My journey in motherhood has been winding and bumpy. At first it was a breeze. Pregnancy with Cub was textbook. I went into labor naturally. I pushed twice, and he popped out with a perfect head and 20 digits. The first year went by in a flash, and we went to Walt Disney World to celebrate our first year as a young family with an ever growing baby boy.

It was our second trip to WDW where things started to change. (Just a quick comment here: I am not placing blame on WDW, but rather using our trips as mile markers. Glad I cleared that up! Wouldn’t want WDW to get a bad rap on my behalf.) It was in October of 2016. Cub was just over 15 months old and had started daycare in August. When we returned home for Florida, we both got bad colds, I assumed from germs on the plane and at WDW. Cub’s cold didn’t go away until we finally got him on medication in January. It wasn’t anything serious, runny nose, annoying little cough, stuff like that. But I specifically remember the first time the doctor said he had fluid in his ears. I thought nothing of this really, because he didn’t have an ear infection. Little did I know this would seriously change the course of Cub’s childhood.

By April 2017, my kid was no longer talking. He used to say Mama and Dada, Dada work, all kinds of cute little baby things, but he was different. We took him for general developmental testing where they determined that Cub was not hearing at all. After a variety of doctor’s appointments, we ended up getting tubes put in his ears in May of 2017. We hoped that this would take care of the problem quickly and we would be back on track.

Come October 2017, and we were seeing NO improvement. In fact Cub wasn’t saying anything at all. He was having behavioral problems at school (climbing fences, taking off his clothes) and I was beside myself, begging the developmental team to help us figure out where to go next. We developed a plan and executed it beautifully. It turned out that the more physical activity and play that Cub participated in, the more verbal he became. At our 2.5 year check up, our pediatrician suggested that we schedule an appointment with a developmental pediatrician in Wichita to get a little more analysis on why cub still wasn’t talking like his peers. The sensory processing initiatives that we were implementing seemed to be working well, but he still wasn’t saying words or sentences. She was booking about 4 months out, so we patiently waited for April to come and to meet with her.

I am not going to rehash what went on with our family from January of 2017-January 2018 in regards to other babies. 2017 was undoubtedly the most challenging year of my life and naturally some of that stress is pasted on to your children, no matter how hard you try to shield them from it.( Feel free to go back in my blog posts to see what happened with both Quinn and Oz, if you don’t already know the story.)

Finally in April of this year, we met with Dr. Valarie Kerschen at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita. After an almost 2 hour appointment, we left with hope that she would get us on the right track. Cub was doing quite a bit better than in 2017, but we still weren’t getting consistent words out of him. After a routine test by the dev. team here in Hays for his annual dev. profile, it was determined that Cub probably was not hearing again. I immediately called the ENT and got him in the next week.

Thank goodness for the ENT. She wanted to be very aggressive with treatment, because she knew what we were going through with Dr. Kerschen. He was hearing almost nothing at all, so she put us on a very strong antibiotic and wanted to see us back in 3 weeks. She also ordered an xray of his adenoids, which showed an enlargement. Fortunately when we went back to see them, he was hearing near perfectly, and we felt like we were back on track. He was also a different kid, imitating us and people around us, making new noises almost constantly, and following directions much better.

We had met with the Part B team prior to our second visit with Dr. Kerschen, and so Cub’s IEP was in place and ready for him to start in the fall. Everyone was in agreement that we were moving in the right direction and that Cub was making tons of progress.

June 5th… One of the worst days of my parenting life. At our second appointment with Dr. Kerschen, she announces that my son… MY SON… has autism. I wanted to scream and cry and yell at her for even thinking that. You want to know why? Because I know that is NOT the case.

On paper, maybe. But in real life, no chance. He is the smarted 2 year old you have ever met, physically gifted beyond belief and saying new words and phrases daily at this point. I honestly think we are simply the product of the perfect storm of events. Socialization and his ear problems started at the same time. We don’t know how long adenoids had been an issue, but once we got those taken care of this spring, my son has been a difference person. There are so many positive signs. No repetitive behavior. He’s not odd socially. He just likes to play by himself. I don’t like people. Why does he have to like people?!?

My new mission is life is to prove this doctor wrong. A label like Autism is devastating for a family, and to throw it around casually would be irresponsible of a doctor. Sensory issues, maybe, but Autism, NO WAY.

I’ve decided to chronicle our journey here, because, well I can, and because I am sure that there are other parents that have fought this same fight. I’m taking a stand for my kid, and we are going to work so hard that when we go back to see Dr. Kerschen in 2019, she will have no choice but to reverse the diagnosis. That is my crusade, and I won’t stop until we make it happen.