{"id":13437,"date":"2018-09-21T08:50:54","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T12:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=13437"},"modified":"2018-09-21T08:50:54","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T12:50:54","slug":"im-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2018\/09\/im-back\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u200bFirst of all readers, I apologize.<\/p>\n

I always find it difficult to write in the summer, what with the driving to the twelve camps and the beach and the playdates, all of which I\u2019m grateful my youngest can participate in. But quite honestly this summer was both so wonderful for Zach and so brutal for Justin that my heart wasn\u2019t into writing about it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m slowly working my way back.<\/p>\n

Some things have changed since I last wrote in July, and some of have remained the same. We think we have a new diagnosis (and hopefully his last, a story for another time) of tics\/stereotopy, a condition he\u2019ll probably always have, but in theory can be ameliorated with treatment. We are hopefully going to get in to see one more doctor in November who actually sees adolescents (a miracle!) to confirm the diagnosis and treatment plan, and we will continue to work with his neurologist.<\/p>\n

Over the last eleven months we\u2019ve had consults with seven different doctors ranging from Israel to CHOP, Kennedy Krieger to UPenn. We\u2019ve had literally seven different potential diagnoses.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been confusing to say the least.<\/p>\n

Of course, just like with autism, there\u2019s no blood test to confirm any of this, so we\u2019re going on instinct here and believe the last doctor we saw is right.<\/p>\n

I hope he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

I may know more in November. At this point we are just hoping for closure and a corroboration of the plan we received a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

And of course, we\u2019re hoping to help our boy.<\/p>\n

Quite honestly, this has been awful for him. I thought having severe autism and OCD were challenging enough, but apparently the universe had other plans for him, plans which have completely pissed me off. We\u2019ve seen regression in some of his life skills, his speech, and his capacity for joy, which has always sustained him. I\u2019m hoping with time and treatment we can at least bring some of these things back to him.<\/p>\n

I just want back \u201cour normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

I will be writing more in the weeks to come. On the bright side, my youngest loves middle school (who knew anyone could love middle school) and is doing fabulously. My anxiety this summer helped facilitate some weight loss (woohoo!) that hopefully my new calmer state will not undue. Justin has been calmer, and there are still glimpses of our happy boy.<\/p>\n

Always have to be grateful for something.<\/p>\n

And for anyone still reading this blog, I\u2019m grateful for you too.<\/p>\n

For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u200bFirst of all readers, I apologize. I always find it difficult to write in the summer, what with the driving to the twelve camps and the beach and the playdates, all of which I\u2019m grateful my youngest can participate in. But quite honestly this summer was both so wonderful for Zach and so brutal for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[293,1637,3467,3466],"class_list":["post-13437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county","tag-autism","tag-ocd","tag-stereotopy","tag-tics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3uJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}