All this time, we were told it was Autism!!!

Sydney started telling me her head hurt, Monday after school. By the time we were at Zoe's girl scouts, she was even looking bad. Dark circles under her eyes and she felt a little warm. Plus she kept saying her head hurt. She has never complained about her head. Three different meds that effect her head, and never one complaint. While we were sitting at Girl Scouts, I took my cold water bottle and held it up to her head. Well, she couldn't get enough of that. Earlier, before we left, I had started to notice some traits that she was doing that I hadn't seen in a long time. (Not answering to her name, looking zoned, a little hand flapping, speech) By Tuesday morning, Sydney was not using sentences any more. I was only getting one word responses, if that. Otherwise she was just echoing what I was telling her to say. I would say, "No, you say this for a sentence." Her response, "No, you say this for a sentence." Zoe on the way to school asked what was wrong with Sydney. I asked Zoe what did she see was wrong. Zoe, without delay, said her speech is funny. She is talking like she use to. What happened to her sentences? I was glad to see that Zoe saw it too.

I felt like someone had just hit me in the gut. How could she regress in hours? Why did her head hurt? Was it just the first time she was able to express this? She had never regressed before. NEVER!!!! We had heard of others regressing, but not when they were sick. Usually, kiddos when they were sick would excel. Was this temporary or ....? Oh my gosh, I just have to slow down my brain and figure out what step one will be to turn this around. After a couple of minutes of driving in circles, literally, driving the car in circles, because I didn't know where to go or what to do. I pulled over. Decision one, don't try to start a conversation with Sydney. It was to painful and emotional to see. Decision two, take a couple of deep breaths and fight back the tears. So I pinched the inside of my arm to cause pain. I had learned this trick, to keep from crying, in front of people, when I talked about emotional things about Sydney. Decision three, call Dr. Carter. She had been helping us figure out what foods Sydney's body would not fight against. Also, recently she was helping her during the barometric changes.

The receptionist was trying to tell me how booked they were. I said "Donna, I'm begging you to get her in. Sydney has NEVER regressed before. And it's her speech." She said come on in, we will figure it out. Music to my ears. As I'm driving to the office, I'm making sure to say a little prayer. My prayer is typical. I don't ask for God to heal that exact issue. Instead, please let me understand what it is, that you want me to take from this. Is this to help me to prepare for the next stage? or to not get lazy in her development? or to see how easily it can be taken away?

Dr. Carter got Sydney in right away. She took her to a different room. I told her the symptoms and about her speech. I could see in Dr. Carters face, that she too, could see the lack of speech. Sydney had always acknowledged Dr. Carter. Especially, with asking her if she was a Doctor. This time she didn't acknowledge or ask the Doctor anything. She would just echo Dr. Carter when asked a question. Dr. Carter did her thing. It was the flu. Dr. Carter did a couple of adjustments to her body, gave her a mouth spray and said this should help.

As the afternoon progressed, so did Sydney. By this morning, I can thankfully say that she and her speech is back. So, if Sydney is talking to much or to loud when she shouldn't be and you don't see me tell her to stop, you defiantly know why. I will always appreciate the words she can say.

Sydney was very excited about Halloween this year. We had Trunk or Treating, Halloween, her school party and then our Halloween party. Well....I had so many fun things planned for the party that I knew she would love. The one thing she didn't love, is that I hired a sitter to follow her around and make sure she wasn't naughty or eat anything she wasn't suppose to. She was pissed when she figured out what Tyla was doing. This just sent her down hill. She did get to do the silly string, but that was it. She missed the piñata and everything else. She ended up going inside the whole night. It was a little disappointing for me, but I had to remember how much she had enjoyed the rest of the week leading up to it. That still put a smile on my face. Boy, was I glad that I had a sitter. The next day she said it's November, Halloween is over. LOL Yes it is.