Last week was a week of evaluation after evaluation, a sick baby brother, and the stomach flu (although short lived wreaked a bit of havoc on our lives). Of course Alex somehow managed to escape getting the stomach flu like the rest of us, thank goodness!
On Wednesday we went to Wilder to see Dr. Newman for the first of three evaluations for the week. Gael (social worker) who does Alex's regular therapy referred us to their on staff psychiatrist for an evaluation for autism as well as whatever else he felt was fitting. We started by meeting with a nurse who took all of the intake information for the Dr. Then the Dr. came in and went over everything and discussed at length what he believed to be going on as well as how he can develop the best support system possible for us. We also discussed medication which at this point we are opposed to simply because we haven't tried anything else first. He said that he felt no medication was needed at this time and that it would probably make him bounce off the walls if anything. The Dr. wanted to look over Alex's school evaluations to see if there would be a reason to send him to the U of M for neuro testing due to possible drug and alcohol usage during the pregnancy. As of today at his regular therapy appointment we heard that Dr. Newman gave Alex a diagnosis of autism as well as separation anxiety (no big surprise there). This will allow us to go ahead with a referral to case management for services. He hasn't had a chance to look at the school testing but we should know soon if they want to do any further testing. This is all great news as now we have a diagnosis and we can move forward on treatments, therapies, services etc.
On Friday we went to the Family Achievement Center for a speech therapy and occupational therapy evaluations. The speech evaluation was first...during this he was a bit distracted by noises coming from other rooms but once they took a small break and got him a weighted vest and a bouncy wedge to sit on he could focus again. He scored a 74, 80 and above is in the normal range. They feel that with therapy twice a week for 6 months he should be able to fall within the normal ranges. Next was his OT eval, we of course know that there is a great need for OT as he already gets it at school. They will be working on self regulation, sensory, fine motor skills, dressing, and safety. He will get this twice a week for at least a year but probably longer. As of right now we have OT scheduled or Mondays and Fridays and speech for Fridays. I'm hoping to be able to find a time that works with my work schedule to get the other speech in. They thought that there should be some more days opening up in a few weeks.
All in all it has been a busy week filled with a lot of information that I'm still trying to process. It has also been a lot of phone calls, forms to fill out, and a bit of stress. It's almost like a full time job trying to coordinate everything. We are still on the waiting list for Fraser...Dr. Newman feels that it would be best to get an eval there too as they have more resources that would be available for us than Wilder does. I can't wait to see what all the therapy can do for Alex.
