Katies Paediatrician Appointment

Quick update on Katie…

We got to the child development unit and immediately bumped into the Portage manager who has been so lovely. She was really pleased to see Katie and told her colleague who we were… she was lovely too. She said she had typed up all of Katies notes the other day and commented on how lovely it was to actually meet her.

The peadiatrician was very friendly and put us at ease straight away. He explained that she had been referred to him because he often assesses children who dont seem to tick the right boxes for a clear diagnosis.
He asked us LOADS of questions about how Anthony and I were as children and then about how Katie was as a newborn. He was very interested in the fact that she was always a very unhappy baby and how the best thing to stop her crying was to just put her down. Cuddles never had a calming effect on her, quite the opposite.

We spoke about her little rituals and how it is now part of all our lives to just get on with it and go along with things. We can never just have a kiss from her for example… the order has to go “Kiss, cuddle and nose”. If we do not say the right things at bedtime (Night night princess, don’t turn the light on, I love you, See you in the morning) then she will cry and be very unhappy until we go back and say it.
Some of the things he asked us we found ourselves really agreeing with. “Does she spin round alot?” was one. She spins round and round until she falls over and then does it again and again. “Can she cope with loud noises?”. No, she often puts her hands over her ears and shudders. Playgroup have noticed this too.

He also asked if there is anything she does that suprises us for being advanced for her age. Katie knows all her colours apart from silver and gold. She knows numbers and also some letters. She can remember a, c, e, i, m, o, r, and w. She doesnt use them in context or anything but she knows the letter and remembers it so well.
She can draw a person with eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, arms, legs, fingers and toes. She is beginning to write her name too.
I know Robyn could do none of this at this age.

He ended the appointment by saying yes, it does look as though there are some autistic tendancies there and it warrants being investigated further. She will need to have some blood tests done to check all sorts of things including her thyroid levels etc. They will also look at her DNA and make sure everything appears normal.
The blood tests will need to be at the hospital, we have to wait for an appointment for that.

All in all it was a very good appointment. Lovely to have another professional tell us that we are not imagining things. We still have alot of people look at us very suprised when we tell them she has all this support. Alot of people do not realise that Katie is any different from any other child… they just think she is naughty which is incredibly frustrating for me.

She was a really good girl at the appointment and then proceeded to have a mega strop in Asda on the way home lol.