It's right about now that I feel the need to tell you that I'm fully aware that my son sounds like a monster, that's because all I've told you is the bad parts....he's not a monster, he's a wonderful child, very loving, very generous...I could go on, but the problem with this is that this is how he is now, for a while there he was still a so called "happy" child, it's just that his happiness was lacking something. It's more accurate to say that he went through the "kind gestures" and that he smiled a lot than to say he was happy. You'll understand as I go along.....

"The Doctor"

     It was when Matthew was 3 that things became a bit more clear.  It was though everything stopped dead in its tracks.   Matthew's verbal skills which had always been delayed seemed to get worse, he was no longer able to communicate even the simplest desires or needs to us. Trying only left him and us frustrated.   The "emotions" that were already disappearing were gone, leaving us with a shell of a son who was perfectly content to sit on the floor with his legos and rock himself or flap his hands/arms,   When he did get up and do things it was never with anyone else, he was in his own world and no one was allowed in there with him.

     It was then that we finally listened to Matt's pediatrician who had been trying to gently prod us to go see a specialist who could help Matt.   So our first stop was a psychiatrist who had training in pediatrics.   This doctor spent 20 minutes alone (yes, I actually sat there and timed it!) with our son then called us in and casually told us that Matthew had PDD, a form of autism.   We were like, "ok, what's that?" and the doctor asked us, "have you ever seen the movie the Rainman?".  Then he went on to tell us that Matthew could never function in a school setting with "normal" children.   Whoa!!! Wrong things to say!!!   Even IF we did force ourselves to see that it could be true, our son was NOT as severe as the character in the movie!   Ok, he did do some of those things, but not like that!   And what was this "normal" thing?   I think we pretty much stopped listening about there.   The only thing I heard after those words were the doctor saying that no, Matthew was not hyperactive, yeah right!   I may not be a doctor, but I knew he was wrong there, even if I did suspect he was right on the money with the PDD diagnosis.   So we decided to get a second opinion.

      It was about this time that we began to wonder if maybe some of his problems could be his ears.   Luckily for us, my sister-in-law works at a major Ears, Nose & Throat clinic. A doctor there, whom she had been telling about Matthew, told her to have us come in and he would put Matthew on a machine and check his ears at no charge! He said that having Matt's ears checked was crucial when dealing with symptoms such as these.

      So we went in to have the testing done one day. Of course Matt was all wound up, he was somewhere he had never been before, someplace with a lot of people and a lot of noise! So we could forget him cooperating for the hearing test! But these people weren't giving up! We were taken to another room, where Matt was given a medication to make him sleep, then send to the waiting room to wait til it took effect. It was a long wait.....A REAL LONG WAIT!! The medication didn't work! Matt was so wound up that the medication didn't take effect!! Lovely huh? So they set up another appointment for a few days later, then sent us home. This time we were adding sleep deprivation to the medications! I had to keep Matthew awake all night so he would be so exhausted that he couldn't fight the meds. Well, somehow I managed it and we got to the clinic, got Matthew medicated and waited for it to kick in....and waited....and waited. They even took us to the room the test would be done in and turned off the lights hoping he would fall asleep. I don't don't know how long we were in there, but finally, just as we were all about to give up, he fell asleep! So they immediately started hooking him up to the machine before anything else could happen! Funny thing was....when he finally fell asleep, he was so tired that he snored so loudly the machine was having trouble measuring his brain waves reaction to the noises! But they finally got it done and Matt's hearing was just fine! The only thing abnormal was that certain frequencies seemed to cause aggitation.