Hindsight

Looking back, I guess the signs were all there that something wasn't right with the Buzz.

    I remember a mom in my online mom's group talking about her son at 7 months waving bye. And I thought of Buzzy, and how at over a month older he wasn't even close. I tried to reassure myself that it was because we never really went anywhere or had too many people over, so he just didn't have experience with waving bye.

    At 6 months, I started signing to Buzzy. Every time right before I nursed him, I would sign "milk" and say "nurse, nurse, nurse!" just like I did with my girls. He never seemed to notice that I was signing to him or that anything was about to happen. After a few months of no reaction, I started signing less and less, until I just stopped except for every so often. There was no point to signing to someone who just didn't even seem to see what I was doing.

     By the time Buzzy was a year, I was truly worrying. He had no words and few sounds that he made. His pediatrician did a referral to Early Intervention. The wheels of government programs move slowly, though. He turned 1 in June. In October, he finally was evaluated. He met the criteria for an expressive language delay. He tested at around 7 months, when he was 12 months. There may have been an area where he tested at 6 months. Everything else at that time was on track or even ahead for him. Receptive language was good as were fine and gross motor skills.

     Once I knew he needed speech therapy I started going nuts. I wanted him to be in speech ASAP. However, we needed a spot to open up for him. Forget someone coming to the home - I would have to drive unless I wanted to wait even longer. And that was not an option.

    Finally, after almost 2 months of waiting (and a lot of phone calls on my part) we were able to get him into therapy. I had even tried to find private therapists, but was unsuccessful. At the same time, I was also waiting to get his hearing tested. And waiting. And waiting. I found a private audiologist and took matters into my own hands. We paid out-of-pocket and got his hearing tested.

     Buzzy failed in his right ear in December. But, since he had normal hearing in his left ear that wasn't the reason for his lack of speech. He was re-tested in January and he passed in his right ear. Perhaps he had fluid in December or an extra amount of wax. I had been afraid he might have hearing loss, but now I was back to square one with no explanation.

     Speech therapy continued every other week with little to no progress in his speech. His therapist suggested we increase his therapy to once a week, which I readily agreed with. I continued to do research and started learning about apraxia. It sounded like something he might have, but his therapist insisted no one diagnosed apraxia before 3.

     Then Kylie, Buzzy's SLP went on maternity leave. She was replaced with Amy. Then an opportunity came to have an SLP give services in our home, which I jumped on.

     Chelsie was fantastic. Buzzy began to make progress and was doing so well. Chelsie was great, and I dreaded the end of the summer when we would go back to Amy. I continued to read and learn about apraxia.

    Then, the dark days. We had to go back to driving and back to Amy. I don't know much about speech therapy, but while Buzzy blossomed under Chelsie, he did nothing with Amy. Gone were him learning 2 signs a week. Gone was any kind of progress. It was at this time I learned of the Kaufman Children's Center. And I knew I wanted Buzzy to be seen by Nancy.

    I put in a phone call and arranged to have one of his sessions with Amy recorded. I then sent the video to Nancy and waited to hear from her. I figured the worst she could say was that she couldn't help us. But, she didn't say that. She said she thought they could help him. (She also asked what sort of technique Amy was using and then I snorted and said I'd wondered the same!)

     We made arrangements to have Buzzy do a 4 day intensive speech therapy program at KCC in Michigan in October - almost one year after it was determined he even needed services in the first place. Around this time he reeceived a follow-up evaluation from EI. Now he was even more behind in expressive language. And behind in receptive language. And lagging in fine motor skills. And adaptive and self-help.

     Instead of re-qualifying for just speech, we now had a couple of other areas that needed addressing. And it was at this point that on my bad days, I started to wonder if there was really something more wrong.

     I kept telling myself (and letting others' observations reassure me) that it wasn't autism. It couldn't be autism, because Buzzy made good eye contact. Looking back on that - he made better eye contact when he was younger. As he got older, that was diminishing.

     We were losing him, and we just didn't know it.