We did it! We did it! We did it! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!

At Westley's transition meeting yesterday, I hardly said a word. I walked into the room and found about 9 people at this huge round table waiting for me. It was a bit intimidating. I had with me my thick file of all things Westley and the new "A Clear Picture of Westley" booklet I had made from my research. The day before I had delivered a copy of that booklet to all the key players. We started with introductions. I already knew about half of the people. The "team" consisted of people from his preschool and people who will work with him in Kindergarden. There were two special ed teachers, special ed service coordinator, school councilor, and a kindergarden teacher from the new school. From preschool there was the speech pathologist, occupational therapist, school psychologist, preschool director, his preschool teacher.

After introductions, the preschool director stated that in addition to the usual transition meeting we'd be reviewing service placement as none of us were quite satisfied with the current label of LD (learnining disability). Next the school psychologist reviewed the pertinent data from his psychological evaluation. We all discussed Asperger's and why or why not he may have it. Some felt he had it with a combination of speech pathology. Others felt the speech pathology excluded him from Asperger's. We all agreed he has some form of PDD (pervasive developmental disability) and likely fell under the Autism Spectrum. Since the school districts in the state of Arizona only recognize Autism (excluding all the other PDDs), we all felt an Autism label would best describe Westley. With that label, the school's therapies and educational approach would be directed from an Autism angle. That means Westley will get the treatment he needs through the school. He'll also have appropriate accomodations designed to address his particular challenges.

Next we persue a clinical diagnosis of Autism that would make us eligible for services through the DDD (at home therapies for Autism provided through a state funded organization - department of developmental disabilities). The school psychologist agreed to administer the test and provide us with the results at no cost to us. We completed the questioneer yesterday and are waiting for the results. Other professionals who work with Westley will also be filling out the same questioneer. It's the combined opinion and scores that will determine his eligibility for services through DDD.

What a huge relief!!! I feel I can end my search for diagnosis and begin my search for treatment. With the right combination of therapies I truely believe West will live a relatively normal life - if a challenged one. I think this experience will make him stronger in the end.

The other drama in our lives is our new belief that we must have a larger home much sooner than we'd planned. We moved here five months ago and bought a modest home at a relatively low price considering the resort type community we live in. It's adequate to the number of people in our family and we felt that in time we could add a second story to expand as our children became teens and needed more space. With our new understanding of Westley and his challenges, we now know that putting him through a remodel would be devestating. He wouldn't be able to tolerate the sounds, smells and chaos. We also have learned through his therapist that autistics do much better when there are clearly defined spaces (ie. a room for only reading, a room for only tv, a room for only playing, a room for eating, a room for sleeping, etc.) The house we're in couldn't provide that. It has an open concept and small bedrooms. The kids can't play in their bedrooms, there's no room. Their clothes don't fit in their closets. All the boundaries of what should happen where are blurred. The resulting chaos feeds into his fits and stemming. For West, that means that periodically and often he has to run back and forth through the house on a set path making dynamic and dramatic body and arm motions with a sereis of loud, dynamic noises. It's quite difficult to find a peaceful, quite place in our home. This wildness bleeds over into our other children and it can often be very stressful to be here. Even without a baby coming there seems to be no space. With the baby coming, we have to rearrange everything and still expect baby to become the roomie of Mom and Dad for an undefined amount of time. That prospect is very unsavory! It seems that the logical thing for us to do is get a bigger house. Finances would seem to make that impossible.

Now that I can relax a bit from the diagnostic phase of Westley's journey, I plan to put all my hormonal pregnancy energy into doing whatever possible to make our home a place of peace. That may or may not mean we have to move. Only the Lord knows for sure.

Thank you for all your support through this tough time. It's our friends and family who have kept us grounded and helped us channel our energy in a positive direction.