The time had finally arrived for the dreaded trip to the doctor’s office, the dreaded testing, the dreaded discussion. Terrible day. So full of dread. Couldn’t seem to shake it. My daughter and I tried to stay calm and to keep things light as we made our way to the hospital with that cute little guy in tow. “Hey Chunkster, want a cookie?” I asked. “Cookie,” he replied. “Hey, Boo, want a drink?” his mom asked. “Drink” came flying back at us. That’s it kiddo, keep communicating and show those morons that you are fine. “Oh see the sky?” “Sky.” “Look, look, there’s a little dog.” “Dog.” This kid was going to kick some butt today, yes indeed. All kinda, sorta felt well with the world, as we tried to let the dread fade into the nether regions of our minds.
While sitting in the waiting room it felt like the walls were pulsating with fear. Nothing happy here. No sir. New babies aren’t being born here. Marriage proposals aren’t being made here. Plans for Christmas aren’t discussed here. Good school grades aren’t achieved here. Grades are made but they are not the kinds of grades you want to be discussing.
Within a few moments Jen and I are laughing ourselves to the point of painful stomach spasms. A social worker walked into the lounge area, and we hear this little voice say, “Hi doll.” Being the uptight stoic that most therapists appear to be, she glanced his way yet didn’t even acknowledge him, and we laughed to the click of her heels receding down the hallway. If someone that cute ever called me doll I sure as heck would have smiled, especially when the person saying it is THREE years old! Way to go kid.
I have to admit there is a story behind “hi doll.” Because I spent so much time with Drake I was constantly using little terms of endearment; hi doll being one of them. The first thing I would say to this fantastic little kid whenever I saw him was, “Hi doll.” During a trip to the supermarket one wild and crazy day, he was sitting in the front of the cart with his little boy feet covered by the cutest little sneakers that lit up when he kicked something (preferably not me), when he looked towards the woman standing patiently behind me and said (in a voice that seemed to reverberate throughout the store), “Hi doll.” The startled woman laughed so hard I thought she would bust a gut right there on the spot. Imagine your day being made by a little kid with his light up sneakers dangling through the front of a grocery cart, smiling and calling you doll. Awesome. Everyone in the store must have thought that his father was the town flirt, a real loser who tries to pick up the babes with his little babe at his side. His poor, poor wife. Shameful I tell ya. Little did they know.
Back to the waiting room and the ticking of the clock and piles of paper work to be filled out. Questions, a quagmire of questions, a sea of questions, a never ending list of questions, running on and on to where we did not yet know. How do they think up so many darn questions is my question. This paper work is the moment of truth. “Do I answer like this?” Jen asks. “Should I put this down? Will this make it seem like that? Will that make it seem like this?” I told Jen, “answer from the heart, and hold nothing back; holding back would do more harm than good so let it all fly.” And fly it did.
The first few questions were easy: parent’s names, child’s name, place of birth, date of birth, ya da ya da ya da. Going down the list became harder and harder, to the point of actually getting confusing, until you realize they are phrasing already asked questions in different ways to see if your answers stay consistent. Yes, he does that. Yes, he sometimes does that. Nope, never does that. “Ma, what do you think I should put here?” Jen asks. “I guess you should put a question mark, ‘cause I think that happens more often than not,” I whispered. He does that, but don’t most kids? Started to wonder. The list of yes check marks seems to grow out of control. I feel like we are losing control. I sense my daughter starting to internally spiral down, down, towards that place where you do not want to be yet can’t reverse yourself. After an eternity passes and you think you can’t answer another question, we are called into the testing area, and I almost expected to hear a voice over a loud speaker announce: Let the games begin.
As the doctor speaks to my daughter and me (I let Jen do most of the talking; this is her son and I want her to feel she has the control,) Drake is off doing his own thing, seeming to have a good time and being quite entertaining: charming everyone in the room with his amazingly beautiful big brown eyes and awesome cuteness. Before long we are asked to leave the room so they can evaluate him totally on their own. We were so afraid that he would cry and carry on, throwing himself into a fit when he saw us leave the room. What an ego deflater—he was fine—we weren’t.
We walked around and worried, and went outside and worried, and went back upstairs and worried, and didn’t talk about anything and still we worried. We worried ourselves right back into the testing room after almost two hours to find out the results. Worry is an awful word, a terrible emotion. Wish it could be stricken from our vernacular.
And now for the moment of truth. As this truth is pouring forth in tidal waves, Drake is going along his merry little way, completely oblivious to the devastation falling all around him, like a rock slide that has no end; just keeps falling until it lands on you. When it landed it was with vengeance: Autism. Autistic…ringing throughout the room. Autistic…reverberating through our heads, banging and crashing around in our skulls until we felt we would scream out with pain. Autistic but high-functioning—wawawawawa. Does that mean there is a God? Oh God, oh God, oh God—wawawawawa. Seemed like the only sound I could hear was the wawawawawa running through my head. I tried to focus but have trouble doing so. Jen was already walking down her dark path and to have asked her anything at that time would have been pointless. I would just have to wait for her return.
He is high-functioning we are told. He will need speech, physical and occupational therapies. He will need to attend special education classes. Intense ABA therapy would be the greatest thing for him. Will he learn to smile, hug, make eye contact, be able to concentrate on things, be amazed at all of nature’s creatures? Will he be able to say I love you, I’m sorry, I want a cookie, say I hate you when he gets angry, play peek-a-boo? Will he learn how to communicate his wants and needs? Will he ever ask for and ice cream or soda or candy or a lollipop? Will we ever be able to ask him to please be quiet? He has to learn these things. We will make him learn these things.
I again looked at my daughter and can see that she has been sucked into a tunnel of darkness that shows no glimmer of light at the end. Nope, I can’t have that. We will confer in the car. We will bounce this back and forth. We will—actually I had no clue. The only thing I do know at the moment is the thought of going home and crying my heart out, emptying it of all that is felt there, numbing myself so I could go on.
While driving home something hit me like a ton of bricks; more like two or three tons. I realized that every time Drake spoke he was actually repeating everything he heard. That moment was an epiphany for me. Everything seemed to become crystal clear after that. Now I truly understood the meaning of the word echolalia. Such a beautiful sounding word. How could such a beautiful word have such an ugly definition? We had a tortuous road ahead of us, and I knew we would find the strength to go on, but at moment I had never felt more fragile and capable of shattering into millions of little pieces.
The hour it took to get home was agonizing. The sky didn’t look as blue as it had on the way to the hospital. The grass took on a weird shade of green. Everything appeared blurry and fractured, like looking through a broken piece of glass. For a moment it even looked like the sun had turned black, but only for a fleeting moment. The sun had to keep shining if we were going to survive this.
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