Boy, I think Nico isn't too happy with all this stuff either as he chose to stay up til midnight last night and then woke at 6:30a this morning. I had a bad feeling this was not going to be beneficial to any sort of testing they might want to do with him. We got out about 20min later than I had wanted to thanks to Nico's early rising but managed to only be a couple of minutes late getting to the appointment. Nico fell asleep in the car about the time I was coming off the freeway and I allowed myself to hope that he would sleep in my arms for an hour while I talked with the Drs before waking himself up and showing them the true mischief maker we know and love. Alas that was not meant to be. :( He woke up immediately upon our arrival and I could tell he was not feeling wonderfully. I continued to hope for the best (in this case a modicum of cooperation and just a true viewing of what he is normally alike) but he was cranky and out of sorts. He played quietly for a little bit (yeah, I know, quietly??? I told you he was tired) and played a little with the Drs but not much. There was not much in the way of laughter of smiles or the silly games he loves to play with us. Of course, this brought up all the concerns because he wasn't making much eye contact or smiling responsively. Anyone who's met him knows that isn't his usual personality. After an hour, he had decided that he had really had enough of being there (okay, after about 30min he had had enough but I managed to sort of keep him occupied for a little longer) and it was agreed that they weren't really going to get what they needed so we left and agreed to do a phone interview later in the day. *sigh* I really had a bad feeling about trying to do something like this so early in the day with him and I'm sorry I ended up being right.
I was talking to Mark and my mom afterwards a bit and we do seem to have a working, plausible theory tho. The only experts who ever seen any ASD signs are the ones in SJ. None of the ones within about a 30min drive of us have had any thoughts along those lines, even when I've mentioned the concerns the other dr raised. Now Matthew and I both suffer from motion sickness and as we were all talking today, we realized that Nico is always quieter and more clingy after a longer cardrive (defined as an hour or more), much more subdued, not as talkative or smily, and it usually takes him an hour or two to warm back up. We hadn't questioned it much figuring a) it was kind of nice to have a quiet moment or two and b) he was just unsure of new places but now we are thinking he may suffer from motion sickness as well and that's what the drs down there are seeing. Not his usual self but one that is feeling ill from the long car ride (in addition to being sick at the last appointment). It's interesting and it really feels right to me so we are going to go with that and I'm going to work on getting any follow-up appointments with a developmental pedi transferred to SF to make sure. They are also supposed to be opening a new ASD clinic up there as well so if we do feel the need to do testing in the future, we will go to that one to again try and rule out any possible influences from the long car ride.
I brought this theory up during the phone interview and the Dr did seem to think it was at least plausible. We spoke for 2hrs and I think I was able to paint the picture of the real Nico clearly enough, at least I hope so. I'm still feeling, as I have all along, that this is not the right path to be taking for him at this juncture so I'm not going to pursue anything further with the ADOS or anything at this point. Between my motion sickness theory and my gut feelings it really feels like we would just be wasting everyone's time. If he truly is on the spectrum, something further will present itself at some point to raise someone's eyebrows and we will go from there but since at this point, none of the other specialists have shown any concern, I'm more than content to let it lie.
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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
If objects and people evoke attachment in us, we do not understand the true nature of phenomena. We can only become detached by realizing the true nature of things.
State of my sink: Shiny! (Thank you Mark!)
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