KALEB - Update

I love this picture! He laughed at me like the wicked witch! He thinks he is Joe Cool to be able to eat a whole apple himself! He makes me laugh so much! Whoever said that kids with Autism can't show affection was obviously wrong! I love Kaleb's hugs and worries of me!

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON!

Okay, sooo....I'm REALLY behind on the hole blog thing. I will spare you most of the details and just give you the quick versions of everything that has happened in the past few months. Though I might do it in seperate blogs about each person.

So Kaleb was diagnosed with Classic Autism (high functioning) by three separate specialists in December. In January we went to Primary children's for his first initial visit and to rule out other possibilities. There are several genetic diseases that are more serious that Autism mimics. Those came back negative, YEAH! But....in the process I almost had a heart attack!! The doctor made some assumptions about our Medicaid and they almost did not pay for the genetic procedures and testing....if they had not it would have cost us over $29,000.00 just for TWO blood tests. But we lucked out and things smoothed over.

Then we hit some other bumps and we started seeing a new pediatric neurologist/neuropsychologist that moved out here from Indianapolis, Indiana. He is AMAZING and we need MORE doctors with his kind of knowledge to move to Idaho! Anyway, he is the only person who started doing some blood work on Kaleb to see what other kinds of problems he had internally and how some of the symptoms and behaviors might be relieved.

So....off to Primary's we went again in February/March. Then again, in April...and we will be going back in a couple of weeks. Here is what we found out....

Kaleb has Sleep Apnea (all 3 different kinds, which is rare to have all 3), heart problems, Gastro-Intestinal issues, but the good news is he is NOT having seizures which everyone around here was telling us he did. Here are some pictures of Kaleb at Primary's in April. He had to have more than 30 EEG wires wrapped to his head....this was a TRIP! I'm TELLIN' YA! YIKES! no fun for either of us!

Kaleb loves to watch this train go round and round and the Ferris wheel go around and the dinosaurs all move! He could watch this train for hours!...and he did the first two times. On the second time one of the doctors decided to tell us the third floor had a huge play room for patients! That would have been nice to know the first time! oh well.

What was really amazing was that the moment he woke up he said, "Look mom! It's off!" He NEVER talked in sentances like that until that morning...nor did it continue. Until......

In the middle of April Kaleb fell out the front window of our two story apartment and fractured his skull landing him in the hospital in Rexburg. At first it was really scarey! There is no way he should not have broken other limbs, been impaled on the sharp, pointy branches onto which he fell below, or any other number of things! In fact, he didn't even need stitches! I am telling you that Angels watch out for these littles ones! Especially little ones with special needs! What was really interesting though is that Kaleb's language took off even more and some other symptoms appeared and disappeared, so we in new territory a little. The brain is a truly fantastic and mysterious thing!

Kaleb is back in Preschool and loves it! I take him in the morning and then he rides the bus home! I'll have to download a pic later! He does have to be dropped off first though or he gets disoriented and melt down on the bus because he doesn't know where he is and he thinks they are taking him away. He's getting better though! He's so funny! He brought me a carnation home for Mother's Day and said "Look! Look! It's Red!"

Here are some other recent pics and videos of Kaleb!