Thursday, February 21, 2013

Evals are done, now we wait

Like the title says, the evaluations are done and now we wait. There were two appointments, one for cognitive testing and one for diagnostic testing. There was a ton of paperwork: forms, questionnaires, and observations. And now we wait. The doctor still has a few phone calls to make (to Thomas' school, and to his OT) and has to tally scores, and write the report, but we should have some answer next Thursday.

Here's where I admit that I have no idea which way I want this to go. On one hand, and ASD diagnosis would open a ton of doors for help at school, and therapies that we hadn't thought of. On the other, it would mean that our son has Autism.

Now, don't get me wrong. An ASD diagnosis isn't the end of the world. If  Thomas qualifies for diagnosis, he is very high functioning, and a diagnosis doesn't change who our son is. But it's still scary.

I'm equally scared that he doesn't qualify for a diagnosis, and we will be back where we were last month, with our son struggling more than ever and we still have no answers. No additional help.

At the diagnosis evaluation today the doctor tried to explain a few of his preliminary findings, and I literally only heard about every third word. Well, that's how many I understood anyway. It's not that he was using a lot of big words that I don't know or anything like that, it was that my brain had shut down because of panic. Will he, won't he? Does he, doesn't he? I heard "Thomas is extremely bright, no Thomas is exceptionally bright." When I was asked if I though that Thomas had trouble making friends because he didn't understand the social cues of the other kids, or was it more that he didn't have the attention span to wait around to get answers to questions, etc, my answer was "yes." Both are accurate. But every question I answered, I had the thought in the back of my mind "don't screw this up...you want/don't want this diagnosis." it's no wonder that the past two days Thomas and I are both mentally exhausted!

The next week is going to be very, very long as we wait for our review of findings appointment. In the meantime, I am trying to think of questions, or additional observations to share with the doctor. I love that he encouraged me and Josh to email him over the next few days with additional comments and/or questions. It will give me a chance to calm my brain, and think clearly about any important information I left out.


No comments:

Post a Comment