Maresa
01-12-2005, 10:36 PM
Hello all,
Just realized that I have not yet formally introduced myself yet. My name is Maresa, and Im the mother of 4 girls. Kristen 10, Stephanie 8, Caitlin 6 and Meagan 1. Our 6 year old Caitlin, started exhibiting signs of abnormalities at 18 months of age shortly after her 16 month old imminuzations.
Prior to this Caitlin was very normal in every respect and had already aqquired over a dozen words that she used to respond and communicate with us. After she received her imminuzations there was a decline so gradual that we did not notice until appx 2 months later that something was wrong with her. During this period of time she stopped communicating all together, would have terrible and violent outbursts of temper, ignored us when we called her name, preffered being alone, liked to line up objects from one end of the house to the other, and was having frequent staring spells. Additionally, Caitlin's right eye seemed as if it was misaligned very slighly outward.
Not knowing what could be wrong, and after hearing so many relatives dismiss my worries, I did nothing. However, 6 months later I found bloody footprints across my kitchen floor and became alarmed! None of my children were crying, I promptly grabbed Caitlin, and discovered she had stepped on a broken glass christmas bulb in the garage. It was then I knew, something was seriously wrong. Surely that must have hurt! I called her pediatrician and was told to bring her in. They promptly reffered her to Shands hospital for a visit to the pediatric neurologist. I was also reffered to the early intervention program with the public schools, and later to private speech and occupational therapies.
As I had to wait on the refferals I decided to research on my own about my daughter's strange and puzzling symptoms and found symptoms of Autism to match my daughter's symptoms. My husband also agreed upon reading about Autism that this is what our daughter must have! Additionally, we believed that our daughter was having seizures, petit mal and that we would discuss this with her neurologist at our upcoming appt.
The day finally came for the appt, Caitlin was scheduled for an EEG, and MRI. The MRI came back normal with no abnormalities. The EEG showed signifigant abnormalities and it was later determined (at age 4.8) through a 5 day video EEG that Caitlin was having several seizures and abnormal brain activity signifigant for Focal Seizures in her right hemisphere. They also discovered an eptilogenic region in her brain that will heighten her risk for grand-mal seizures. Henceforth, she has medication that we keep to inject just in case. We decided not to give her medicine on a daily basis for the focal seizures. Additonally, the pediatric neurologist signed an order that our daughter is to receive no more vaccinations as this is what is believed to have triggered the seizures; thus causing the delays and autism type symptoms.
While she was hospitalized at 4.8 years old, a team of pediatric psychologists came in and concurred at the time they thought our daughter had PDD-NOS. They conducted brief testing, and Caitlin would not cooperate with the intern. She had been watching Dora The Explorer and was confined to her hospital bed for 3 days at this point. The Psychology intern, shut off the television on her without warning or preparing her. Therefore, they felt under the conditions in which she was tested their results might be questionable. they urged us to follow up with more testing.
I was given a refferal for and joined CARD (Center for Autism and Related disabilites) in Florida. To get more support and changed my major at my university to Psychology. It is my hope to get my Masters in Developmental Psychology to work with these children. I have a 4.0 GPA and have obtained 84 credit hours towards my Bachelors
I have met many, many autistic children. To me they are so unique and special and they make me smile. I have learned alot from my Caitlin, and she from me. She is affectionate, and extremely bright and funny. She is extremely verbal now, although she has many difficulites understanding concrete conversations, and reading cues from other people. She believes that everyone loves her, and it hurts her more than anything for other children to say to her that they will not be her friend.
She has come a long way from where she was. She did not become verbal until 4, she did not use a spoon until 3. Acedemically speaking, in the beginning they offered me little hope when she ws 2 as to the outcome of her future. This year she started kindergarten and is in a integrated class. She is right on target with her kindergarten skills although the teacher has to constantly redirect her attention. She has auditory processing deficits so she was approved for headset use in her classes and it is a big help. In addition they ran additional tests on her and just this week the school Psychologist whom has a Phd; diagnosed her "Autistic" for her IEP, and she will get everything she needs! Yay! The school Psychologist thinks Caitlin is actually Aspergers as she is extremely high functioning, however he said that the lable of Autism will ensure that she will get all she needs as Florida school system does not recognize Aspergers as "Autism". Very sad indeed, because there is such a broad scope to this spectrum.
Anyway, this is the jest of our story. It is nice to be here and meet all of you. :)
Maresa
Just realized that I have not yet formally introduced myself yet. My name is Maresa, and Im the mother of 4 girls. Kristen 10, Stephanie 8, Caitlin 6 and Meagan 1. Our 6 year old Caitlin, started exhibiting signs of abnormalities at 18 months of age shortly after her 16 month old imminuzations.
Prior to this Caitlin was very normal in every respect and had already aqquired over a dozen words that she used to respond and communicate with us. After she received her imminuzations there was a decline so gradual that we did not notice until appx 2 months later that something was wrong with her. During this period of time she stopped communicating all together, would have terrible and violent outbursts of temper, ignored us when we called her name, preffered being alone, liked to line up objects from one end of the house to the other, and was having frequent staring spells. Additionally, Caitlin's right eye seemed as if it was misaligned very slighly outward.
Not knowing what could be wrong, and after hearing so many relatives dismiss my worries, I did nothing. However, 6 months later I found bloody footprints across my kitchen floor and became alarmed! None of my children were crying, I promptly grabbed Caitlin, and discovered she had stepped on a broken glass christmas bulb in the garage. It was then I knew, something was seriously wrong. Surely that must have hurt! I called her pediatrician and was told to bring her in. They promptly reffered her to Shands hospital for a visit to the pediatric neurologist. I was also reffered to the early intervention program with the public schools, and later to private speech and occupational therapies.
As I had to wait on the refferals I decided to research on my own about my daughter's strange and puzzling symptoms and found symptoms of Autism to match my daughter's symptoms. My husband also agreed upon reading about Autism that this is what our daughter must have! Additionally, we believed that our daughter was having seizures, petit mal and that we would discuss this with her neurologist at our upcoming appt.
The day finally came for the appt, Caitlin was scheduled for an EEG, and MRI. The MRI came back normal with no abnormalities. The EEG showed signifigant abnormalities and it was later determined (at age 4.8) through a 5 day video EEG that Caitlin was having several seizures and abnormal brain activity signifigant for Focal Seizures in her right hemisphere. They also discovered an eptilogenic region in her brain that will heighten her risk for grand-mal seizures. Henceforth, she has medication that we keep to inject just in case. We decided not to give her medicine on a daily basis for the focal seizures. Additonally, the pediatric neurologist signed an order that our daughter is to receive no more vaccinations as this is what is believed to have triggered the seizures; thus causing the delays and autism type symptoms.
While she was hospitalized at 4.8 years old, a team of pediatric psychologists came in and concurred at the time they thought our daughter had PDD-NOS. They conducted brief testing, and Caitlin would not cooperate with the intern. She had been watching Dora The Explorer and was confined to her hospital bed for 3 days at this point. The Psychology intern, shut off the television on her without warning or preparing her. Therefore, they felt under the conditions in which she was tested their results might be questionable. they urged us to follow up with more testing.
I was given a refferal for and joined CARD (Center for Autism and Related disabilites) in Florida. To get more support and changed my major at my university to Psychology. It is my hope to get my Masters in Developmental Psychology to work with these children. I have a 4.0 GPA and have obtained 84 credit hours towards my Bachelors
I have met many, many autistic children. To me they are so unique and special and they make me smile. I have learned alot from my Caitlin, and she from me. She is affectionate, and extremely bright and funny. She is extremely verbal now, although she has many difficulites understanding concrete conversations, and reading cues from other people. She believes that everyone loves her, and it hurts her more than anything for other children to say to her that they will not be her friend.
She has come a long way from where she was. She did not become verbal until 4, she did not use a spoon until 3. Acedemically speaking, in the beginning they offered me little hope when she ws 2 as to the outcome of her future. This year she started kindergarten and is in a integrated class. She is right on target with her kindergarten skills although the teacher has to constantly redirect her attention. She has auditory processing deficits so she was approved for headset use in her classes and it is a big help. In addition they ran additional tests on her and just this week the school Psychologist whom has a Phd; diagnosed her "Autistic" for her IEP, and she will get everything she needs! Yay! The school Psychologist thinks Caitlin is actually Aspergers as she is extremely high functioning, however he said that the lable of Autism will ensure that she will get all she needs as Florida school system does not recognize Aspergers as "Autism". Very sad indeed, because there is such a broad scope to this spectrum.
Anyway, this is the jest of our story. It is nice to be here and meet all of you. :)
Maresa