I took my daughter to "KidsPeace" for their own evaluation in which their psychiatrist asked me a lot of questions from the beginning of my pregnancy all the way to the present. OMG! It feels like you have to repeat your life to someone over and over again, but it didn't matter to me as long as I get help for my daughter. After almost two hour long session with them I had to wait 30 days until Angelina's services were approved and from there she would start with a behavioral therapist in our home. I was so anxious and nervous that I wanted it to go by quick. I had my cellular phone next to me all the time waiting for an update. Believe me those days pass so fast that you will not even feel it go by.
At the same time, I had an appointment with "GoodShepherd" with a developmental pediatrician. Starting off with "Center City Pediatrics" as my guide on how I can go about services for my daughter was great, but waiting for that appointment in "GoodShepherd" was worth waiting for. Angelina saw Dr. Iyengar and she is an awesome developmental pediatrician ! Dr. Iyengar went over with me a long check-list with things that I had to do and what other type of therapists I had to schedule appointments with. The doctor recommended my daughter to see a speech therapist and an occupational therapist, but there was another waiting list to see a therapist in Good Shepherd. In the meantime I found availability in Lehigh Valley Muhlenberg Hospital until I got that call from "GoodShepherd".
Dr. Iyengar wrote a script for a complete blood test of almost everything on my daughter, it was a general genetics blood test to rule out other stuff. These type of blood tests take a long time to get the results back, it was more than 5 weeks for the test results. I had to make an appointment with a genetics doctor in "Children's Hospital in Philadelphia" and get additional feedback from them as well. Angelina and I had appointments every week with someone or somewhere, I was driving long distances all the time. I learned a lot from the genetics doctor and it was a relief too because there wasn't additional things we had to worry about.
My daughter's developmental pediatrician scheduled a 2-3 hour exam in "GoodShepherd", it's called an ADOS Exam which is short for "The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule". For a definition of what it means you can click here . I had to sit next to my daughter and could not say a word the whole time during the exam, as much as I wanted to give her the answer I couldn't. When the exam was done, I had to take my daughter outside with my grandmother and had to go in without her so she can go over the results in detail. My daughter was diagnosed with autism in which she was classified in the higher level. She can retake the exam again, but it was advised for us to wait a while and see if she has progressed. Us as parents have to understand that this exam is not a pass or fail test, it just helps us know it what level of autism our child is so when she does get the services of behavioral therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy they can know what to work with her on more or less. From the range of 0 being nothing and 25 being the highest, Angelina was scored 16.
After several days pass by she was approved for services with "KidsPeace" and had therapy at home 5 days a week almost half the day. The other half of the day she had speech therapy and occupational therapy some where else, my daughter was a busy person for several months and years. Then came the time when Angelina reached grade school age and then I had an interview or I would say "another evaluation" for her to receive special services during school hours as well. Once she entered kindergarten, I had to discontinue speech therapy and O.T. therapy in "GoodShepherd" because there was not enough time or hours in the day for her to fit all this. Wow!! Angelina instead received Speech and O.T. in the school and still continued with her behavioral therapy at home.
There is so much to learn that I am still learning until this present day, we learn something new as the days go by. It makes us stronger parents and know that no matter what we have to absorb, we have to continue and never give up. Autism is not a disease and there is no magical cure for it. Believe me when I say that after a long fight we do see results over time and know that we are doing something right for our kids. There were days my daughter would throw herself in the floor, cry so much or even hit others for no reason, but we just have to have patience. I remember until now that one day I was leaving "GoodShepherd" with my daughter and all of a sudden she was in the floor and cried for no reason, I didn't know what to do and was lost in words. I remember there was this lady that was leaving with her son who was a patient there as well and she told me "believe me things will get better with your daughter" and she told me briefly that she went through the same thing with her son when he was my daughter's age. I still remember this because now I really understand that things do get better over time....
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