Episode 5 - Diagnosis Journey

(upbeat music) Welcome back to the ASN Dad Chat, we're a podcast and community dedicated to making sure no ASN Dad in Scotland has to walk this path alone. Our goal is simple, real talk, real honesty, and sharing our own experiences to help you navigate the system. Whether you're in our meetup group already, or just finding us now, you've got to sit at the table. And just a reminder, we aren't experts, we're just kids, and this is just experiences and opinions, not medical advice, not legal advice. Then let's go on with the chat today. Hello and welcome back to ASN Dad Chat, we're back for episode five, and I'm joined by Sam. - Hello. - And Glenn. - Hello. So, let's speak what we're looking to talk about as the diagnostic journey. I'm kind of road to that autism diagnosis, wherever you'd like to call it, we're just gonna try against the details of the early signs that we've seen as parents, same the journey we had to get in the actual diagnosis, what actually happened to the diagnosis, and kind of what was happening after that point. I think it's a big topic that's having enough and can a useful and can relate to. - Absolutely, I think it's kind of patent parcel with any ASN parent, it's something that, you have either dealt with previously, or you're going to come across. I think what was it talking before this? I know I've recently just had my stepdaughter, she's just had her autism diagnosis, and I know what was it the first few episodes I was saying, I was like, I don't have a clue about the diagnostic journey, I've not been on it. - Never happened. - Nearly more successful. - The DNS one now, it's good. You've got that as well now, obviously. You've got it with your oldest child, and obviously you've come through that in the ways, but now you carry it first and similar to. - Other parents, some of these very fresh for you, for myself, and it's been a while, obviously. I didn't, we'd said about it before, I've had to go back and speak to Chad, you said you spoke to Shell, and you had to go back and kind of like timeline, how it's all been for us. - Yeah, everything's giving you a bit of a blur. Have what happened at what age, so. - Oh yeah, it's such an impactful thing, like I think that happens, and I know we talked about it and like the actual, I am sure, and I think it was very much a sense of relief, you know, that was coming across, because I think for my step-daughter, she presents very differently to my oldest, she's very verbal, she's very literal, so kind of whatever comes into her head, or she hears, she very much, she believes. What was it she was at school? She was talking about somebody who had game over to her and was calling on her cry baby, and we turned around and went, well, what happened? What did you say? And she was like, "Leg's cried." And it was just that literal when she comes out with it, and me and my partner, we were trying not to vocal, you know, she says things sometimes, and I'm like, oh my Lord, totally dead. - So it was one of those that when it came around to the actual assessment, I think we were just like, right, I hope that that doesn't get foreshadowed, you know. But I've known her since, she was about one and a half when she started her journey, so I've been quite fortunate where, you know, I wasn't really there, you know, the diagnosis came from my oldest when I think he was four, I want to say, but I met him when he was about four and a half, so he had already had his diagnosis at that stage, and when it's now, I've actually been present in my stepdaughter's journey. - Yep. - For me, most people, they come to it through their first kids. I was exposed to, as in kids, quite young, I had a cousin who had autism along with other diagnoses. A couple of years younger than me, in his 30s or so now, made his own life for himself, but in a young age, I didn't really understand what was going on, obviously I was told similar to other kids. This is what's going on, this is what's happening, I've seen you just need to be careful with what you say and how you go about things, and obviously if you're worried or you're unsure, you'd have to just speak to an adult about it, but you don't really, at that age, can't really comprehend it all. But I think that helped me see the early signs with Elijah. We got Elijah's diagnosis through COVID, so he was, I think he was about two when he first got his diagnosis. It was just, small things, small things from a young age, people would just say that he was, he would get there, you just have to give it time, but it was similar, it was just things like, took him a little bit longer to walk, didn't acknowledge his name. The usual first signs of his speech, his sleep was terrible for Elijah, always has been. He had speech before he got to two, and he had some comprehensive language, I'll say so you can say, "Mom, Dad, like Nana, "he could sing." There's a video that my mother-in-law is very fond of. He's at a window, like singing Rain Rain Go Away, but it's heartbreaking for my wife because that video was taken just before he's, essentially, last speech. - They did a great yesterday. - That's weird, regress, yeah. So we spoke into our health visitor a couple of times, and she's like, "I'll come and do a visit." And within half an hour of being there, she goes, "Yeah, you just need to get in, "we need to get him assessed." We went for assessment down in the gobbles, so I'm not sure whereabouts you would have been. - Yeah, we were the same. I had a lot of time, obviously, 'cause he was still during COVID, only one parent could go in at a time. So I went in, because he was still quite hard for Jay at the time, especially with the idea that she'd have to go in and stuff, obviously if anything happened, she wouldn't be able to control the situation. We were sort of going to the room, spoke to the doctor, obviously Elijah just wanted to play while he was in there, and she was trying to assess him. I just observed him, frustrated him, I said, "Because she was trying to poke and pride "and try and get his attention with things." And it just wasn't a great experience. But she agreed that there was signs of autism there, and we'd gone from there to, we didn't get the diagnosis there and then. We still had to go along the lines of doing things like speech and language, and a couple more assessments. We went for testing, same as yourself did, asked him up as inconclusive, which was a pain at the time, obviously, because we could see obviously the worst signs. We were in nursery at the time, and it was a private nursery, and Elijah actually struggled within the nursery, because I'm not gonna do bad math. The place, but they essentially told us that they couldn't look after a child of Elijah's needs. - It was very, very, very, very common. I think I certainly something with my oldest school, there was something that they were trying to fight against saying that, but it's difficult. - I think it was harder because the girls in there wanted to learn, but the owner of the nursery just had no interest. So we'd left the nursery and we'd, we were fortunate enough to find another nursery very close to us very quickly. And that nursery was amazing. It's the same one that Noah goes to now, because we've got such a good rapport with the girls, obviously, as soon as we told him that Noah was coming, they were like, he's coming here right? So yeah, sure, he's coming there. And it was at that nursery, that Elijah flourished. He had a one-to-one care, we had one of the girls in there, and she just helped him so much. And I think if it hadn't been for us going to that nursery, I think Elijah wouldn't have learned as much as he had done, and he wouldn't have continued to grow his speech, or his, because obviously, we did our best. But there's only so much we know as parents that we can do, obviously, that has to be some external for that as well. - Yeah, I think that once you get them into somewhere that they can fit in, they can thrive, it's obviously, it's massive for them, sort of thing, that they're in an environment that they can actually become double in, and they can try and learn the way that's best for them. It is one of the main things. I mean, in terms of Ashton, as was kind of different sort of thing, there was some early signs with Ashton, he was younger, that he had this constant hum when he was reading sort of thing, that was always just kind of like, what is that? It's a bit different sort of thing, like there's this constant humming sort of thing. He would always be leading this by the hand. He didn't have any sort of gestures at it, so he wouldn't clap, he wouldn't point, which I had no idea that was even a thing that they were supposed to have had sort of thing. But milestone-wise, Ashton met all of his, that he was crawling at six months, walking at 11 months. He had speech, he could say hi, bye, mom, dad, had eye contact and everything, so we had zero concerns at all in terms of autism. We always thought that he had a lot of medical issues, 'cause he was always early, he was always in hospital, and then also the fact that my oldest niece is autistic and comparing the two of them are completely. different, I asked even now they're completely different there so at that point all it doesn't just wasn't an Rade Aratol because I really asked him as nothing like her, that just wasn't there so we had essentially a full list of things that we thought was was effected in Ashton it was more in terms of it was kind of smaller things like it would be watching the TV upside down, he's being hanging off the couch watching TV upside down, it'd be head-bagging so he'd just be sitting watching TV just banging his head off the wall and then kind of slowly we'll surely have that hum turn into the the scream that we all know and love today but it did take a while though if in terms of the kind of behavior stuff and it was a good while before autism even came into their kind of ways and at all he was a lot of kind of behavioral issues that was the head banging was getting worse he would just be going down on the floor and just banging his head off the floor going for the wall going for the corner of the wall so it was really really upsetting just to watch him really upset but in our heads it was we thought he had something medically heart numb sort of thing that we thought there was a pain we need to get that sorted and it was at a point where Cheryl just kind of broke down to come to the GP when I was at work and at that point Ashton was sitting in front of her just banging his head off the floor Cheryl had got like a two-page list of all the different kind of symptoms that we thought Ashton had and again still all medical things the different issues we thought it could be still none of them autism completely off the radar and the GP referred us to the community period attrition a medical period attrition and ENT just to check I think that was the check is hearing which again gets quite common that these sort of things can be hearing problems he went into the medical period attrition and the fills in the disc kept saying all I think it's behavioral we're kind of they keep saying behavioral which turns out I think that's just a kind of code word for autism sort of thing um the checked ENT all absolutely fine and it wasn't until we had the kind of call with the community period attrition on the phone and she's asking this kind of a bunch of questions does he do this does he do this does he do this and then it was at the end of the call she was like I'm 90% sure that that he's got autism and that was the first time we were kind of got the kind of shock of I got like I hadn't thought about that like and I think it's just that we were until we were kind of in that world you've no idea what autism is sort of thing like soon as I've seen my niece in my last autism whereas now obviously I'm at a kid's sir let me see her are yeah it just shows you it's kind of a whole different world um I don't know about you Sam in terms of obviously it's a lot more kind of fresh for you what kind of early signs you had seen with your yeah I think so at the moment I've seen I've seen a lot in my stepdaughter I've also seen a lot of my son so my son he's three and a half um oh yeah he started he was delayed and a lot of his my milestones um like crawling wise um walking it to come until he was about one one and a half he then at the back at the back end of one he had um multiple surgeries on his throat um he was born with a floppy larynx um which then once they investigated that and they done the surgery to close it up um they identify the laryngeal cleft which is like a kind of hole that leads down like past the voice box down into the lungs pretty much um because he was getting sick all the time um constantly getting like kind of bronchialitis that sort of stuff and we were in and out the hospital constantly um so we kind of I think for us we we looked at him and we were we need to give him a bit of slack on that because it's going to be hard for him to meet his milestones with all these things going on but as times progressed um he certainly like once he's got one so he started going to nursery um you know there was early signs in the sense that he you know he would be trying to put a lot of different things at iD's mouth they would try to be trying to you know he would really kind of you know he wouldn't really parallel play um he would really focus on what he was doing and everybody else around him was just in an extension you know luckily he's in the biggest room now and um he has we've just got a plan put in place for him um it's called I believe it's called the um up and away which is um basically targeting um improving his speech um he certainly came a long way in terms of his speech you know he's getting a lot more um phrases and he's you know he's he's counting really good with notice that as well recently um he's starting to identify colors so he's making good progress um it's one of those though that it's very much we've had those conversations with health visitors with you know the GP and with satin there's been like listen you know with our with our oldest having a lot as um you know with our step step daughter she was um looking to have autism we've recently obviously had her diagnosis she has autism um and with how his kind of speech language delay was and the stage he has at his and his development they were like less and it could very much be the same you know so we're still very early on and that journey um with our youngest but um our step daughter she got her diagnosis um i want to say it's probably a bit a week a week or so ago um and i think for us you know the early signs she um she wasn't that variable up until she was about one and a half to um it took her a wee while but once once she got once she got a lot of language flourished but it seemed that her emotionally she really struggled um she really struggles with the transitions so like in school or in nursery when they would move from one thing to another it would be a complete meltdown you know there just wasn't that process of great i can leave this until tomorrow or i can do something you know i can maybe come back to this it was why i'm actually why is this changing you know um and now you know there's like visual timers and stuff like that that really helps her um but she's very literal and um she really kind of struggles under this then like sarcasm and stuff like that which is which is i don't want it because my partner she's probably the most sarcastic person i know um so sometimes we have to kind of reign ourselves in and go she's not going to understand um but i think we were both a wee bit apprehensive about the the assessment so you know just like you were saying Glenn you know you didn't get the results right away um so my stepdaughter she had her assessment and then later on that day we get the call to kind of discuss it so i didn't actually know that we don't get the results on that day it's quite interesting um but the basically phone is up and more like listen you know she very much has autism this is what we observed during um lay the activities you know she was playing with different things she was connecting different toys to different um you know different like concocting a story almost with the select toys and um you know she was very much featuring um the person who was assessing her in the story but she was kind of dictating what the story was going to be um she was very much just telling the person this is what you're going to do um you know and there was no kind of there was a kind of a lack of a kind of social imagination of that other person's input and that other person might want to do you know and those with some of the points that came out was you know she has like a kind of Scottish American twang to our voice um she's picked up a lot of kind of um American mannerisms um through you know youtube and like a lot of kind of like um tablet things that she plays or she watches um and getting her to she's you know getting her to like process things like she very much anytime we're talking about money she refers to it as dollars right um so we have to we don't kind of turn around and go no it's not that it's we just kind of go oh you mean um pounds yeah um and that can be a bit of a struggle for her but I think for us we were a wee bit we were we a wee bit worried that just because she is so verbal and because you can have an active conversation we were wee bit worried that a lot of her mannerisms and behaviors were going to get overlooked but when we got that and to be to their credit you know they were so so thorough of the examination and I think both of us were very relieved that you know that diagnosis came through and you know now she's going to be able to get a bit more help and support and you know school and other areas that's good it's a luxury as well though I've said that you've had it a later than you have in many ways like I know for a larger than one of the reasons why they wouldn't give him his diagnosis so early was because he was so young like they they they they they very reluctant to diagnose kids under a certain age because it could just be development issues and I remember that was being told that they've been in I mean it's like oh it just could be something that he's he's working on like he might just be like he's just developing next wise ed and like no no like there's something wrong here like you need to a'r ymwch i'n gweithio. Ymwch i'n gweithio. A'r ymwch i'n gweithio. a sut bwll iываем oedd. into their play and invite you into their world sort of thing and it kind of opens up a lot more things, essentially the whole thing, I don't try and force it. It wasn't until we kind of moved house and I think this was obviously where Clown and some of the kind of autistic tends, he said kind of started with Aston where he started to pit so he lost all that function language like the mum dad, I buy all that sort of stuff and he started to pick it up a lot of things, fast news with letters and numbers and he was loving that sort of things and just like repeating like nursery rhymes so all of a sudden at that point we were delighted that he had any sort of speech against this point and again we've got all these videos of Aston started off with just grunts that sound like words and we're not really speaking he's speaking you're just delighted that there's anything coming back there at all but we went to the the kind of NHS speech and language on as well and to be fair again it was almost felt like just kind of like a box tick and exercise at that point for us because again you did the kind of three sides for the diagnosis action just went in and played with the toys there wasn't really much kind of speech and language therapy going on at that point and I think it's difficult because I think you do get to that point we were the same with the kinds of like the health visitor once Aston was kind of on that journey kind of felt like we were past the point where having these high measured and these weight taken it just kind of felt irrelevant at that point because you're hoping that you can after that you're going to see some sort of specialist doctor who's going to come and fix everything and someone that's going to tell you exactly what to do but obviously the difficult thing is there's not really the magic person at all. No, no, no. Was it we say it? It was at me and my partner, we say it all the time is you know being a parent there's no instruction manual you know and a lot you know that being you know was it neurotypical children you know is I would say a lot more common so you've got a lot more experiences to understand you know and a lot of parents who have neurotypical children they can come in and you know if they're children if they're child struggling they can reach that kind of compromise and you know with it with our children that's that's a very difficult task you know and I think for you know when I think it's really difficult you know I think what seeing my stepdaughter grow up I think it was a wee bit amir like I said when I was when she was one and a half and I think I see things now that I have my son you know I love them all equally and I will treat them all the same way but I think going through it is you know it is different you know and seeing you know my in my stepdaughter and she she's thriving now where she is we moved her school because they couldn't like just the needs that not only hard bit the entire class had and that it was just they were all really struggling and the teacher was going off and on and off and on and it was just there was a lot of kind of inconsistency which you know she really struggled with but we moved her we moved her school and she's doing really well she's got a teacher who's very invested who's very knowledgeable about you know what additional support needs and stuff like that and he's doing a fantastic job and I think where we are I look at it and I go you know she is autistic but for me she's still her you know it is just a you know it is I don't want to call it a label but it is you know what she she falls under this umbrella of an additional support need she just needs a bit of extra help and you know I look at it and I go she can still you know grow up work get married all of these types of things and I think it's a wee bit different because when I looked at my oldest you know I think I had to very much res you know resign to the fact that that probably won't happen you know and I think kind of similarly we talked about you know as he going to stay with us for you know until we're older and I know my partner had a conversation about that and it was very much like listening to our goal hopefully is to get me and maybe assisted loving once he's old enough yeah um my my my customer just spoke about earlier obviously he's he's needs a similar to Elijah's in many ways um I'd say he's definitely more functional with his speech obviously he's he's had his own little job but he works charity shops and he he does live on his own essentially he went he went to uh to college to learn to farming all things um so it's a good idea yeah yeah um it's a thing from when he was like we used to go um on a day to Wales and the family friends owned a farm um so he would go and go out into the fields with his family friend and do other things um so that's how you got interested in it um so not every child with additional needs or with autism is going to have the same um journey as we've spoken about obviously there's um this kid's out there that can function still and they are high functioning and they can still go out into the world and they can have high powered jobs they can live lives and there's something that our children can have as well still my my best friend Danny Birmingham uh he's he had a daughter at random at the same time as us they got pregnant just before us um and because Elijah was early he actually came a day before um he's storted it uh it was quite hilarious obviously because I was in the the the room after a large cum laude we beat you but she's going down her own pathway um she's um she's a lot more high functioning obviously like she has like she has speech she always has her speech obviously she's part of the gender obviously she knows her own mind um but she's difficult in her own ways um and she has her own development so that she's working on um so it's it's weird seeing um that those differences and you don't want to like well compare the kids and stuff like that obviously but you do see it like I think it's a natural thing as a parent as well to compare you know and it's not something you ever want to do but you see you know I know that like if we go to a like a soft play for example and you know I sit there and you see children run around and you know invite other children to play and do all of it and do all these things and I think it took me a long time to be able to turn around and go that doesn't matter you know what I'm here I'm focusing on match I would you know this is how match I would is you know exuding energy getting a lot of the kind of thoughts and feelings out through play you know and I know that when we go to different soft plays it will be um you know it will be um like a trampoline or the it's like a circular swing they will just spend these entire time on you know and you sit there and go do you know what if that makes you happy doing that for a few of us bashing you know you can be a keeper definitely definitely um I think just in terms of kind of going back to the kind of diagnosis sort of thing and we've kind of covered how we've all felt it was a felt about our kind of early signs and how the actual journey's went to settle from which it's obviously touched on kind of what happened next is there any sort of kind of we'll spoke about speech and language is there any other services that you guys can I use or anything or things that you've found kind of after that initial diagnosis that you just kind of went to um I mean I give an example that for Aston we get referred to the Scottish Centre for Autism um to work with Aston and that was in terms of if he was going there and that I was supposed to help him with his kind of turn taking to get him and that so obviously what I like is well the kind of diagnosis process that none of our kids are kind of like it when someone else takes control they want to be very much in charge of what's going on because um that's just kind of the way that it's there what it looks like yeah exactly so and they worked with Aston for nearly a year in terms of um turn taking be like right Aston's turn right when I turn Aston's turn um and there was meltdowns everything in between sort of thing but it was just good to know that there was something there um that would work in that it was even dealing with kind of obsessions and things where they would bring specific toys and then because he would remember certain toys from the previous week you'd want the same one so you'd have to mix it up and it was almost that kind of expanding the diagnosis to try and help him um can it be around others and in help him working we found that absolutely brilliant um Aston was only supposed to be on that for I'm sure about six weeks or so he ended up he ended up keeping him in there for a year before the service in shutdown completely I think so that was that was absolutely brilliant for us just wonder if there's anything I don't remember anything like that for Elijah um I know we had certain we had like zoom calls and like calls obviously similar to yourself where we'd have to do things um and send them videos and such I think that was I think that was more the community nurse um we did have to follow up a couple of times with dieticians um because Elijah's um his uh easy to it hasn't always been as good as it is and he does fluctuate um I made a comment the other day I really see um he really as much he likes obviously but he'll at some point he just doesn't want to meet at all like the last uh podcast I said obviously that his palette is really good he'll eat what he eats obviously very mostly snacks um since then he hasn't wanted to eat dinner um we we've started looking at trying to give him his dinner early on now trying because when he comes of the bus we tend to give them a stack plate. So instead now instead of giving them that snack plate we're giving them a dinner Yeah, yeah the same ration and then giving them some of girls later in case he doesn't eat it It's even like his breakfasts his own eating Sir breakfast was now he's like he's gone completely off-toast But if I give him a pan of chocolate or I've given him a croissant he'll just That's exactly what he's saying. So actually he said love toast all the time and all of a sudden if you show him toast now He'll be sick and I say he has a croissant most of the time there. Yeah, however, it was a our old-disk he's got a He's got a process he follows and if it's not spot on He will not be happy so As he always says in the morning he wakes up and sometimes he wants a snack in the morning just until he's fully woken up if he's had mella tone in the night before He Basically He can be quite groggy in the morning So a lot of the time we will just kind of let him dictate You know he he comes up and asks for a snack or he will say Toast and spoon which means serial and so It'll be serial with toast and if it will be a certain so he'll walk kind of the kitchen. He'll point to One or two or three different boxes of cereal that he wants in one go You know, I remember that used to be an absolute foreign concept to me I was always a one serial type of guy. Oh, I did that with Roger and Grisa But you know he in very much at the moment his choice is chocolate we have X and Frosted Freddy's that says to niche ones that he'll put together And he has his cereal and then he has normally toast and chocolate spread and what he will do is he will Scoop out the cereal once it's been soaked and the milk for a wee bit so it's a bit more mushy He will then dip his Toast and And the milk and then the remainder milk he'll take and put into the sink because you no longer needs that anymore Um, so he's got a strict process You know what he said and it's the same with lunch, it's the same with dinner. You know he has that strict process but um, you know, I think his palate is very It can be really hit and miss at the moment. He's you know checking dip those smoke sausage Anything But you know McDonald's Is always a staple Anything that isn't that though you he will definitely will not even go need it And I think service wise what you were talking about there. I know at the moment And just with him being out of school we are looking at There are we found out that If your child's like not in school you can get like music therapy Like play therapy and stuff like that to come out to the house And do like little workshops good um, so we're in the process of trying to get that set up um as for um, like speech and language you know For us the way they they have described our oldest is You know if you suggest if you say a phrase that he's not quite familiar with it's like a tumbola and his head with all saved phrases And he'll just roll the tumbola and whatever comes out he'll try and peace Into the sentence if it works great if not that's when frustration kicks in Um, you know that is very much where they've they've turned around and went so you have you know You have to try and let him kind of um figure it out and you have to really be patient with it And I know I struggled with that because I was in my head. I was like you know the sentence we've talked about it before why is it not You know sinking in but it just takes them out of extra time. So as much you know, I think the services after diagnosis not only it is For them, I think it's for us as well, you know to understand to to step into their their lives a bit and get to you know get to know them that wee bit more You know and it can be difficult because like you said some of the services and like even the diagnostic assessment it can be Absolutely brutal to sit there and watch, you know, but at the end of the day if it's gonna You know you have to look at and go is this gonna benefit my child? Is this gonna get my child more things to help them out then Yeah, I had to tell my name as a daughter wanted to kind of stay between but um Sorry, I cut you off clean a bit yourself at the dietician in terms of Elijah, and you're saying obviously did you manage to get any sort of help with that like what was the sort of stuff? No, we did bits and pieces obviously they told us to keep like a diary of what he was eating and what foods Um and being the case Say the food's always been a priority for us in the house. I'm just trying to find what we could Jade used to make a lot of things herself to try and like um Push through what we could find obviously as I said It's always been good with veg. We've always been a positive Watermelon is absolutely stable on our house. We can go through a pack of watermelon in a day But that used to be a case of that would be the only way we could get Fluid into him as well. Okay, um because he wouldn't He still doesn't really do it, but he wouldn't drink out of like a cup Because if you didn't you can look up it's yeah, yeah, yeah, um, so for the most part we still use like CP cups Okay, um, we've started to be able to transition into some more sports bottles for school um, but even then like When he was at nursery and stuff they were like okay, so we only offer water I'm like he's not going to drink water Yeah, like it needs to be like Do dilute squash or it's milk Um, even now like he doesn't really he won't drink milk as much the only time we give him milk is to have his melatonon in the evening Yeah Or if we have to give him some sort of medicine because we can't ever give a larger any medicine is that like one? Yeah, the good um, we had the We had the pills to begin with um, but we we pushed to get the Um, the liquid because the pills just weren't doing anything for Um, we would give him to him and then he'd be up like me in a way through the night again Um But I think yeah, obviously we didn't get as much as we'd hoped from for speech and language, but we just kind of found our own way with a Um, it's not like uh, I think this is something that we Kind of had to understand is like all of these different departments. They can offer you suggestions But it's you know our children are also different So it is just what works and what doesn't is very trial and error, isn't it? I know that our daughter she really struggles to Remember to drink so she can go like a full day without trying to just cut with she forgets And you know, we've we've done some work with the diet action about how you know trying to introduce What was uh Flavor water or something like that with every meal um or even you know every couple of snacks Reminding our drink and stuff like that. I like about that with fruit shoots. I think that was a that was a good thing for us Um, where can we combine through a palette of fruit shoots at the in our house? Yeah, weren't touch fizzy juice Um, she's always funny if you do because he will have a bottle of something and he'll try it and then he's just his face crunched up straight away So these are just his mind and he used to talk about Testing then for the diagnosis well a couple of times. I see that you touched on there with For diagnosis. Well, I know you said you want to talk about it a bit more. Yeah. Yeah. So after Actually, it's autism diagnosis We got offered genetic testing and just after that point Actually, I'd just literally been out in the hospital and got a good few rounds of blood So we had said to them like we'd it's something that we definitely went to the can too But we'd rather wait just now because he's just been kind of put some problems as it is Can we wait until he's going to be inevitably a hospital again to do that and look that's fine So it kind of got passed on there. We were kind of waiting for the next time we'd be in hospital And I would have been able to know that the next thing I'd been in hospital would be when I had um Essentially not put the handbrake on the car and Essentially, I rolled down our driveway and hit into Ashton Um, which was the most horrific moment ever And I just burst into tears had no idea kind of what I had done or anything um Ashton at that Cheryl Um, you know that moment Everything just kind of flashed for my eyes. I was like what I've done like has Is still alive as he paralyzed and that's where the kind of communication thing you couldn't tell us What it was ashen was crying, but it was that way as it just because of Because I was crying everyone's upset and immediately kind of rushing into hospital Um and kind of give everyone their juice and hot so on a need to had a full trauma team about 10 different doctors for all the different missions That it could be and as soon as they found out that he was autistic one of them took charge and was like right Everyone step back one at a time go up to him sort of thing and they they couldn't have done better but um As I say it's easy to tell the story now because thankfully everything was absolutely fine Um, but the kind of one positive from that was that we managed to have bloods taken around there And then it it was a while later that Cheryl got the phone call to essentially say that Ashen has some called fragile X and drone like I said before um and again It was one of these ones where it was essentially kind of A punch of the gucks we hadn't realized that there could be something else it could kind of affect them, but I think In terms of genetic testing it's just it's so important because it's something that's helped us Understand as to even more um, well, we said the kind of better sweetness of the the initial autism diagnosis But in it can help you Understand your child's better. It's kind of guided our kind of medical options a lot more For Ashton in terms of highlighting things that you could potential epilepsy ond yn eisiau fwylu, gynhywodd yn fwylu pethau i'r iawn i'rогaeth, i'r cymru i'r pethau, gynhywodd yma sy'n bwyldry. Mae'r cymru yn gylferd, mae'r cymru i'r cymru yn gweithio. Mae'r cymru yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio. Mae'r cymru yn gweithio yn gweithio. Mae'r cymru yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio. Mae'r cymru yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio. Mae'r cymru yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio. Mae'n blaf gw llegieu cylau sydd Aceobó primero o fydd ar dyna oedderu hynny yw'r dдиweddnod. Mae'n sicrhau midd daran a'r filei ddynod eu diadau syddur eu Konstellinginows ydyd Felherwch yr ddwyyd med 중 das20 yn'n gael. Mae'n dd Border chaplarau adn yn cu tryfrпер Y vierig l wennair o'r siesta. Mae'r edrynt gera dao dweud, ja feod yISSAwer cyfflo gynDI yn b� champ y fan yac. Gill maest ag grabi go descripro cwcwy(i b new Fruit Rhywfynni i'n mynd. eil hyd yn ym繊ging mae o'r anim yn fォrch, yn fius ymfyrdd, at L строill điwch bod yn yr pan Сергl chef Ball Spiel onwards faint Mae pobl gwdydym yn ' Jacoedd recipe sy'n ' lwySS害 ym'r gwy Santaonyrd ichedd, ein ddolain sydd gen�ion poblchenig yn gwyllwed yn rlywion? Mae rai pydau, bod y gallu ni Bandwyr щеreidol Zw Want hysgol gyfer ni eau "We bleiben under Syff Carycer." Gygy spec infectorio iem? Louise awful, mae'r lwych yn fforddiol. Mae'r lfr allenodd Україan,��ais ac yn mathis גדwiwhau ddimTHACE. Raswnnaherg o'l agお technio'r mawn Ma'r D Along Mus I 팀ais'r Gullendi? a fy cymlo a'r dou mlgen i glali gwas Ydy. Cer roeddion a 6 ag αυτóf climor a roedd wneud awr samb sa mathod â'r ddwenna'i. Rwy geometric o tam gynau am cynwychaben o Edward Sik cold i chwau, acompañulall a trykoach gallan, Geneethu gweithio eich sy'n gweithio eich gallu'r ymg yn gallu. Yn gweithio eich gallu'r ymg amdwl, yn gallu'r ymg yn gallu'r ymg amdwl, ymg i'w'r aeglydd. Mae'n gallu'r ymg amdwl, ymg i'w'r aeglydd. Yn gallu'r ymg. Ymg ymg un gallu'r ymg' amdwl. Ymg. anxious, spellgnol i townw i serpent, hyr Meter Pointpear refresnai, it wasnt until I cant remember the name of the doctor look to that they met, police did chew hanna dow a huge head, hefn, mae'r ysgwch gyda'r ysgwch, mae'r gis hynny, oorodd yn ddungol, o'r yma'r gwybod. Ym, mae'r gwybod yn ddungol i'r ysgwch. Mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch. Mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch. Mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch. Mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch, mae'r gweithio os ymwch. Gothaleef ég èg hynny, ddlys een eer gyd pan. Na gynnul pan cerulion whenelio ac yn danwch galod fo. Wizosingan patio iawn fathen yn os bonewsock cymdeff. Ja, yn ran ddiseg sy'n y dar kangol un fynd i amterfagio mynigio armadio ond. Caemos gotol un ar ti ei aitio efo fet doedlaeth yn mu частra Todoiff si unogg amdol iawn crab. frigau mewn gaeth sydd un a'n league grabsofaj cyllaf. Felly mae'n foiswch doeggool ei gany fe miweithio yn sylfa roed oillier prysmnu mewn falsio nich yn yearf efo. Felly mae'n gyddiad yn y fathen i ffagio ni'n fathen. Mae'n gyddiad yma'n gyddiad, a'n gyddiad yma'n gyddiad yma'n gyddiad yma. Felly mae'n gyddiad yn ei gyddiad yn ei ddiddag yn ei ddiddag yn ei ddol iawn. Gyddiad yma'n gyddiad yma. Yna gyddiad yma yn meddwl ei ddwyd yn ei ddwynau. Mae'n gyddiad yma yn meddwl ei ddwynau. Mae'n gyddiad yma yn meddwl ei gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad yma yn meddwl ei gyddiad yma yn meddwl ei gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad yma yn gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Mae'n gyddiad. Thanks for listening. If you want to get involved or get in touch with us, you can find us on Facebook or Instagram under ESN.J. You can find us on Facebook or Instagram under ESN.J.J.J. You can find us on Facebook or Instagram under ESN.J.J. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]