My College Papers - New Tab Added

     I have added a new tab to the AOTA blog. It's called "My College Papers", and these are papers that I wrote for college about Teagan and his disabilities. There is a lot of good information in these, and I thought I would share them. Just click on the "My College Papers" for the link or click on the "My College Papers" tab at the top of the blog, then click on the titles to view the actual papers. Please respect my generosity, and do not copy these papers and submit them as your own. Thank you.

A Mother's Worst Fear

     I will never forget the day that my role as mother of a normal child ended, and my role as advocate for a disabled child began.
     When my husband and I decided to have a child, we both envisioned this beautiful, healthy, glowing cherubic treasure. We planned (and argued) for months over what to name the baby once it was born. We were not fortunate enough to learn the gender beforehand, but this only added to the mystery and wonder that is pregnancy. It was finally decided that it would be named Teagan for a boy or Trista for a girl. Regardless, when our child was born, we were excited and a little scared. We had gone from happy couple to family of three in a matter of hours, and neither of us was fully prepared for the transition.
     Teagan was everything we dreamed, ten fingers, ten toes, cherubic face; and ours. At every pediatric check-up, everything seemed fine. He was a little chubby for his percentile, but fat babies make happy babies.
     When Teagan was four months old, we noticed he held his head to the left. We weren’t overly concerned, until we looked back at the hundreds of photos we had taken of our precious gift. In every photo since birth, he held his head in the exact same position. Red flags went up and sirens were wailing in our heads. We took him to the pediatrician, and explained our concerns.
“He’s just holding his head that way, there’s nothing to worry about,” was the pediatrician’s reply.
     Here, I will explain briefly, about the type of mother Teagan was born to. I was never one to take no for an answer, and if I tell you something, it would be best to just do it, than incur my wrath... in other words, one very forceful bitch.  I obviously returned to the pediatrician a few weeks later with photos, website information about a condition called Infant Torticollis, and one very bad temper.
     The pediatrician looked everything over, and agreed it was Infant Torticollis. He’s lucky he left work that day with his life intact, because at that moment, I wanted to strangle him.
     Six months of physical therapy later, and all seemed to be going very well for little Teagan, or so we thought. As you have read from my earlier posts, Teagan has been diagnosed with many other diagnoses, so the battle still wages on.

     I became a mother when Teagan was born, but my role as advocate began with Torticollis. Teagan is 8 years old now, and I am still waging war with his school, therapists, and doctors, to ensure he receives the necessary services to succeed as far as he is able. To a mother, the sky is always the limit for her child.

Autism - Take 1

     So, obviously new to blogging, but thought it might be a good idea to start putting some thoughts out there for others who may be suffering as our family does.  Obviously, from the title of this blog, we are a family affected by Autism, among other things... 
     I guess I should start from the beginning.  I never wanted children.  I had been a babysitter and nanny since the age of 15, and though I loved other people's children, I didn't want any of my own.  However, once I met my husband, that all seemed to change.  We got married, and 1 1/2 months after our wedding, we were conceiving.  Though I never wanted children, I could never imagine my life without our special little guy, Teagan.
     Teagan was born two weeks early because of complications during pregnancy.  Four months after, he was diagnosed with Infant Torticollis.  Infant Torticollis is defined as, "...prolonged tightening (contraction) of the neck muscles that causes the head to turn to one side."  http://www.ptworkingforyou.com/tort.html  After six months of physical therapy, all was well.  However... when at nearly two years of age, he still was not crawling, we knew something else was wrong.  He was also not speaking.  Eventually the crawling turned into running in a short period of time, but it took six months of speech therapy to go from saying three words, "mama", "dada" and "peas" for please, to speaking like a normally developed three year old. 
     During all this time, we were noticing something else going on with Teagan.  He absolutely loved The Wiggles.  But everytime he would watch one of their videos, something strange would happen, and it appeared he was listening to someone speak in his ear, while his eyes would roll up into his head.  Obviously, we had MRI's and other scans done, but nothing came of them.  To this day, we are still trying to get these diagnosed, but from the research I have done, I have come to the conclusion that these are a type of epileptic seizure induced by music.  There is such a thing called musicogenic epilepsy, but we have not been able to get them diagnosed.  Either way, when he has these episodes, they are always induced by music, which is worrisome, because when he is older and driving a car, it could pose life-threatening.
     Teagan was diagnosed with severe Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at the age of 3.  And believe me when I say severe... the doctor said it was the most severe case she had ever seen in a 3 year old.  Cue the energizer bunny.  On to age 4, when he was diagnosed with high-functioning Autism.  At this point in our lives, our only exposure to Autism was from the movie Rainman.  Obviously, my son is nothing like that man portrayed in the movie, but at the time, we were totally freaking out, wondering how we would be able to deal with this new diagnosis.  I have to say that we are very, very, VERY fortunate that Teagan is high-functioning.  I have met other families who were not so fortunate, and I cannot imagine not being able to hear those precious words, "I love you", spill from his sweet lips. 
     At the age of 5, Teagan was diagnosed with Oppositional-Defiant Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, and Central Auditory Processing Disorder.  For those who do not know what these are, I will briefly explain each.  Oppositional-Defiant Disorder (ODD) is "... an ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behavior toward authority figures that seriously interferes with the youngster’s day to day functioning". http://aacap.org/page.ww?name=Children+with+Oppositional+Defiant+Disorder&section=Facts+for+Families  Sensory Processing Disorder has many names; Sensory Integration Dysfunction, Sensory Integration Disorder, etc..., and it is defined as "...the way the nervous system receives messages from the senses and turns them into appropriate motor and behavioral responses". http://www.sinetwork.org/about-sensory-processing-disorder.html   By the way, this website has an awesome book available in libraries that really goes into detail about the day-to-day rituals children go through in order to avoid overstimulation from sensory issues.  Teagan is affected by sound, sight, and textures of clothing, food, etc.  Central Auditory Processing Disorder is "...an umbrella term for a variety of disorders that affect the way the brain processes auditory information. It is not a sensory (inner ear) hearing impairment; individuals with APD usually have normal peripheral hearing ability. However, they cannot process the information they hear in the same way as others do, which leads to difficulties in recognizing and interpreting sounds, especially the sounds composing speech". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder
     Later on, he was also diagnosed with Separation Anxiety, which presents itself whenever we leave him at school.  He clings to us and gets visibly and physically upset, fearing we will not return for him, but we always have and always will.  He's had this since pre-k at the age of 3, and now at age 8, still has not outgrown it. 
     So, now that I've gotten all the history and diagnoses out of the way, I thought I'd explain why I started this blog.  It is one part raising awareness for Autism and the other diagnoses Teagan suffers from, one part sharing the daily struggles (or weekly, depending on when I have time to write) that we deal with, and one part the hilarity that is living with Autism.  Yes, you read that right.  There is great humor and entertainment when living with a child with Autism.  Teagan is just about the funniest child ever, and I hope you all enjoy the exploits I write about, as much as I enjoy living them... well, most of the time.  Don't forget that Autism is an ongoing battle and there are many, many struggles both inside and outside the home that we must face on a daily basis.  But, for the most part, it is enjoyable having a child like Teagan, and I wouldn't trade him for the world.