DON'T Give me Bad News over the Phone, Lady!

Yay! A successful day at school. Whew! When my son has a great day, it means that I have a great day. No one knows what goes through my mind on a daily basis. No wonder the gray hair have been coming in. I would have to say that I have been scarred, traumatized by daycares and with my sons teachers. I guess today is a good day to talk about how we came to find out that our son might have special needs.

When my daughter was born, I was working for a while, but it turned out that the person watching our kids decided she could no longer watch both, but offered to watch my daughter if we could find a different daycare for our son. We found one, and as the first day scheduled to have him attend, he was there for not more than 3 hours and we got called to pick him up b/c he was upset beyond consoling and the first thing that came out of the daycare providers mouth was "I'm not a doctor, but I think your son is Autistic, you're going to have to pick him up".

WHAT KIND OF PERSON TELLS ANOTHER PERSON, especially when it's about one's child, OVER THE PHONE?? I know that there is NO *good* way to tell bad news, but how can one swallow that type of news? I had to drive over to pick him up, crying hysterically, shaking, and nauseous. That was a DARK day for us. We picked him up, got him home and immediately we made phone calls upon phone calls of where we would get any type of assistance in getting to the bottom of this.

We finally made it through the school district and got him assessed w/ a Speech/Language Therapist, then the school district psychologist and it was concluded that my son's primary concern was Speech/Language Impairment. He began attending Special Ed Day School in March 2006 and was w/ other kids who were also Autistic, but were in a more fragile state than my son. My son was very social and very coordinated as opposed to the other kids who cowered at my son's presence b/c they not keen on emotional and/or social aspect.

So now, every day, I have this wave of fear and or panic (even 1 year later) that overcomes me every day as to whether or not I am going to be called because my son had a meltdown at school and/or I have to pick him up. So, like I said previously, if my son has a successful day, it's a GOOD day for me too. I know that this can't be healthy to live every day in fear, but it's something I need to work through. I'm still trying to find a local support group for autistic parents, which I've been having difficulty finding.

This is my year to be proactive, as I probably sound like a broken record now, and I'm trying to get myself and my family as educated as possible.

I don't think my political affiliation is of any near importance to anyone, but I will say that I haven't been a Bush supporter for my OWN good reasons, but I DO have to hand it to him, for recently (as of Dec. 6, 2006) signing one of the biggest legislations for Autism research. It's a proud era for parents who are fighting the same fight, to assist us with children who fall within the Autism Spectrum.

Today is another day I fight, trying to find all resources that I can to educate myself and hopefully others in their quest to understand this.