Day One

There are certain days and events that will be forever burned in your memory. The sights, the sounds, the smells.... Even though I've been around for going on thirty years, I don't have many of these days. Getting my high school diploma, walking down the aisle, getting my first positive pregnancy test, suffering a miscarriage, and the birth of my son Jesse comprise my list.

And then today happened. My beautiful, perfect little boy was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified.

What does it mean? I'm not entirely sure. I do know that PDD-NOS is an autism spectrum disorder and that it scares the shit out of me. I've been avoiding google, because I'm not quite ready to dive into this just yet. I'm still adjusting to the shock of it all.

Jesse is the most wonderful little boy. He's incredibly loving - very generous with kisses and hugs. He flirts with pretty girls and ladies. He's very gentle around other children and adores older kids. He's incredibly smart (I know all parents say that about their kids, but other people have noticed this too). So how did Jesse end up with a diagnosis of PDD-NOS? I'll give you the long version later, but the short version, is that speech issues led us to an appointment with the developmental team neurologist, Dr. Crosby, who assured us that Jesse was almost certain a perfectly healthy normal little boy. But she suggested a team assessment just to completely rule out anything else. So we went to Jesse's appointment with the developmental team today fully expecting them to say to us, "What are you doing here? Your kid is fine." That didn't happen. After going over the assessment with the other team members (occupational therapist, speech language pathologist, psychologist?) Dr. Crosby met with us. In under two minutes my head was swirling with information that I was just failing to comprehend. "Autism spectrum", "Pervasive Developmental Disorder," "Social worker", "lead therapist", "therapy program".........

In a matter of minutes, our whole world turned upside down. Nothing has really changed. I mean, Jesse is the same child he was yesterday. Still the same happy, loving, wonderful child he was yesterday. Right now I have to remind myself of that constantly. But everything else has changed. Yesterday I was planning on starting a new business venture that would, hopefully, in the future, allow me to reduce my hours away from home. We've been planning to grow our family. Both of those are on hold indefinitely now. I have so much to do and learn. I have to help Jesse get better. I don't want my little boy to have to deal with a world that views him as "damaged." I just feel so ill-equipped to do this.