I wrote back in September that we were headed to MN to have our son, John, tested for a multitude of things. There were years of unexplained behavior, inabilities and frustration for both him and us. Our trauma counselor recommended MN to us and we are so thankful she did. I have been asked numerous times what our results were and for a while I just wasn't ready to talk about it but over the past 8 monthI have had some other mommas come forward and tell me their child's story and ask questions and so I would love to share our results and outcomes so far.
After 3 days of testing, Michael and I were brought together with a team of doctors and told many, many things. The overview of what we were told was that our son was very lucky. Our son has Traumatic Brain Injury due to the severity and duration of the starvation he went through while in China. While I know many of the children from our son's orphanage come home healthier, he was not a favored child and thus came home to us with 6 months to live. He was "lucky" in the fact that his brain injury and starvation didn't affect his IQ. While the doctors repeatedly told us they see thousands of adopted children from all over the world that were in the same situation as John, most children's IQ is negatively affected. John's was not. Which leads to greater frustration than normal, because he is aware that he should be able to do or remember things, but he just can't.
There is also the issue with his corpus callosum. While it's there, the doctors aren't sure if it is functioning. The corpus callosum serves, if you will, like a connector between the left and right hemisphere of your brain. Activities such as jumping rope, running, reading, writing, climbing stairs, swinging, chewing food, well you get the drift, require both sides of the brain to work in unison to make the motor planning work on both sides of the body. I mean its a bit tough to swing with just one side of your body, or eat only using half of your tongue right? This is something we saw in John for years. Inability to walk/run without falling down, inability to chew/swallow his food, inability to hold pencils with a strong grasp and the list goes on.
The doctors did give us hope. They said John would be allowed to have modified curriculum at school due to his TMI. This was good. They also said he would be given free PT and OT at school because of the diagnosis. This was good too. They told us that he most likely would never be an athlete or be able to read (think left to right with you eyes when you read on a page), that he would not be able to write and to get him started in Kindergarten on keyboarding right away. Not so good.
BUT, and let me tell you this, doctors are not God, they are human and they are very smart and God has gifted them to treat us in ways they deem best, but again they are not God.
The very little boy they said wouldn't read, is reading. Our little boy is writing. And our little boy is jumping rope, climbing up playgrounds, swinging on his own, riding bicycles and scooters and drawing me the most precious pictures.
They said he wouldn't, but God said he would.
We were denied PT/OT at school because they did not see a need for it and his curriculum has stayed the same as the regular classroom. We were blessed with his teacher though. She is by far the best thing that could have happened to John this year at school She loves him. She challenges him. She prays for him and encourages him when he is down.
And here is a picture of our little one enjoying life. Brain injury and all. There is more to living than a diagnosis and much more than we could ever imagine that God has planned for John.
