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This will be a relatively concise post, my friends, as I am mentally exhausted. Ian, Jacob, and I spent over two hours with the pediatric behaviorist trying to get a handle of what is going on in my son’s little brain and body. Call it “Mother’s Intuition,” but I’ve always felt as though there was something not quite right about Jacob. But when you have people telling you your son’s quirky behavior is everything from “just normal” to the “result of bad parenting,” your instincts get a little muddled. It took us five long years to arrive at this day and doctor in hopes of hearing an official diagnoses. And what did we end up getting? One perplexed MD!

Let me just say, for the record, that I left the doctor’s office feeling very happy and satisfied. But 2+ hours of intense questioning, filling out evaluations, watching Jacob play and interact with the doctor only left us a wee bit more enlightened.

As you sit through one of those appointments and answer questions, you begin to understand the intent of the Q&A session. The doctor was trying to determine if Jacob could be classified as having ADD, or if he fit somewhere on the autism spectrum. His personality and habits are just “all over the place,” as the doctor put it. His inability to focus, how he flits from one activity to another, his lack of proprioceptive understanding, his unwillingness to make eye contact or engage in conversation . . . are these strictly ADD or Autistic?

Ian and I had to answer a yes/no questionnaire pertaining to Jacob’s general behavior. Out of the 50 questions, we answered only two of them differently. So you can see that we are both on the same page when it comes to how we perceive his behaviors. The doctor then took this little test and scored it saying, “I knew it!” Knew what? What did she know? Any score above 15 means that a child can be diagnosed on the autism spectrum. We scored exactly a 15. Jacob is right there, teetering on the edge.

While the good doctor could definitely identify some autistic behaviors, she could also identify markers of ADD. Some of you may recall that we already went through evaluations with the school district and the issues I had with that whole waste of our time. While they determined that Jacob was a very intelligent boy (duh!) they did nothing to help me sort out his behavioral issues. In fact, they specifically said they didn’t feel as though he would need any additional help once he entered kindergarten. But the good doctor asked, in reference to Jacob’s lack of fine motor skills, what kind of OT were we going to receive? What? OT? That’s an option? You could just see the disgust on her face at the lack of information we were given. The good doctor has some very real concerns about how Jacob will cope once in kindergarten, and so do I. For one, I am scared to death that he will be labeled as a troublemaker. You either “get” Jacob, or you don’t. You either love him, or he drives you absolutely crazy.

Cripes. I’m gonna start crying. This is all very emotional for me.

In the end, this is what we decided. For one, I will be calling Jacob’s pediatrician tomorrow to set up another appointment with her. The good doctor wants to start Jacob on a low dose of medication to see if that can help regulate his behaviors. She also wants Ian and me to get some counseling as to how to effectively deal with his quirks. We’ll have a follow-up sometime in the spring with the good doctor. For now, we are treating him as though he is not autistic. We are treating him as having ADD. Small consolation, if you ask me, as one point on the test hardly makes a difference.

“I’m not letting him off the hook, you know” the good doctor said to us. According to her, this will be an ongoing and everlasting concern. How will Jacob cope in school? How will we manage? Will he get worse and finally teeter off the edge into autism. Mind you, Jacob would be mildly autistic, if that were to ever be the case. In no way am I feeling sorry for us, because in reality I am THRILLED that we are finally getting some answers.

We just have a long road ahead of us.