When we (as a family) started down the roller-coaster ride of discovering that our first daughter, was not quite normal it was a raw and difficult time for all of us.
This was in 2003, when our little rosebud, was almost three. We had left the US to live in Australia in late 2001 and medically it was wise choice (even though it was hard to leave family). Little did we know at the time, what lay ahead of us in terms of her disabilities and my future illness.
We noticed that Julia did not look at us or make eye contact from the start (our second daughter did all of this, very early). Seeing as our special needs daughter was our first child, we knew no different. By the time she was 6 months old, her developmental delays started to show and because of this, I avoided taking her to mum's/babies group in the local neighbourhood, etc.
It was always heart breaking as I watched other kids crawling, trying to furniture walk and looking at their mothers and communicating with their eyes. Our little girl did none of this. She just sat there smiled a little, but not much else. She did not seem to want to try all these new, exciting activities.
At about 11 months, we discussed our concerns with our then GP, who referred us to the local child health centre. From there we progressed to a children's developmental unit at a local hospital, for approx. the next year. It was during this time that a young doctor said to us 'Have you ever heard of Autism?'--yes, we had heard of it....but knew little about it and what that possibility meant for the future of our first daughter. We were vacant about the meaning of the whole thing.
Those around us, knew more than we did and would say all sorts of interesting comments to make us feel better: 'Don't worry, she'll wake up one day and be fine' or 'it's just a phase she's going through, she'll come good'. People often say these things to calm themselves and try to calm you.
The pilgrimage from this point on was obtaining a proper diagnosis and this was written by a local paediatrician, who diagnosed Moderate-Severe ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder). We had also started to notice her R eye wandering at 2 years of age and had been seeking paediatric opthomology assistance fairly early, where she was diagnosed with Strabismus. To correct her R eye turning, her eye checks showed that she had difficulty with her sight and was fairly shortsighted (Myopia). Since this time, she has progressed to thicker and thicker glasses....we try to now get her glasses with thinned out lenses, to avoid the coke bottle effect.
I remember the devastation we felt when that first doctor mentioned the word Autism to us. It really blew us away. As Julia grew, we started to realise that she was having difficulty breathing when she had an upper respiratory infection, she was then diagnosed with Asthma. She has been hospitalised several times for respiratory problems.
