"Stryders Journey"

Stryder is only two, and already has had a few bumps in his road. When he was 18 months ole, the Doctor was concerned that he was not gaining weight and his diapers were far too many, coming after every meal. Stryder would eat and eat and eat, and he was still very skinny. He also sweated a lot and had some other minor symptoms, so we got him tested for Cystic Fibrosis. I, like most, have heard of the disease, but never really knew what it was. I went online to see what it was and the outlook was not good: most children did not have long lives. I tried not to worry, but of course that's my job as a mom. I have always thought something was wrong, but could never tell what it was. Stryder also has a sister who will be ten next month, so the worrying was not something I was used, but I just knew something was not right. We got the test results back and they were negative for CF. We were so relieved.

During that next summer, we went for our annual visit to Oregon where my husband's and my family still lives. While there, Stryder's great grandma, she is 96, came to me and said that she had concerns. Mind you, she was never told about any of our concerns or thoughts, she just knew. She said that her son almost died from a milk allergy and she really thought Stryder had this allergy. She watched him that afternoon eat three ears of corn along with hot dogs, hamburgers, fries and much more and still had a very loose stool. (Stryder's diapers have always been loose, he has only had about 10 normal diapers his entire life.)

After the visit there, we went to see another family member and she too mentioned a milk allergy. It turned out that her son also had an allergy and some of the same symptoms. It was at that time, we decided to take him off milk.

We went to Stryder's 2-year appointment and he had gained weight. The DR. said that whatever we were doing, we needed to keep doing. I was so releived that he was finally gaining weight and thought we found the answer. It was a short-lived victory.

The next question the DR asked was "How many words can Stryder say?" My answer, three, maybe. Stryders DR told us that there is a program that can evaluate him and see if there are concerns and if he qualifies, it won't cost us anything because most insurances will not cover speech therapy for children. We went to the evaluation and he qualified for the speech therapy and the Early intervention because he does not have a lot of social skills. We were also told he may be autistic, but have since ruled that out.

We started this journey thinking that he only had a speech disorder and now have learned that there is MUCH more to the story.