Diagnosis

A friend of mine’s teen-aged son was recently diagnosed with high functioning autism and has found it an overwhelming experience so far. It brought to mind our own experiences when Lego Lover was diagnosed almost nine years ago. We remember having such mixed emotions then. After all, someone finally saw what we could see and we weren’t barking mad. We had validation of our concerns and that was such a relief. It was also quite a shock to get this result and left us reeling for a little while afterwards. On top of that, there was a long list of things we had to now do to get help from anyone and everyone we could. And we only had a short time to do it as most of the support and services for autism are aimed at preschoolers. Once a child starts school, much of that support disappears and does not return until post-secondary school. Then there’s trying to explain to friends and family…sometimes victoriously, that we were right all along. :)

My friend is already getting lots of feedback from others about the evils of vaccination and the  “cures” for autism and other sorts of stuff that’s she really doesn’t need right now. Hopefully this rush of feedback will soon fall off and she and her son and family can just move on to figuring out what the future holds for them and getting on with life.