It is so strange how autism works. Once you start reading about all the info, you have everyone you know – from family, to friends, to random strangers you “tried” to make eye contact with at the grocery store, to a wild child flapping in the library – diagnosed somewhere on the spectrum. Seriously, everyone fits on there somewhere! And if you get offended with that statement, go read the behaviors and I’m sure you will agree.

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So, there I was. Freakin’ out about my kid because I knew there was a huge chance that my kid just might have autism. Especially after I just saw it on Oprah. Seriously, after an episode of Oprah, you might as well have your Ph.D. in the area of whatever topic is on your TV for the day!

I can only imagine how many calls all the pediatricians got around the US after that episode aired. Because I called my pediatrician that day. And I left a message. {I should preface this with how much I love my pediatrician.} He called me back relatively quick and assured me that I had nothing to worry about. Hudson just hadn’t really lived enough to say if there was a real issue or if Hudson was just Hudson. That last sentence isn’t going to make sense to many people because it didn’t make any real sense to me then either.

Now – it makes total sense.

Needless to say, my attention was on full alert at this point. In the beginning, I tried to stay away from the internet when it came to information about autism. I’m fairly certain it was because I was afraid of what I would find. What people need to understand about parents of autistic children is that as much as we want answers, we don’t want to hear them. And that is with everything autistic. From the diagnosis to the how to the why. I just want you all to know that as much as I want to know how I could have prevented it, I don’t want to blame myself if I could have.

About this time, I realized that Hudson definitely suffered the same fate as myself and was battling with sensory integration disorder. Such a fancy word to say that one or more of the five senses goes crazy at times. From personal experience, I have issues with tactile {or touch.} I cannot touch chalk, sand, dirt, play-do, velvet, velour, rough wood, raw silk, minky fabric ….. the list can go on forever. Basically anything that is dusty or leaves a residue behind on your hand. If it dries out my hands, I’m cringing.  Which is the reason I use hand lotion all the time. A random, but first thing that pops in my head, example would be when I set up my artificial Christmas trees. The fake pines dry out my finger tips immediately and so bad that I find myself gritting my teeth and rubbing my tongue fast against the lingual part of my teeth. But I learned years ago, that if I put band-aids over my thumb, middle and ring fingertips on my right hand and band-aids over my left pointer fingertip, I’m good. Right as rain kind of good! And can work for hours on those Christmas trees until the band-aids fall off.

In most sensory integration disorder “moments,” your other senses are elevated. And sometimes beyond comprehension. So, when Hudson is in a crowded room and 27 different conversations are going on, he can’t handle it. He loses all control. He will scream, hit and just freak out. I love trying to explain why he is having a freak out session especially to those who think that my kid is just misbehaving. OR those who think all he needs is to acclimate. Hell, if all I needed to do was bust my kid’s butt and keep putting him in the same situation repeatedly – he would be cured!! Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy and that has yet to work.

During the first year, I noticed that Hudson had a real issue with crowds and loud noises. It was different from the typical child crowd freak-outs. Anyone with kids know that there is a time when your child has some normal issues with noise and crowds. But they out grow them and move on. Hudson will never outgrow it nor will he ever move on. He has to learn to deal with it. At this point, it is easier to choose what crowds we have to mingle with and avoid as many as we can because at the end of the day, it is hard on every single person in this family.

After the first year, I realized Hudson had major issues with tactile. And it was worst than my own {which means it was and is bad!} That was the reason he would not hold onto a sippy cup with condensation – thank you Play-tex for your insulator cups. He also quickly started having a problem with foods. I noticed quickly how his diet started dropping food. Again, I was told not to worry. And after four kids, I can tell you that all kids go through a picky stages once they figure out they can be picky and their taste buds develop. The problem is when your child is missing complete food groups for months. Even when I would force him to try anything, he would gag. The gagging was an indicator there was a real problem!

But even with all this, I still did not have a diagnosis of nothing. I just kept getting the for now we will call them quirks conversations every time I would bring it up. And for the time being, I was okay with that. Because I wanted to believe they were only quirks. And you know, for many kids that is exactly what they were and are. Only my gut told me it was so much more. But honestly during the time, I was happy to believe I had only a quirky child.

We were rolling right along and when Hudson was 17 months old, the twins were born. And a little over 24 hours after their birth, I could see that I was going to have another “quirky child.” That’s right, I saw something immediately that made me know.

{to be continued….}

Sometime in college, I got this feeling like I was going to have a special needs child. No, really – I did. The feeling was so strong that I had decided at one point that I didn’t want to have kids. Over time, the “want” part changed, but I was scared to death of having a special needs child. I was afraid I would be a horrible a mother to a child that had needs that exceeded those of a typical child. I remember once my husband and I were engaged, I told him my gut had told me for over 10 years that special needs was in my future. As my witness, he will tell you what I said. I’m guessing that he didn’t believe me.

It’s funny now. Who knew I would be my own prophet! Of course the “special needs” I had pictured was something completely different. But none the less, I’m exactly where I had thought I would be and there is not a day that goes by that I’m not scared – for my children, not me.

Lonnie and I were married in November of 2002. I worked at a dental office {that I loved and miss daily!} He worked full time at Home Depot as their district trainer. Other than a couple of years in his adult life, he had been either in the Tennessee Army National Guard or Army Reserves. At the time of our wedding, he was in the Reserves. Since it was a year after 9-11, he was called up for a deployment. Not what I was expecting. But hey, it was just me and a diabetic cat he was leaving behind – we would be fine.

The inoculations were insane – to include Anthrax. {I’m including this in the story. Do I think it caused Autism – no. Did it contribute – I have absolutely no idea.} Fortunately, Lonnie stayed state side the entire time and never went over seas. He came home in the summer of 2003 and wasn’t long afterwards he left the Reserves and went back to the Guard. The next step was AGR {a full-timer and not just the one weekend out of the month and two weeks out of the summer soldier.} We have never looked back.

The following summer {2004} we were pregnant.

I did it all by the book. I gained only five pounds the first trimester. I ate incredibly healthy. My real cravings were salads and onion soup. I drank {too much} water and an occasional Sprite. Eventually, the water caught up to me and I ended up gaining a whopping 51 pounds. Five foot and 168 – I was short and round! But the pregnancy had zero morning sickness and went incredibly smooth. Other than failing my first glucose test and barely passing the second one, I had NO problems.

We were having a boy. Hudson Wyatt Wheeler. He was due 05-05-05. I was stoked. The ultrasound showed a perfect baby. And I was ready to meet the joker.

On Thursday, April 28th, I had what was going to be my final doctor’s appointment. When I got there, my blood pressure was elevated. It was weird because my blood pressure had been almost exactly the same exact numbers every single time, so we knew this wasn’t right. My doctor was concerned and I was clueless. She told me to go on over to the hospital, it was time to have a baby. I went back to work and began end of month statements, because it was the end of the month and the world would stop spinning if I didn’t get those statements out on time. Looking back, my only regret is that  I wished I would have put a blanket message on all the statements that said something like I’m supposed to be at the hospital having a baby at this very moment, instead I’m sending you your bill! I hope this makes you feel obligated to pay it! And my boss would have probably loved it if I had! Live and learn.

I did make it to the hospital around 5ish. By 9 pm my water broke. At 3 am, I was begging for an epidural. Around 10 am, I began pushing. I had a healthy 7 lb 4 oz baby boy within 30 minutes. The world stopped. He was perfect.

He never left my side except for the testing and all the other little stuff they do to newborns the first few days. I had planned to breast feed and prayed like crazy I could and he would! After the typical 2 days, we were released to go home.

Before I had my own children, I worked with kids all the time. I did daycare, babysat every weekend and I nannied. Seriously, I knew kids. But I was glad to finally have my own.

I decided early on that Baby Beethoven was my best friend. I could really get something done with some Baby Beethoven playing. And it was that Baby Bee that caused me to notice something I thought was strange enough to make a mental note. Hudson would be setting in his bouncy seat or laying on his back on the floor and I would hand him the DVD case. Because of the way I was standing, I would hand it to him upside down. And every time, he would immediately turn it right side up. I don’t mean a casual turn right side up. I’m talking about if I would have handed another grown adult an upside down DVD case and without nothing but a glance, the adult would flip the case in the right position. Yes, Hudson would do this. Every single time. At first, I thought it was flukey. But then I would hand him other cases, sometimes right side up and other times, upside down. There was not a single time he ever got it wrong. And again, it would be with a quick glance and it would be flipped immediately. It was nuts. And he was about 3 months old. I knew that was NOT normal. But what was I supposed to say to my pediatrician? Nothing.

Around six months old, Hudson would be sitting in the floor with toys around him. He would get really disturbed and scream uncontrollably if it was a modge podge of toys. They had to be from the same collection of toys. Or all the pieces to a puzzle. Or just a set in general. He loved the ring stacker. You know the one – the classic fisher price ring stacker.

These days, the yellow post is the same size from top to bottom. So, you can stack the rings in any order. Did I find it weird that my 5 month old never stacked them any other way than what is considered the true and correct way? Yes, a little. But what was I supposed to say to my pediatrician? Nothing.

Around this same time, Hudson could only be soothed one way – I had bought a CD set at Wal-mart or Target. It was a collection of children’s songs that we all grew up with. There were 20 or so songs on each CD and 4 CDs total. Most of them had children singing with an adult singing as well. The first one on the first CD was Wheels on the Bus. The first verse was sang by one child and no music. And then the music would begin with the adult and other children. He would freakin’ scream his head off. I would instantly back up the song to just the one child singing and he would almost fall asleep. But let those other kids start back up – WHAM, back to wailing. I figured out quickly that if he was ever irritable, I could pop in that CD and play that 22 seconds over and over and he was happy! Most parents gave their cranky kids a bath to make them feel better. I was blasting a really whiny rendition of Wheels on the Bus. I ask again, what was I supposed to say to my pediatrician?

Once he started crawling and could really scooch along, we really started noticing some little oddities that were very interesting! The biggest one was his matching abilities. We had these fat letter and number magnets on the refrigerator. He would crawl up to it. Grab the “O” and the zero. With one in each hand, he would flick each one out in front of him and then crawl after them. If the zero was missing, he would grab the “Q”. I guess they matched to some degree – “O” and “Q” or he would grab the one and “l.” Anything that would match would work. And the world was right if he actually had a real match – the same thing AND it was the same color. He would sleep with real matching things. Matching items would soothe him. It was the craziest thing ever!

And puzzles – I knew I was raising a nerd if you could see how quick and amazing he could work a puzzle. As weird as it all was, I was proud that he seemed so bright! Although, I had the underlying fear something else was going on. And I had a really good guess as to what it was.

There was other stuff.

• He stared at his hands {all the time!} He watched how they moved and he would move them in weird ways.
• He would line up toys.
• He would spin the wheels on his little cars over and over and just stare at them as if he was getting lost in the spinning.
• He hated swinging. And it would get ugly!
• He wouldn’t drink out of a cup unless it had set out for long periods of time because the condensation killed him.

Then there was stuff that scared me.

• He didn’t seem to know his name.
• He didn’t say anything.
• Anything loud would fa-Reak him out. The Happy Birthday song was the worst {and still is.}
• A tooth brush – NEVER made it in his mouth the first year {or second year} of his life.
• He started getting really picky about his food. And not your typical toddler picky stage – I’m talking about whole food groups missing completely from his diet.

I know that these things don’t mean a child has autism, but a combination of them sort of leans in that direction.

Then it happened – it was the summer of 06 and Hudson had just had his first birthday – Oprah had  the episode with Jenny McCarthey and her experience with her son and autism. I broke down. I knew. I had known. Literally as soon as the episode was over, one of my best friends called to check in. She had recently moved to Atlanta and we would call in periodically to see what was happening. She told me to hang up and call my pediatrician immediately.

And that is just what I did.

{to be continued ….}