Medical Update: Speech Therapy: Part 3: Thoughts and Feelings

Here is what we know:

- Annie is delayed in communication.
- Annie is 33 months old.
- We are going to get Annie the help she needs and I don't see any reason why this might impact her schooling. When she is 22 and graduating from college, no one is going to give a crap that she needed speech therapy at 2 years of age.
- Annie shows some symptoms that, with a typical child, would raise concerns concerning autism
- Annie is not a typical child which throws the autistic symptoms into question
- We are in the process of having Annie fully evaluated in terms of her cognitive abilities

Here is how I feel about it:

I have not watched every episode of Lost but I have seen a couple of seasons. On the island, there is a black smoke that wisps around. Weird, huh? Smoke is just smoke. As the saying goes, "Where there is smoke, there is fire" but in medicine, smoke symptoms do not necessarily tell you what type of fire condition is present. More testing is necessary.

Until that smoke KICKS YOUR ASS a few times. Smoke is no longer just smoke - smoke becomes a thing to be feared - it's not just a wisp to be waved away - it's a THING that has and can rock your world.

I am angry. I am angry at God. I know we don't have a diagnosis and I am trying very hard not to let a concern become a condition in my head - but it is hard.

At last count, we have had over two hundred doctor's appointment in the last three years and we have come into contact with all sorts of children with all sorts of conditions. The wife and I have often said, "mental disability would be harder than physical disability".

I believe it was Reynolds Price in his book A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing that asked God "How much more suffering must I go through?" God's answer?: "More".

Well right now, God can suck it.

And that's coming from someone who has to teach a class at church this coming Sunday morning . . .