Sam has had his share of complications I will say.  One of the main reasons I started this new and different blog was because our son was diagnosed on January 21, 2013 as being on the spectrum, or asd or whatever vernacular you would like to use. Why do I remember this date? Not because it was the date our lives were turned upside down, I made the brilliant move to make a very important Dr. appointment on my husband’s 27 birthday. This Dr. who we are going to visit at the end of the week, said I needed to write a blog. He likes me because I listen to him and follow what he says to help Sam get better. I don’t go research things on the internet to see if they is a magic pill to help Sam, I just listen.  This is rare for me because I question EVERYTHING. Nothing goes into my brain at face value.

Dr. Brian Udell is located in Davie, Florida. It is about 4.5 hours from our house. Our first appointment we had taken Sam to Disney on MLK weekend and I wanted to stab myself before the end of the trip. Sam was totally overwhelmed by the crowds and cried a lot. If another Disney employee told Dan, Sam or myself there was no crying in Disney I would make it my goal to make them cry at Disney. It sucked. We were exhausted, people were rude and we had a 3.5 year old that barely talked and could only cry to share his frustration.

Within 5 minutes of meeting Dr. Udell, he referred to Sam’s Autism. I started to think you didn’t even talk to him, you don’t know him,  what kind of crazy man are you?  The visit lasted about an hour and a half and we got back into our car and made the drive home. I cried the entire ride home from Weston to Palm Harbor. I cried at work, I cried to my friends, I was so deeply saddened by the diagnosis I feared so much.  I fell into a woe is me depression. I could not get my shit together at all. Dan tried to help me. I went to work and cried, came home and cried. Dan planned a whole night for me with a massage, facial, chocolate strawberries delivered to work and sushi. It was lovely and made me understand I needed to get my shit together. So I did.

Why tell all this now?  We are a society like to talk and share about things that do not really matter. Let’s post about how great things are instead of having a dialog how having a kid on the spectrum changes all of your lives or a sick family member who needs your help all of the time, or how being a mom is really hard?  People have tremendous guilt about how they live their lives, maybe not all of us but some of us. I have guilt. I am a master of guilt and it is my issue. Some things that cause this are I was older when I had Sam, I did not love being pregnant, I could not breast feed, I had post partum depression, I separated his shots but maybe not enough, I had to leave when he was less than one and go back to work, I could not take him places because of his meltdowns, I have anxiety and the list goes on and on. I didn’t talk about any of these things because when I did I was shamed even more because people don’t talk enough about these things. I am hoping maybe someone who had felt like me at one point reads this and knows they aren’t alone.