Wednesday, April 22, 2009

connections keep getting through ...


Through these many years of struggling~ first through the illness and death of my 1st husband, Rob, and the simultaneous diagnosis of my dad's terminal brain cancer, followed later by the diagnosis and relapse of my then 2 year old daughter's leukemia ~ there have been connections that have pulled me through the crisis' and connections that have made a lot of those dark days more bearable. As you know, we recently celebrated the Second Kicking of Cancer's Butt with Julia and are holding our collective breath waiting to see how she lives out this spectacular life she has fought so hard for!

In the meantime, life keeps throwing those hurdles in our path. My middle guy, Greg, is the family Jester. He is always loving and cheerful and comes up with statements on an hourly basis that make me giggle or just drop my jaw in awe! There is nothing he wouldn't do for anyone at anytime .... he has been our gift through the craziness. That being said, he has struggles of his own. We have always known him to be quirky and different from the other kids. He has speech delays, fine motor skill issues and really has a tough tme socially. He was diagnosed as ADHD a few years back, but we all knew it went deeper than that. I did a bit of my own research and pretty much knew he was most likely suffering (wrong word, but bear with me) from Aspergers Syndrome. I really went back and forth as to whether I should have him officially diagnosed or whether to just treat him symptomatically and move on. We made the decision to have the offical testing done.

So exactly EIGHT days after Julia's mediport was removed and we entered the world of Cancer Remission, I attended an evaluation meeting for Greg. There it was right next to his name in Black and White type .... "Autism".
Nausea. What else can I say to describe this feeling? It wasn't a shock. We knew that's what we were headed into. Yet still after 8 1/2 years of being his Mommy, to see it on an official looking document ... my son was diagnosed with Aspergers/Autism spectrum. I will not get into it here and now about what that means in the scheme of things.

It did, however reminded me of my connections. Once again the people that have been there for me through the cancer battles, have begun to circle the wagons and continue to root for my family yet again. It is not the same type of struggle and we certainly don't need such intense interventions, but my heart is blessed knowing how loved we are. Thank you so much for once again being there and loving my babies...

My connections from childhoold, college, adulthood .... they are my connections to my life story.

Thank you for being part of it!

Peace,

Kathy

2 comments:

  1. Just Know we ALL love you over here...



    The Maher's

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  2. Hey Kathy,
    So it isn't something I want to have in common with anyone really (for their sake), but I guess it is nice to know there is someone else like me out there. Maddie's infantile spasms diagnosis definitely puts her in the "special needs" column and makes her likely to end up somewhere on the autism spectrum as well. Oh to be both a cancer mom and mom of aspecial needs child..... I think we must have been picked because we are pretty special people.
    Thinking of you,
    Liz Gorman, Maddie's mama

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