Thursday, June 3, 2010

Perplexed

My husband, our 11 yo son, and I were at Doernbecher Children's Hospital from about 9 a.m. to about 5 p.m. today.  After several months of being on their waiting list, my son (whom we thought had some kind of autism) was finally seen and evaluated by the doctors/psychologists/specialists.  He had to undergo 4 different long "test" sessions.  He did exceptionally well for the first 3 sessions.  Then during the beginning of the fourth session when the doctor laid out various toys on the table and invited my son to play with them.  He refused to play and became more and more anxious to get out of the room.  In summary, he experienced a panic attack and we took him out of the room; he did not complete the autism diagnostic observation.  However, the team of the doctors told us that they had enough information from the previous 3 tests to make the diagnosis.  Well, they surprised us with their diagnosis.  They told us that our son is not autistic.  Instead, he has Anxiety Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (the term that is pretty vague).  One of the child psychologists said to me that she was perplexed by my son/his conditions :).  They could not pinpoint on anything more specific but they said they had enough reasons to rule out autism.  In some way, we are relieved and very thankful.  But there's still a long road ahead.  We hope and pray that the Lord will lead us to the right Christian child psychologist who can help our son.  The following verse came to my mind.

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Perplexed, but not in despair!  That's us.  Praise the Lord!

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