Well here it goes...
As you may know, the ones of you who've been following Matthew and I on our little journey, we had our "special" appointment today. I never dreamed it would come up this quick.
As most of you know, I've been struggling for over a year now with clinic visits and doctors and specialists trying to figure out what is going on with Matthew. And no I don't really have the cause of his being the he is, but I do have something ruled out.
Matthew, Sean and I headed into the Childrens Care Hospital and School this morning for our 8:00 appointment with Dr. Blake (Sanford Hospital's ONLY developmental peditrician specialist) along with a couple other members on the team at CCHS.
I knew coming into this appointment it probably isn't going to be a cheap little deal but I also know that the other doctors I have talked to have many good words of praise and speak very highly of Dr. Blake, and so therefore I was really just needing to hear what he had to say. Sure I could have done the same appointment with his CNP, but that just wasn't the same as hearing it from here.
Anyway, back to the appt. We get there and fill out our information and they get Matthew's weight and height and whatnot, we go in and do the "baby clinic". It's a team of Dr. Blake, Robin (an OT), and Tanya (a speech therapist).... all the while I'm talking to Dr. Blake, discussing some medical history and concerns and whatnot, the two ladies are playing with Matthew, doing their little tests and things on him. Same kind of thing as the LEND clinic we did in May 07, just not as extensive.
Matthew showed his true colors too. He was happy and wanted to do some things, but then he was really pissy and showed that side of him to them as well. He gave him his emotional meltdowns complete with his new trick of hitting himself in the head.
Now you guys know all along I (along with my mom) have been thinking Autism. You know, the triangle type thing: poor communication, poor social skills, and the repetitive nature (which I naturally assumed was the hitting thing because he doesn't flap his hands, spin or line up anything).
Sure Matthew's made some improvements... but he doesn't mean it when he kisses me or hugs me. I make him do these things. He's told to immitate words. I'm sure he doesn't understand what he's saying.
So during the course of the eval, Matthew was playing pretty good with the ladies, he even stacked 7 blocks. I was quite impressed.
So after Dr. Blake was done speaking with Sean and I... he did a small physical evaluation. He did get him to imitate him (Dr. Blake) blowing out a flashlight on and off, it was cute, but Matthew didn't quite form his lips right, checked his eyes, ears, nose, listened to his heart and breathing and whatnot.
So that was about it of the evaluation.
Here comes the part which still totally sucks.
Ok, I better tell you now, Dr. Blake says he doesn't have Autism. Yes, a big sigh of relief..... But there's more... he said ONLY because Matthew does have some sort of connection, even though it's not much of a connection to ME. Matthew has never been cuddly, or things like that... he actually prefers his sippy cup for comfort over me. Which is really hard for me to deal with. And Autistic kids at Matt's age would have NOTHING to do with other people socially.
Basically, Matthew's motor skills are great. Right on track. He'll spike into a 36 month old range, so it's Normal there for his age. He might have a few fine motor skills a little behind but nothing major.
Onto his speech/language skills. This is the sad part again, which I always hate hearing. Matthew speech is at a 6 month level. Makes me cry just writing that. In different parts, it'll spike to a 15 month level. Ok how old is Matthew? Well he's 33 months old. That's tough you know. You have this almost 3 year old kid, that's back in the infant to just starting to walk area. It's like he's improved a little from the LEND evaluation. Some of those were only 1-6 month old sounds and things.
Some of the other things Dr. Blake asked was about how Matt chews and what he eats. I was thinking what on earth does this have to do with anything, but it does make sense. Matthew is quite irritable and whatnot, of course you know he is 2, terrible 2's they say..... but, the fact that Matt doesn't care for meat made Dr. Blake want to pull some blood today to see if he is iron deficient. Could be the cause of some of the irritibility. So I'll let you know on that. Oh yah, and the fragile X was negative. But maybe it's something with his oral motor skills, for the fact he doesn't like hard things to chew and sticks to only soft things.
So that was pretty much it for evaluation.
Oh I forgot to tell you guys, this guy from CCHS came to see Matt at daycare last week and didn't really seem to red flag him for Autism or whatnot... then I get a call today after this evaluation that they'd do a FREE autism screening for me. Talk about timing. Lol. So I told them what Dr. Blake said but I'd think it just because it is free maybe 6 months down the road just to have it done.
Anyway, sorry for the lengthy-ness of this. I'm going to write one more blog just to let you know what needs to be done now.
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