News. It comes in all forms, in all ways. Many people watch their news on TV, watching the disasters and politics around the world. We see others lives and can at times feel what they feel. Someone house burns down and we feel bad for them. We know that it would be horrible if that were us. Sometimes the news we see really effects us because in some way through out our life, we felt what they were feeling or could feel what they are feeling. When we get news in our own lives it's a much bigger deal to us. We are the ones who feel the emotion and most of us go through stages of dealing with news, whatever it may be. Today we received such news. I am sure you all know that over the last few months our daughter Chloe has been receiving some speech therapy because her speech regressed quite a bit a few months prior. Since starting these weekly classes she has progressed. We have seen improvement each week as we drastically change how we teach her and work with her. However, because we are working with her so intensely and so often, we all started noticing some things that were concerning us as parents and were also concerning to her speech therapist. We had her hearing tested which turned out to be normal and because she was showing many signs of being Autistic, we scheduled a test and had her tested. Knowing that we had this test for a few weeks, we knew that researching about Autism before could inevitably freak us out. Hence, we just decided to carry on with our lives until the appointment came. Yesterday, we dropped off the baby with the Grandparents and this morning we woke up very early to get ready for the 3 hour long appointment. Our doctor is top Child Psychiatrist in our county and was absolutely wonderful. Each "test" he gave her was a lot like "play" and then he would break down what he was "testing" and how he came to his conclusion. He asked us about life at home and how she interacts with others. He basically went over every inch of her life in detail. In the end, he showed us that the testing and what we shared is showing that Chloe does indeed have Autism. I know this may be hard to read, especially if you know just how sweet our Chloe girl is, but this does not mean she will be impaired her whole life and it does not mean she will be plagued with this. What will happen is that she will be receiving more intense classes and lessons to help minimize the autistic tendency and problems she has. At this point, we can only go forward and help this amazing little person of ours adapt and grow. Thank you for all your prayers during this time in our life. We thank all of you family and friends for being there for us and for all your wonderful thoughts and prayers.
Sincerely,
The Durborough Family
Brian, Mandi, Chloe and Carli
