Why we know our little man as "K"

This is not as exciting or interesting as it seems. Nevertheless it does give an insight into a little bit of his early life.

When he was about 3 years old and prior to his Autism diagnosis our son whose name is Keiran recognised himself by his initial "K" rather than his name. He would not reply or take notice of being called Keiran. However, when you mentioned K he immediately paid attention.

This stemmed initially from recognising his name started with the letter K. He was too little to comprehend his name but he did realise that it started with K. Now that may seem minute but in our house his Mum's name also starts with K.

We first realised this fact by chance. We found K sitting at the home computer one morning having logged into his mum's ID on the computer. When asked why he did it he replied that it was his name(said as he was pointing to his mum's name). We actually thought it quite clever that, at 3 years of age, he had sat at the computer turned it on and logged into his mum's account. This was the time of dial up internet and he had also started up the internet account and opened internet explorer. All managed simply by having watched what we had been doing.

Hence we started referring to him as K to get his attention and basically it has stuck with him ever since though he now definitely recognises his name when spoken to.

Whenever someone says to him "Hey K" his face beams with importance.

Let's Talk About Autism!!

Early Autistic Childhood Development

When K was first born and was still in hospital there were several signs that he was different from others though at the time we had no idea what that difference was.

Firstly, he was very lacklustre and reluctant to take to the breast to be fed. This of course led to it's own problems with him having to remain in hospital care for longer and him having to be fed via a tube down his throat. We were on constant watch as he lay in his humidi crib. During this time we found in his nappy on more than one occasion blood after he had emptied his bowels. This was extremely worrying when the doctors were unable to enlighten us as to why this was happening.

Once our precious little man arrived home we discovered he was very different to his brothers. Firstly, he would tire very easily when feeding. Thus he was putting on insufficient weight and was constantly having to be woken to try and finish feeding.

During this period he was also very restless and cried a lot. Probably from being continuously hungry we presumed given his sleeping during feeding tendencies.

As he grew older a few things became very apparent:

* We could not get him to sit upright at all;
* He never crawled but made what became known as a seal movement. Basically worming his way across the floor;
* He learnt to walk very late;
* He developed very little speech;
* He showed very little concentration for anything we tried to do with him;
* Any effort to feed him anything but breast milk was basically a waste of time;

At the age of 3 he contracted a very serious case of gastric. It took a lot out of him physically but most disturbing to us was that he basically laid on the lounge and waited for it to happen. Not once did he tell us he needed to go to the toilet. He just continuously dirtied his jocks. Added to this was his refusal to lift his head and take a drink of any kind. Thus he became very dehydrated and lost a good deal of weight.

At the time it was very worrying but as we know now he probably had absolutely no idea what was happening to him and we were obviously unable to communicate with him to alleviate his uncertainty.

None of these factors would be definitive in determining Autism but what it does do is enable us to look back on it and least now understand what was happening with him in these less than perfect times.

Let's Talk About Autism!!

A not so typical birth...

K was born in October 1999..

It was anything but a typical birth. He is my second wife and Is 3rd child. The previous two were boys and both deliveries went quite smoothly. In fact our second son almost arrived in the hospital car park he was that keen to come into the world.

K was very different. To begin with he was almost a week overdue and my poor wife was as "big as a house". She had suffered very badly from fluid retention around the ankles and had had gestational diabetes during the pregnancy.

When it finally came time for K to arrive he was far more stubborn than his older brothers. Firstly the sac surrounding him refused to break. The pressure of him trying to arrive before the sac had broken caused it to blow up in a bubble that eventually burst like a pricked water balloon spraying all over the bed as it did. My wife I think nearly feinted. She said later that the force had been that great she thought that K may have came out with the sac.

At this stage the midwife had a foetal monitor permanently attached around my wife's stomach. I am guessing that, though they were not telling us, they may have been a little concerned and what they were seeing on the monitors as they kept it in place right through the delivery. K's heart appeared to beat strongly throughout. Even as I could see his head coming into the world. Then I saw every parent's worst nightmare. He was as black as the ace of spades. He had entered the world but looked like nothing more than a dark bowl of jelly. He had stopped breathing.

It was a chaotic scene. My wife was yelling out "is he ok?" because she couldn't hear him crying. I am standing there reassuring her that he is fine. "Everything is great" I am telling her while watching the mid wife working frantically trying to breathe life into him and thinking that it looked like a lost cause. Miraculously after what was probably a few seconds but seemed to be about 5 hours he let out a scream. I can tell you that I have never been so relieved to hear  a baby cry in my life. The midwife had just saved a life and spare a thought for the poor trainee she had with her. This was Michelle's first birthing experience. We ran into her about a month later in the shopping centre and when she saw how healthy K looked she just stood there and cried. She could not believe he had survived.

K went off to a humidy crib for the next month. I think the doctors told us about every second day that he wasn't showing any positive signs and that we should prepare ourselves for the prospect of him never going home. We now believe that he wasn't showing any visible improvement because of what we now know is Autism. 11 Years later he is the biggest kid in his class.

For mine. I to this day believe that his dying at birth is what caused his Autism but maybe that is just me wanting something to blame for what he has to go through.

Let's Talk About Autism!!