What is his story???

In my first post, I briefly described who Jamison is.    If you didn't read it, Jamison is my two year old son; who has been diagnosed as autistic.   But the title of the blog is "Jamison's Story".  So what is his story?   If you are familiar with autism, and family's stories around dealing with autism, then our story will sound like most others....I just wish so very much that I had chosen to write this blog months and months ago so I could have captured the full lifecycle of Jamison's autism.   As a result, unfortunately the following descriptions may seem somewhat vague, especially when it comes to dates and time lines.

Jamison was born a beautiful healthy boy on August 8, 2007.    He was delivered via a schedule cesarean section; a result of complications during the birth of our first child, Rianna.   He seemed and appeared "normal", just like any other boy would have.    During his infancy, the only thing that we were concerned with was his adversity to the formula he was on Similac (the same that we had used with Rianna) but he just wouldn't keep it down.   We decided to try Nestle, I think a friend of my wife had suggested it.  Phew.....it seemed to work.

Jamison grew up in the footsteps of his big sister Rianna, who was well ahead of other kids her age when it came to development; both physical and cognitive.   So when my wife first mentioned to me that she had some concerns over Jamison's development early on, I thought nothing of it; thinking that he just appears to be behind because of Rianna's accelerated accomplishments.  Nonetheless, we talked to his physician about it.  She echoed some of our early concerns (he had a terrible time sleeping; sometimes up most of the night, he only "scooted" on his bum instead of crawling and he had a difficult time holding himself up while in the sitting position).   The result was our first interaction with Early Intervention.  Jamison underwent some therapy sessions with EI.  We were very disappointed in the early approach taken by EI.   Between the missed and cancelled sessions, we ended up calling off EI altogether.....and why not Jamison had begun to hold himself up when sitting; but still never fully crawled (nor did he ever).

After stopping EI, Jamison began developing on par with what we expected.   He was playing joyfully with Rianna and also by himself.  He even began speaking; the typical first words, dada, mama, hi.

At some point (and this is where the timing is vague) Jamison began to regress.  He was in the 18-20 month old range.  My wife and I have racked our brains to try and determine a more concrete date to see if there were any events that may have coincided with this change (specifically the MMR vaccination).     He lost the ability to speak those few small words that we loved to hear him mutter.   He no longer responded to his name.   He also began to take on some strange characteristics.    He became fixated on rotating wheels; often lying on the floor to watch himself roll a car in front of his eyes.   He also took on pacing.  The pacing was strange in that he'd pace along a wall or line of objects (grocery carriages for example) with his face as close to the object as he possibly could....most times resulting in a bruise or cut above the eye.

My wife and I both noticed the changes.  She kept telling me; "something is wrong, something is wrong."   I remember saying "he's two years old, that's what two year olds do"!    But to my wife's credit, she didn't listen to me and engaged with the pediatrician again.   The pediatrician agreed that we should begin doing some evaluations with EI again.   Despite our first unsuccessful encounter with them, we agreed.  In addition, my vigilant wife (again to her credit) was not going to settle just on EI.   She made phone call after phone call and appointment after appointment with therapists, doctors, and specialists.   She even called the neurologist directly; as she was not going to take the orginal appointment date that was 6 weeks out....sure enough she got us in early   In the meantime, we started therapy with EI, ABA, and a private facility located nearby.

Long story short (this entry is already long enough), we saw the neurologist who confirmed what we feared.  "Your son is autistic".   For a second I thought I heard him say "is not autistic", but with Jamison screaming in my arms, I guess I was just hearing what I wanted to hear.    The doctor left the roon with my wife so they could talk about the next steps; while I was left with Jamison in my arms crying.....he was not the only one.