Our journey with autism began right before Scarlett’s 2nd
birthday. We’ve had therapist ask if looking back there were warning signs that
we missed. Looking back I don’t think
there was anything we missed. Scarlett was always right where she was supposed
to be developmentally until she wasn’t. She started walking right before she turned 9
months old, and talked early. What my husband and I can both pinpoint is where
the regression happened. I remember the day that I called my husband worried
about Scarlett because she stopped saying thank you. The word thank you changed
into this weird noise in a day. I called my husband who was at work and told
him I thought something was wrong. I was honestly worried at the time that she’d
had a seizure or bumped her head and I’d missed it. He of course told me not to
worry that it was probably nothing. If only.
Within a week’s time Scarlett lost
most of her language. She stopped enjoying being cuddled and wanted to be left
alone in her room with her blankets. She would lay on the floor and suck her
thumb. It was winter time so I figured she could have the flu or be sick with a
bug. I called her pediatrician to schedule a sick appointment but her 2 year checkup
was only a week away so I decided to wait for this appointment. By the time we
arrived at the doctor’s office Scarlett was still the same. Autism was nowhere
on my radar at that point. Once her pediatrician came in she looked her over
and kept asking many questions about our concerns. She then told us that
Scarlett had come up on their screening questionnaire as needing to be evaluated
for autism. I honestly can’t remember much after that. The drive home was a
fog. I remember Craig saying over and over again not to worry that she didn’t
have autism that they were just being cautious and making sure. He thought she
was just going through a speech regression and that it was just a delay.
From
that moment on I watched her like a hawk. Her symptoms started to worse as time
went on and we waited the 4 months to get in to see an autism specialist. She
could stay in her room by herself for hours with her blankets. She would just
lay in the floor. If we went out in public she wanted to run away from us
non-stop. Our son’s soccer practice became unmanageable and my husband had to
stop coaching to help me look after Scarlett. She started to bite and hit
herself. She no longer wanted to go on walks to pick flowers, and her food
choices became more and more limited. If she could have it her way she would
have ate raisins and fruit snacks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She was
still breaking out in rashes constantly, and her dry skin would crack open no
matter what lotion we tried.
She no
longer cared about dresses. She wanted to wear the same clothes every single
day. It was as if someone had taken everything that made Scarlett and just
wiped the slate clean. This was the hardest time for me. I kept saying to myself I just want her back, but it wasn't up to me.
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