That Day in February 2005

The day finally arrived for Jeremy's check-up. It was the first week of February 2005. He was healthy. The pediatrician still felt that since Jeremy had always been on track the changes, if they remained, may be due to other factors. She told us that if he was not using 2-3 word sentences by his 2yr appointment, then she would send him for a hearing evaluation. I thought, ' are you kidding me? Wait until he is 24 months." My verbal response to her was something like, "ok thank you. We will see." I really felt like, "What!! Don't you see what I see?" My husband was OK with it. I think it is difficult for many people to accept that something may be wrong with their children: especially men when it concerns their sons. His agreement with the pediatrician's suggestions didn't last long. Jeremy received 3 shots that night including the MMR vaccine. I get the fact that vaccines help keep our kids from getting unthinkable illnesses. What I don't get is why they give so many so close together. I say this because, by the time we got to the van and buckled the boys into their car seats, Jeremy went off into a laughing spell. His eyes were dazed. We couldn't get him to stop. He must have continued for several minutes. At that point we looked at each other and knew something seriously wrong with our child. Just 6 months ago he was the average toddler. Now, we were in agreement! We continued with our normal routine, but wanted another opinion. There was a Moms/Playgroup at our church that we attended. Even though Jeremy would cry, I continued to go because Noah enjoyed being around his friends and needed it. I also enjoyed being around my friends. As God would have it, a play group meeting would offer us an opportunity for that 2nd opinion. One day the play group leader started talking about her own son's speech delay. Here was my God moment!! She mentioned that her son had been evaluated at a place called Child Development Watch and suggested that I do the same for Jeremy. Yes-ss! That play group must have been sometime in March of 2005 or so. You see, I still have the first note from the Nurse I spoke to at Child Development Watch. It was dated April 8, 2005. The packet had all the information about Jeremy's first evaluation appointment which was schedule for May 24, 2005. Jeremy would be 22 months by that date. I knew in my heart that an early diagnosis and early intervention was critical and nothing was going to stop that! Everyone agreed that before the evaluation date, Jeremy's hearing needed to be tested to rule out that the behaviors were not do to hearing loss. I am not sure if an order/script was needed from his doctor. Whatever was needed, we got it because his first hearing test was on April 11. The test results were inconclusive. He had to be sedated for the 2nd test which was in May. I have a couple of dates written down. The appointment must have been changed a couple of time. I don't think the results of that test were any better. To be honest, we felt that at home Jeremy had perfect hearing. He just didn't respond when we called him sometimes. It was hit or miss. The day of the evaluation, May 24th came.