DIAGNOSIS

The day has come! We officially have a diagnosis of Autism for Ginja. I couldn't be more relieved knowing the doors this opens for her and the support for our family. I am thankful I followed my gut and pushed back against the drs saying she was an average toddler with behaviour issues. Now onto opening doors.

Updates

Today out oldest is going on his third school field trip and is beyond excited to be going to a water park. I think I have heard something about this trip about ten times a day for the last ten days. 

The last few months since I last wrote have been busy. I started a new job in the esthetic field and am thoroughly enjoying myself. I work part time around hubby's hours so we are not putting the kids in child care. Hubby has not gotten any better from his head and neck injury that occurred in January of this year and we just got to meet with a specialist last week. Hubby has what they call an acute brain injury with some post concussive syndrome symptoms. So the next few steps will be an epply procedure to attempt to rebalance his equilibrium through his ears. The Dr doesn't think this will help but everything must be ruled out. Next step will be to stop all medication! I am not looking forward to this portion as I know how much pain hubby is in. I will have to take the two weeks surrounding this appt off. If that doesn't help which dr doesn't think it will is to start injections into the neck in the injured areas. The good news is there is no internal bleed and there are no breaks.

Our dearest Ginja. I'm not sure if there is a full moon on our everyday but she has definitely kept us on our toes. The meltdowns have been more intense and more frequent with a lot of stimming. She went through a throwing stage in her room so now all hard toys have been removed, she has her double bed and stuffed animals. We finished speech this past week with our best appointment yet. There was excitement to see her speech and language pathologist, good waiting room play with stacking blocks and an easy transition into the room. She followed the schedule, with minimal distractions but those are expected. I felt our Friday the 13th was going well, then the day took a drastic turn. I left ten minutes earlier to grab lil man and a friends little girl that we carpool with and hubby was home early so I left the girls with him. I headed to the bank and still arrived at the school well before pickup time. I was talking to another mom when I got a phone call that every parent dreads. Ginja had escaped, which has happened before and the farthest she ever went in the past was the backyard. We had installed alarms and a device called the guardian that keeps the door shut and is a three step process to open. While dad was putting her sister for a nap she opened it all, and escaped! The police were called and the search began, I pulled my son and the little girl we carpool from class and sped like a madwoman home, I called one of my hubby's friends that Ginja adores to come help us, he said he would be right on the way. About 5 minutes later he called me back to tell me he had found Ginja, turns out she had walked over 3 kms in ten minutes through a thunder storm and ended up in the general area of his house. I was so relieved that she was found, and by someone she adores. Our friend and his wife brought her in changed her wet clothes gave her a juice box while I raced over there. We filled out the police report and then I took her home to her Daddy. It was the scariest moment as a parent and we know she is a flight risk and have put proper procedures into place to prevent her from getting out. So next step is more safety precautions, more locks and an emergency protocol. I am in the process of creating a protocol sheet with two pictures of her, all her pertinent information like height, weight etc and identifying marks along with information for when she is found. She is delayed in speech but more verbal than some cases of autism that we know. I am really looking forward to tomorrow's appointment with her specialist in Ottawa.