Spicy Dragons & Dinosaurs

An anonymous commenter of yesterday's post advised me that I should do everything in my power to make Julia as close to normal as I can. Thank you for the advice, my friend. That is the premise that I work under all of the time.

When I talk about the Julia and a different path, a path apart from the normal child (if there is such a thing), I certainly do not mean the I would allow her to go on with the behaviors that she has without investigating every known therapy or treatment known to man. I haven't gotten down to faith healers and witch doctors, but you know, if they worked . . . .

I am scared of pharmaceuticals. I have read a good deal about kids who start with one drug and then collect many more as the side effects of the first drug bring on behaviors that are then quelled by second, third, and fourth drugs. I don't want drugs to put my kid to sleep, wake her up, make her eat, and so on. I would need an awful lot of convincing that a life of drugs is worth a bit of attention that she might gain. I am scared of doctors who pull our their prescription pads right after they shake your hand. There have been untold numbers of folks who have told me that every kid with autism is different -- and there are days when I don't think that autism is the best description of her behavior, because after all, the diagnosis is just that. There were not blood tests, body scans or xray done to put this label on Julia. A doctor looked at her behavior, listened to her history and made a guess. He might have said ADHD, her might have said post-traumatic stress.

Now, the autism diagnosis has gotten us a lot of help and for that I am grateful, but when we talk about drugs, I want reasoning and some way of evaluation. I admit that I am still looking for how to get that.

But I have no fear of science, and we have just begun.