A good day....

Hi everyone! Here's my update:

Today we took Aiden to Early Intervention Services with Orange County Schools. I was a nervous wreck because I had NO idea what Aiden would be like as each day is a new adventure. Well, as is Aiden's trend, he was better today than yesterday. Each day he shows more and more of his old self from before the episode.

We were brought into a room with 2 therapists who were very nice and great with Aiden. They assessed Aiden in many areas. Tested him on all sorts of cognitive things and skills. Aiden did GREAT! In the speech department, he DID speak as related to pointing out pictures, etc. He didn't answer questions. He DID give high fives. He smiled, made eye contact, play games and laughed. He was a little gentleman and did as he was asked. He was not ticking. We explained Aiden's story to the therapists and answered all their questions.

At the end of the assessment, both therapists expressed how completely confused and baffled they were about Aiden. These are people who see hundreds of kids,and they were baffled. Yikes! What else is new right? They both felt that this really feels like something medical. That SOMETHING happened. They agree that it's strange that a child would lose abilities overnight and then start progressing back right afterward, without any therapy.

One of the therapists left the room for a second and came back explaining to us that she went and spoke to the "head honcho" who they refer to as the "Oracle" because she has seen it all and knows everything. The Oracle said that in her 30 years in this field she has only seen 1 other child like this. We have yet to find out what happened with that child and what was diagnosed.

Regardless, Aiden will most likely qualify due to his language regression. We are scheduled to go back on February 24th for a meeting to learn how Aiden scored and what he qualifies for in the school system. The therapist did say that he will most likely qualify for speech therapy and "maybe" qualify for school. The school would be a Mon-Fri schedule where he would have lots of therapy. While we know it's great he did well in the assessment, Will and I both agree that developmental school could be a great thing for him and probably help him move forward even faster.

The assessment took a bit over 2 hours and Aiden handled it wonderfully. Just to clarify some things from previous posts about the "spectrum". It was explained to us today, that if a therapist feels a child is on the autistic spectrum at all, they call in a specialist person at the assessment to further check things out. Both therapists told us that there was NO WAY they were bringing that person in to look at Aiden because he is most definitely NOT on that spectrum. They do agree that what is going on is strange, and mysterious, and weird. So, we feel comfortable ruling that possibility out. So that is where we are left with today's early intervention experience.

A couple weeks ago right after Aiden's episode, we brought him to Kindermusik and it was SOOO upsetting to watch him freeze in place, confused, wimpering, scared, and silent. Today, we tried again. Will brought him into my Kindermusik class. Aiden was AIDEN today!!! :) He clapped, danced, played his instruments to my instruction, twirled, jumped, and had a ball. He really is changing back to himself each day. It's SOOOO weird. But it's SOOO wonderful.

So, us, the therapists, and doctors all agree that at this moment in time, Aiden is a case study. We will follow through with the medical testing while praying another episode doesn't occur. We will return to Early Intervention in 3 weeks to find out what he qualifies for and get him started RIGHT away. We also have already looked into what our insurance covers regarding private speech therapy, and it seems they cover so we'll be calling a private practice tomorrow to possibly line up speech therapy that way too because the sooner we start the better.

We are on a high today after watching our precious boy have such fun in Kindermusik. It broke our hearts to week ago to see him and today has been a HUGE sigh of relief to see some of our Aiden return!! Now for the language!! :)

In other news, Anna is VERY excited that tomorrow is the 100th day of school. She had a glowing report card. We are so proud of her!

My update for the day is complete. Have a perfect night!

Love, Holly