Sinking Suspicions

In May, Noah had an appointment with his pediatrician. During the appointment, Noah spent most of his time feeling the texture on the walls and spinning the tires of a toy truck. We asked Dr. H if this was normal for a 15-month-old. We also expressed our concern that Noah was not responding to his name. Dr. H looked at us and said, "I've suspected something since I first met Noah. Do you care if I check a few things?" Of course we didn't mind! He left the room and returned with some blocks, a doll baby, and a few other things. He tried to get Noah to imitate him and stack blocks. Noah was not interested at all. Noah did, however, show enough interest in the doll to pick it up and throw it on the floor. Dr. H also called Noah's name to see if he would respond, but Noah only responded when Dr. H tapped him on the shoulder.

After he had finished, Dr. H looked at us and said, "I think Noah has a form of autism called PDD:NOS. Don't worry. It's not a death sentence. I have a form of autism myself called Aspberger's. We'll start therapy, get a formal diagnosis, and he will make progress." Dr. H set Noah up for a hearing test, a Speech evaluation, an Occupational therapy evaluation and told us to get in touch with our local Early Intervention Program, Help Me Grow. He also had Noah tested for all sorts of things. He tested him for Fragile X, food allergies, and stuff like that.

Within a month, Noah had passed his hearing test, was having weekly speech and occupational therapy and had a case manager through the Help Me Grow program. I think I was in some form of denial. When I spoke about the possibility that Noah may have autism, it was as if I was speaking of someone else's child. I remember also thinking that Noah was too affectionate, too social to have autism. It didn't help matters that most of the people involved with Noah didn't think he was autistic either. We were on a waiting list for an assessment at the Autism Center through Nationwide Children's. They said it could take 6 months to a year! I wanted, no I needed to know, now.

On a side note, we also discovered from the bloodwork that:

(1) Noah does not have Fragile X;
(2) Noah has an IGG allergy to casein;
(3) Noah had low Zinc, IGG, and Iron; and
(4) Noah has an extremely high amount of B12 in his system (the theory that Dr. H has is that Noah's body does not convert B-12 into Methyl B-12).

We started Noah on supplements for everything and took him off of dairy.