The race against the clock...

16 month waiting list for Developmental assessment
14 month waiting list for Psych Assessment
6 weeks Social Skills Speech group
30 minutes of Occupational Therapy
45 Minutes of Speech Therapy
5 minute time outs
25 minutes waiting on the phone for a professional to answer their phone
2 days of telephone tag with the doctor
12 phone calls in a day
3 emails in an hour
4 weeks for waiting for Spencer to be reassessed to see if he is eligible for service...........

Time......its a waiting game. Always waiting for our turn.


So it occurs to me that my life now revolves around a clock. Every moment relies on us waiting on the hands of a clock ticking by until we come one step closer to Spencer meeting all his goals. Funny how years ago, time really had very little meaning to me. Now, everything is measured by deadlines, waiting lists, months, weeks and hours. How absolutely frustrating it is to be at the mercy of someone else's schedule in order to move forward. So we wait.....and we wait.

I try very hard not to get frustrated with watching time fly by, wanting desperately not to let more moments go by while we wait. To be perfectly honest, sometimes i just want to scream. I don't want the the hours and months to roll by while we could be making such huge progress. For those of you that know me, i have a tendency to like to control my universe. Shocking i know! I have had to learn to adjust, shift my thinking and yes even give up some of my control. Waiting for other people to come through for me has brought me to this place. Patience.......yes i have had to work on that. I have had to make the best of an often impossible situation. So while the hours and months fly by, i resort to trying to find my own help for my son. Developing home programming after hours of reading, research, and hit and miss treatments. I take solace however, that i am at least doing SOMETHING when it feels like the rest of the world is doing NOTHING.

In those dark moments, when i am frustrated...i ask myself -"How can they not see how important my son is?" "How come everyone is not jumping through hoops for such a spectacular kid with so much potential?", "How can they all preach about early intervention and then offer nothing?" Again, i re shift my thinking and persevere. Like my son, i will not go quietly. So i regroup, refocus and stay on track, or at least i try to. My greatest desire, is for people to realize that my son is not just another case. He has a beautiful smile, a sweet disposition. I will not have him be forgotten and his issues will not be swept under the rug.

The funny thing is....Spencer teaches me the greatest lessons about the ability to hang in there. He has a knack, a way of "handling" his mother during the height of these stressful times. There have been occasions when i have gotten off the phone or just been preoccupied with filling out the 20th questionnaire, and am left feeling spent and exhausted. My boy...with all of his speech issues, and his struggles with communication, somehow finds it within himself to reach me. He sometimes will say something like "Just gots to be patient Mama". I have no idea how he knows, and for a child who has problems reading social cues, he still has the gift of being able to say just the right thing. Something that most of us struggle with our entire lives. One sincere statement or gesture from Spencer and my pity party comes to an end. I pick myself up and move on. After all, if he can be patient, then who am i to complain?

So while we wait, i am acutely aware of how quickly our lives just fly by. I don't know that i would have ever learned how important it is to live in the moment. Waiting, being patient and watching those moments tick by, will do that for you i guess. Another lesson I have been fortunate enough to aquire on this road...appreciating the gift of time.