Autism? Really? I had No Clue!

Everyday for the last 5yrs the YuckMouth house has lived, breathed, slept, not slept autism. While I struggle to still make the entire house aware of autism we live it, how much more do we need to be aware ourselves? What we need is for the rest of the world to be aware of it, to know it like we do. But not to just know our autism but everyone else's autism. Because you see autism looks different on every man, woman and child, there may be similarities but its different for each and everyone of them

With today being the kick off of Autism Awareness Month, we the community are striving to let the world know just what autism means to us.

On August 24th, 2005 I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy. Nothing was odd or unsual, he wasn't born with autism stamped across his forehead. There wasn't a test that would tell us that as he got older he wouldn't be like all the other lil boys, that he wouldn't be like my other sons. As time went on, some milestones were missed or delayed, but nothing shouted autism to me. He was just different, and looking back on it now and if I had known what I was looking for I would have known sooner, things might have been different.

I'm not going to quote facts because facts are posted everywhere you look. But those facts aren't going to tell you what to look for.

With Racer his autism was there from the beginning, it was in the way he moved about the house. How he interacted with each of us. He has four older siblings and he just wasn't like them. He didn't talk and the words he had were odd and not normal for first words. But he was persistant, he was frustrated, he was alone. As a mother I did everything I could do help him along I didn't want him to be different, I wanted him to be fine. And even though I had my doubts the entire world said "he's find, he's a boy and boys are slower to develop". I wish those word could be removed from the mouths of the entire world. Because a mothers gut is what is usually always right. At two he was lining up cars, making snake lines with cans all across my living room, I thought he was artistic I was perfectly happy to let my lil boy do what made him happy. At night he would climb out of his crib and fall to the floor and not cry, I thought he was brave. When we moved him to a smaller playpen that was closer to the floor he would rock it back and forth till it fell over I just thought he didn't want to sleep in that either. Never in my wildest dreams would I believe he had autism.

Then we went to the doc for his check-up, he was almost three and had a total of  three words to his vocabulary , dada, turtle, and pizza. He would sit and watch the same movie over and over again and cry when I tried to change it. At that doc appointment she suggested that he might have autism she gave us the number to Regional Center and sent us on our way. I was full of questions and I was very alone in all of this. Because again everyone around me said "oh he's fine, he's a boy and boys are slower to develop"

Weeks went by before we heard from Regional Center, that was a lot of sleepless nights. I wasn't sure how to prepare for it all, I wasn't sure what the outcome was going to be. We arrived at the testing, we sat through the testing and then we waited. They wanted to talk to us after, and we waited. Then we got the talk and I suppose this happens to a lot of parents. They went through all the results how he was seriously delayed across the board, but in some areas he was doing just fine. As I sat there I wanted to scream out JUST SAY IT ALREADY, I wanted to know if he had autism. And finally after dragging my heart through the mud they said the dreaded words "your son has autism". I was given a packet a sort of welcome to autism packet now that I think about it. I was told that someone would be in contact with us in regards to our son and we were sent on our way.

That was twice that we were sent on our way, twice that my mind was filled with questioned I didn't know how to form. And twice that we as parents weren't aware of autism, that the medical profession didn't help us be aware

What is so important not only for the month of April but everyday after is to be aware. We have PSA about cancer and aids and all sorts of other issues, but Autism which becomes worse every day, we have nothing. But parents across the world are dealing with this everyday. Struggling in a world of their own because the outside world knows nothing about us and how to deal with us.

So not just for the month of April I want everyone who reads this to be aware. I want this to be sent to everyone who could ever possibly come in contact with autism and guess what the one fact that I will throw at you is 1-110 children have autism. What does that mean to you?