Recovering Noah

Oh, wow. These last two weeks have been unreal. A few days before Easter, we noticed that Noah was having trouble walking on his right leg. Now, this is his good leg, so we were concerned - but he didn't cry or wimper or act like anything was wrong. It was just really stiff. When I picked up him, his leg was straight as a board. We just kept rubbing it and thinking that maybe it was stiff because he puts most of his weight on that leg or maybe he jumped too hard on the trampoline or something. Well, on April 7th, I was changing him and noticed that his knee was swollen and really hot. So we went straight to ER. Normally, I might have waited until Monday and just taken him into the doctor, but I was already feeling guilty that Noah'd had strep and an ear infection and I didn't know it because he never cried or acted like anything was wrong. So, we went to the ER and my parents met us up there and the doctor took X-rays of Noah's leg - and they came back fine. He tho...

Finally! I'm posting some pictures. Two of them were taken at the zoo (where we practically live) and one was at the library's Easter egg hunt from earlier this week. You can tell that Noah's in his "Shirt Chewing" phase. It comes and goes... and makes us grateful for garage sales. My mom bought him some new shirts for his birthday last October and they are ALL chewed up. Eeewww. We think he's detoxing when he does it, as one urine test confirmed elevated metals during a huge chewing phase. But we can't afford to run the tests all the time, so we're viewing it as a good thing and taking it in stride. We got our Listening Program today. Yea!!! I am so excited. I can't wait. I really hope this helps improve Noah's receptive understanding and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to get some words out of him. In preparation, we've been playing classical music in his room and he really seems to like it. So, you can imagine how happy I was when I...

Did anyone watch Oprah yesterday? Oh my gosh, it was amazing. For the first time ever, she did an episode on autism. I cried like a baby. It just really hit home, you know? To hear from families whose children regressed and all they're going through.... and to see that video of little Christian at 2 years and how well he was talking and how social and then to see him now (you can view him on Noah's website in the Autism Speaks video). It just broke my heart. 1 in 150 kids. Can you believe it? They said autism is now more prevalent than breast cancer or AIDS. It's an epidemic. It truly is and I'm so glad that Oprah aired that b/c maybe more people will get an understanding of what's it like to be a family afflicted with autism. And, you know, it doesn't just affect the immediate family. It affects grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. It affects friendships, careers - every aspect of your life. If you get a chance to watch it online, please do so. It...