Tag Archives: labels

I Know.

18 Apr

I don’t know why I still feel the need to read through every new doctor report that I get about Oli. Especially when they are brain scans like MRI’s and EEG’s.

I mean, I know what they will say. I know how they will make me feel. I know that by the time that I reach the end of the report, I will feel that familiar heartache, sadness, emptiness, and hopelessness that I always walk away with.

I know that it will take me right back to all of those feelings that I felt, and ran from, in the beginning.

I don’t know why reading certain words about her makes me feel the way that it does.

I know that she is cognitively delayed. This is nothing new. I do know that there has to be changes in her brain that make her unlike other children her age.

I know that there are physiological reasons why she cannot dress herself, go the bathroom by herself, brush her teeth, talk, walk well, control her emotions…

I know all of these things, and yet I was still rocked and shocked when I read the words “static encephalopathy” on her latest EEG report.

Static encephalopathy?

Brain damage?

Huh?

My daughter doesn’t have brain damage. You, madam neurologist, are mistaken.
I googled the term “static encephalopathy”. This new, ugly label that you included in my daughter’s EEG report.
I googled it and I am totally regretting doing so. Although it didn’t really change anything. I already knew what those words meant.

Permanent brain damage.

Just seeing it written, actually written down, having been officially diagnosed, was enough for me.

Why did I have to read about it further on Google?

And why did the doctor not tell me herself that she suspected this?

Did she not know, that I didn’t know, that this is what they labeled her as?

Because I didn’t.

I didn’t know.

I just thought that she was delayed.

Just delayed.

I always think that it is a possibility that she will be able to catch up.

Maybe not completely. Maybe she would always be unique, but aren’t we all?

Did they have to go and write down, WRITE DOWN, that she has permanent brain damage?

Don’t they even care about my feelings?

Shouldn’t this new label have required an actual sit down with the doctor?

Shouldn’t an official diagnosis of “static encephalopathy” require a meeting with my family to explain what this means for my daughter? Why do they have to be such assholes and write down something like that in a report?

The only reason that I was able to read it was because I requested all of her records for this Medicaid waiver program that we’re trying to get her on. I wasn’t mailed a copy or given this piece of paper upon discharge from the hospital.

Now I sit here, with my daughter sitting beside me, tears pooling in my eyes, and whispering “I’m so sorry” once again.

I’m so sorry Oli. I’m sorry that this happened to you. I’m sorry that this is something that makes your life more difficult. I’m sorry that I had to read this ugly label and feel sad for you for a little while. I’m sorry that I had to look into your beautiful face, put my arms around you, kiss your neck, and let you feel my tears as they dripped down onto your shoulder. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you why I am crying.

I will make you the same promise that I have made to you since the day you were born.

I will NOT let this define you.

I will NOT let this hinder you or discourage you or slow you down in any way.

I will NOT let doctors or therapists or teachers read this about you and let them make decisions about your future based on what a piece of paper says.

I will make sure that they KNOW that this is NOT who you are.

I will make sure that they see everything that I see.

I will make sure that the world treats you the same as everyone else and in most cases…better.

Because you are my special little girl. You are capable of achieving any dream that your heart desires.

It doesn’t matter what a piece of paper says.

This…

I KNOW.

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Autism is just one color on the rainbow

27 Sep

I am doing an autism walk with and for Oli tomorrow. Because of that, I have been thinking a lot about what autism looks like and what it means in my family.

Oli was diagnosed with autism 3 years ago.

She was diagnosed by a team of specialists who specifically look at the differences between autism and blindness because they can appear on the outside to have shockingly similar behaviors.

Flapping in a typically developing sighted child is not part of normal (and I use that word loosely of course) development.

Flapping in a typically developing NON sighted child IS part of development.

A child speaking with echolalic patterns is not normal in a typically developing, sighted child.

Echolalia can be normal for a blind child.

Speaking, followed by a sudden lapse into being completely non verbal over a period of a few months, that is not caused by anything neurological…is NOT NORMAL in any child blind or sighted.

Yet this is exactly what my child did.

This is what led me to seek further answers by a team of specialists in Philadelphia.

This, along with other things, is what led to Oli’s diagnosis of autism.

So…there I was…3 years ago…raising a child with no vision, no language, and no way of communicating with me…

I was devastated.

This is the thing that kept running through my head,

“She can’t see. She can’t speak.”

Can you imagine, as a mother, what that feels like?

I had to face the reality that #1 Oli was never going to meet my gaze. She was never going to look into my eyes or look at me at all. I was never going to be able to look into her eyes and see an unspoken emotion that might lie hidden there. I was never going to be able to discern ANYTHING from her eyes.

And #2 Oli may never speak. I might never hear “I love you” roll off of her tongue.

(Granted, I might never hear the words “I hate you” either, spoken from the angst filled heart of a teenager, but that’s a different blog topic.)

Trying to explain this sadness to my family and friends was and still is difficult for me.

Most of them, when I do try and talk about it, respond with “Yeah but what if’s…” or “Yeah but it could be worse…”

They are right.

But it doesn’t make me feel any better.

I would rather hear “That must be hard” or “I’m sorry” or nothing at all.

I have found that the majority of the times that I do speak about the sadness, I do it NOT looking for answers to this problem. I am not looking for a solution to fix my heart. I am looking for an ear just to listen. I am only looking to get it off of my chest and express my sadness in words rather than bottle it all up inside and never speak about it. Which is what I did when she was born. I would rather tell you about it and leave it out there on the floor for those 5 minutes than carry it around with me for the next few days or weeks.

I know that Oli’s blindness is never going to be fixed or cured and it will never even improve. It just won’t. That’s life. That’s reality.

It took me longer to accept the fact that her autism will never be fixed or cured and it may never improve either.

But the truth is that it does not matter what label she has or what diagnosis she is given.

It doesn’t matter if those horrible evaluation histories label her as “Globally developmentally delayed” or “Autistic”.

It doesn’t matter because she still receives every possible service that would be available to her through either diagnosis.

And it doesn’t matter to me because that label says nothing about who she IS as a person. It may make her act a bit different on the outside. It may make language more difficult, but it will never define who she is as a person.

Just like the blindness will not define her.

It just won’t.

It took me a long time to figure that out too.

So today autism means less to me than it probably does to other people.

Autism for Oli is just one more color on the vibrant rainbow that makes her who she is on the outside.

But it can’t even come close to touching the spectacular kaleidoscope that she is on the inside.

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