Tatyanna's Hope

".....well, she can be an extremely overwhelming sort of child...."

Hmm, you don't say? This was from a conversation with Tatyanna's occupational therapist, who I'm positive might feel completely in over her head most of the time but does an amazingly remarkable job during their hour together nonetheless. The appointment with the developmental pediatrician was considerably less productive. She started the assessment using all the standardized method of testing and within half an hour could go no farther. She tried doing the usual "copy my drawing" test to which Yanna's response was "draw a horse!!!" she moved on to the block test. Tatyanna felt that she should then make a horse from the blocks. Within half an hour we had to remove Yanna from the room as she was pretty much climbing the walls. The rest of the appointment was spent conducting a patient history. At the end, the ped. announced that she wasn't really sure what was going on as she couldn't fully conduct an assessment and that she wasn't willing to officially diagnose Tatyanna with anything but would refer her to a neurologist, children's special services and the pediatric autism organization. It was entirely frustrating and Trent and I left the office wondering if perhaps she had obtained her credentials from one of those online study institutions. I get a lot of spam in my one discussion forum that promise a PhD in 3 months or your money back. Perhaps those people really can get jobs!!

Ironically, she is closer to being like the old Tatyanna that it doesn't bother me a bit. It's funny how your perspective can change so drastically in such a short time. I would much rather have her tearing apart the house, emptying the pantry and antagonizing her siblings than have her barely able to function as a result of continual seizures and side effects from medication that just isn't working. I realize that this reprieve may be short lived as medications but I will take it and enjoy it.