A Burst of Tears

Today, an otherwise seemingly normal day, changed my world in an instant.

When I got home, I went outside to grab the mail. Great, more medical bills... $100 due to Miami Children's Hospital... What else is new... Another $370 to Martin Memorial... Whatever--I'll call and deal with that later. I then got to a letter from Treasure Coast Early Steps. I sat it aside and then came back to it after I finished with shredding the junk mail and nonsense bills. Finally, I opened it up to find a copy of Brandt's recent speech evaluation, and it shook my foundation to the core. It was all very formal, discussing his expressive and receptive language in terms of mean scores and standard deviations. It was a little overwhelming, and I had to read it through a few times to really grasp what it all meant.

It meant this. The average mean score among his peers was 100 with 85-115 being within normal range. Brandt scored the following:
Auditory comprehension: 69, Age equivalent: 8 months
Expressive Communication: 53, Age equivalent: 4 months
Total language score: 58, Age equivalent: 5 months

Keep in mind, Brandt is 17months old... And scoring as low as a 4 month old infant. It made me so sad. I have never been blind to Brandt's delays, but I never knew it was so bad. Those numbers hit me hard.

Then, the report continues to crumble my foundation. The speech pathologist notated "performance on this assessment indicates a severe receptive and expressive language delay." She also did an oral motor assessment, noting low tone in Brandt's cheeks, a shortened lingual frenulum (tongue-tied), and a slight, heart-shaped tongue tip. Tongue movement or exploration was not observed.

Darrin came home and I read the report to him, and then I fell into his arms crying....

How could this happen? I know, for the most bit, Brandt has been blessed with good health--but how can he have all of these things? Hypotonia in the trunk, feet, and mouth. Motor and speech delays. Anemia. Enlarged liver. Asthma/allergies. Undescended testes. Chronic sinusitis. Nystagmus. A heart murmur... And whatever else I have forgotten or is still to come...

It is just all so overwhelming. First, I wonder what the hell I did to cause this to happen to him. And then I feel like I am not doing enough for him, like I am failing him. It's hard not knowing what lies ahead and how to best help him. And, yet, I watch the gap continue to widen...

And, so, for today, I believe I am entitled to break down and just cry...