Surviving Autism

Realizing and accepting that your child has autism is a process.  I did not immediately accept that my daughter has it.  It’s because she grew up very normal until she was two, and the first doctor we went to for assessment said she is just globally delayed and will pull through at 6 or 7 years old.

After a year on her first assessment I went to another developmental pediatrician for another .  This time the doctor said my daughter has Asperger.  A milder form of autism but not really autism.  She said she is between high functioning autism and ADHD. The doctor recommended therapy three times a week.

She went through therapy after the second assessment.  It was expensive at P500 an hour.  I was able to support the few months but then  since I was a single mom,  her therapy  stopped .    Aside from the therapy being expensive, I also have to tend to our financial needs other than bring her to her therapy and travel 3 hours a day round trip and then go to work.  I was getting crazy, I could not cope.

I had to accept this one job that will give me financial freedom after doing it.   And luckily I was able to save and buy some stuff I would need to be a work-at-home mom.

We went to another development pediatrician for her assessment and this time the assessment was rigorous and not just an hour talking to the parent, looking at the kid and make her do several task where the doctor will make an opinion of what she thinks your child problem was according to his or her checklist.

Aside from having BAER, they also did an EEG (Electroencephalogram) and MRI. That’s the only time our present doctor concluded that my child has autism.  Her doctors, now she has a neurodevelopmental physician (neuro) aside from her dev ped, found out she has epilepsy/ seizures.  That was devastating to hear but I’m glad I was finally told.

After finding out about her autism and epilepsy her doctors recommended some maintenance medicine.  The medicine helped a lot with her sleep.  She used to wake in the middle of the night and stay awake all night but with the medicine her sleep got better and she is not as hyper as she used to be.