Dyslexia....

....because Autism times two kids, Sensory Integration Disorder, debilitating anxiety, food allergies, pre-teen mood mood swings, an international move and being away from all your family wasn't enough for one family.  We now add Dyslexia to our laundry list of maladies.

Eh, much like having more kids in the house, what the Hell is one more?  As I talked to the doctor today and listed why I thought my little girl has this issue he lamented, "Sadly, knowing about won't make the living with it any easier"  I snorted a bit and he thought I was agreeing with him.  Get serious. I've spent almost 7 years in and out of doctors and therapists offices, thousands of hours searching online at Google University for anything that will make our lives better.  I know that the next 11-15 years of getting the girls through school are going to be mind-numbingly difficult. 

Finding out we have Dyslexia is like finding out there's a rash with a fever.  We're already sick here Mate, what the Hell is one more symptom.

I'm actually relieved.  I've known for a while that something was "off" with Tessi and her reading.  I couldn't put my finger on what exactly the problem was but as she's been growing up the problems have been more pronounced.  Now she's noticing there's a problem and it's just feeding her anger and that is never a good idea.  Tessi handles rage about as well as I handle sleep deprivation...it gets ugly, very quickly. 

However now I have something to grab onto and run with, so to speak.  We meet with the pediatrician in 2 weeks and get a plan of attack, hopefully.  I'm looking into pediatric occupational ophthalmologists, Dyslexia support groups, the school reading support teacher; whatever I need to.  This part is always the scariest with a new diagnosis - learning what to do.  When you get the Autism label you usually need a few weeks to get your head around the horrible word.  It was a full month before I could say it out loud without crying.  Then learning who you had to talk to, what therapies there were to try, deciphering the language of doctors, support groups, therapists and technicians.  You can have all the educational degrees in the world but in that beginning bit you are as lost as Kindy the first day of school.  Not to mention trying to breathe while under the enveloping veil of the death of your dreams for your child and the birth of the terror about their future that doesn't ever really go away.

But I'm not throwing up tonight.  I'm not laying my head on the table sobbing and begging for it to be over, not this time.  If we hadn't endured the last 7 years I very well might be.  I might be consumed with terror worrying about her having problems learning to read and therefore not being able to finish school on her terms.  Instead I'm realizing that my little girl's brain is playing tricks with her and I have to help her learn fight back.  That doesn't even sound that hard.  Oh, I know that there will be many, many hard days ahead and Tessi will have to work her hardest to retrain her brain, eyes, whatever she needs to do in order to survive.  But at least we know what is going on.  She's been fighting for years to be normal and like everyone else; at this point we really don't know any other way.

So bring on another degree from Google Uni!  If I keep this up I'll have more degrees than Ted and I'll be much less a snob about it.  Ok, maybe not.