead. That was a nightmare. S has my veins. They couldn't see a good one in his arm, so they tried his hands. The poor little guy is SO strong that he had me, D and another nurse holding him down and he still managed to blow the veins. They ended up having to take him into an exam room, wrap him tightly in a sheet and take it from the side of his foot. It was traumatizing to say the least. :*( Those results should be back in a couple weeks. They also suggested we up his speech therapy through First Steps to twice a week for an hour each time, instead of just once a week.
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