“Wait, are we going to talk about this?” I asked as we drove.
“Talk about what?” my husband responded.
“The fact that our son’s doctor just did an autism evaluation. We weren’t even talking about autism. Where did that come from?”
———
It was July 2020. The world was shut down. My family and I were in Leakey on a social distancing getaway. My son had a doctor appointment, but “luckily” it was virtual, so we could do it from anywhere.
Three months prior, I took Kyden to his two-and-a-half-year checkup, one of the last appointments we would attend without a mask for three years.
“He looks great,” his pediatrician said. “I see that he completed speech therapy earlier in the year and is doing much better. However, I want to send him to a developmental pediatrician.”
“Okay, what does that mean?” I asked.
“I think Kyden has a developmental delay. I’m not talking about autism or anything, just a slight delay,” he told me.
Now, for a little more background. Kyden didn’t talk until he was nearly two. Around 21 months, we noticed he was exceedingly frustrated with his inability to communicate (and our inability to understand what he wanted or needed). So, we started speech therapy. And, in what we would learn is true Kyden fashion, he picked it up quickly. He “graduated” speech therapy within six months.
All of this, combined with the pediatrician’s words, created a picture in my mind.
“I already know delays happen. I already know that therapy helped, quickly. If this is a delay, we will do six months to a year of therapy and move on. No big deal.”
That’s why, as we sat at a playground in Leakey (because our cabin Wi-Fi service was not strong enough to handle video calls), I was a little taken aback when the doctor went through an autism evaluation. I was downright shocked when she informed us that she wanted to see us in person to further evaluate, because, as you can imagine, it’s pretty difficult to get a good idea of a two-year-old’s needs through a cell phone camera.
As we were leaving the park, my go-with-the-flow husband started to listen to music and talk to me about … well …I don’t remember what. The whole time, my brain was screaming “What is happening?”
“Wait, are we going to talk about this?” I asked as we drove.
“Talk about what?” my husband responded.
“The fact that our son’s doctor just did an autism evaluation. We weren’t even talking about autism. Where did that come from?”
“Well, I’m not surprised. All of the things she said make a lot of sense,” he said.
In a convoluted story, with twists and turns that can only be described as “the year 2020,” my husband, and ultimately our son, were both diagnosed with autism. Robert at age 33, Kyden six days shy of his third birthday.
When I came up with the name of my column (The Unexpected Journey) I led with my not-so-typical taking of the helm as a newspaper publisher. But, the more I look at it, the more I believe that many of the roads my life has taken me could be defined as “unexpected.”
Kontnier is the publisher of the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch. She can be reached at publisher@haysfreepress.com.
