It's been quite a roller coaster ride for me over the last few weeks. So much so that I could find the strength to write about what has been going on. It has been quite a journey... especially for me, emotionally.
Leading up to the testing schedule with Dr. Riddle, it was hard to think about anything else. What would she find? Who she find anything? Is this really all just an auditory processing issue? Why does everyone that works with him tell me he has something different? APD, language delays, ADD? Who is right and who is wrong?
Then came 'The Week', Jack spent over six hours total with Dr. Riddle going through a variety of diagnostic tests. It was okay, because he likes being tested. It seems as though he finds it challenging and rewarding. He always tells me, as we drive home in the car, what was easy for him and what is hard. It's an interesting perspective for such a young child - he seems quite capable of removing himself from the equation and looks at the tests quite objectively. It's impressive.
As we walk out of her office after the last day of testing, she stopped us to say good-bye to Jack. I could tell she enjoyed working with him too just by the way she was looking at him. He definitely made an impression. As I was watching this, I wanted to scream, What did you see?! What did you find?! I knew she already knew. I wanted to know. I didn't want to wait five days to find out, but I had no choice. We said our good-byes, then Jack and I left.
If I thought I obsessed over the testing before, you can imagine how the following days were while I waited for our consultation. It was all I thought about until I walked into her office five days later... I sat down and she began to explain the test results.
My greatest fear of double jeopardy came true. Jack has Dyslexia. In fact, Jack has severe Dyslexia.
I was a bit dumbfounded because no one, not one single professional, mentioned Dyslexia to me. They all came up with something... but not Dyslexia. I was the only one who even entertained the idea. To be fair, all of their diagnosis where a direct effect of Jack's final diagnosis... but not the, as Dr. Riddle called it, high-level diagnosis.
It was at this moment I knew that we had done the right thing. The comprehensive evaluation looked at Jack has a whole child. If we had gone through individual tests, looking at one things at a time, we would have received many different diagnosis. During our talk, she explained that all the brain systems are interconnected so sometimes it is hard to look at them individually. She was right.
Dr. Riddle explained to me that an Auditory Processing Disorder is a lower-level diagnosis to Dyslexia. While she didn't use this term in my meeting, a child advocate I talked to at one point mentioned that early in her career she worked with a child that ended up having Severe Phonological Dyslexia. While it is probably not a technically correct diagnosis (Dyslexia is a disorder having to do with the phonological functions in your brain anyway), it's a good way to think about it..
Dr. Riddle recommended another book for me to read before she did the testing. In fact, our meeting before the testing was enlightening for me personally. While discussing Jack's family history, she assessed that I have Dyslexia too. It all makes total sense. My feelings expressed months ago are valid. Amazing.
I read the book from cover to cover the moment it arrived from Amazon. (Just think if I had a Kindle I could have read the book immediately!) The book is Overcoming Dyslexia. The author run the Dyslexia center at Yale University - the best in the country I hear. It was refreshing read what Dyslexia actually is - in contrast to what I used to believe it was. It made sense for Jack... and for me. Knowledge is a beautiful thing.
Jack's Dyslexia with the Auditory Processing Disorder effects all of his language capabilities. I once described Jack as a boy that was stuck inside of his own head... I was right.
As the weeks have gone by my emotions have evolved. I started out feeling joy. The kind of joy that comes from finally figuring something a difficult puzzle. That joy quickly turned into panic. I felt as if I need to fix everything right away. If I didn't start tomorrow, it would work out in the end. While I did take some actions right away, I have finally come to realize that this journey has just begun. It will be a long, difficult journey - but one well worth taking.
The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
