Melmed Center

When we first started having our concerns about developmental delays, our new pediatrician gave us two options for Developmental Pediatricians. The first was at the Phoenix Children's Hospital and the other was The Melmed Center. We called the Phoenix Children's Hospital first. We were told that they only had one Developmental Pediatrician on staff, and they were currently booking appointments well into the next year (this was in December), and that our doctor would need to fax them a referral and the DP would choose which cases she would see when. So we called the Melmed Center. Thankfully, they let us schedule the appointments ourselves, and even though they were not until June, we were placed on a cancellation list.

A few months passed and the appointments were kind of forgotten about, at least put on the back burner. Then E.T. started showing some signs of regression. He was becoming increasingly clumsy and irritable. He was refusing to participate in his therapy sessions, spending the time throwing himself on the floor in tantrums instead. When we took him to familiar play areas, he would show fear and become stuck where just days previous he acted like he owned the place. I was getting concerned that something more serious than was going on. Even his Speech Therapist suggested that I take him for a neurological evaluation. I was back on Google, and everywhere I looked confirmed that regression was never a good sign. I called everyone I could think of; his early intervention support coordinator, his therapists, his pediatrician. No one had any way of getting our appointment with the Developmental Pediatrician moved up.

Then that Friday afternoon, my phone rang. It was the Melmed Center calling to let me know that they had had a cancellation Monday morning. Would I like the appointment? Um, yes!!! I almost cried. Finally, something was going our way. I went online, printed out they 30 page new client packet, and got busy filling out forms. By Monday morning, my fingers were numb, but I was beyond ready to get in and find out what was going on with my baby. E.T. however, felt differently. He was not having a good day, not that he had been having too many good days lately, but I was hoping for some more good luck.

The appointment was a nightmare. E.T. was miserable. He wanted nothing to do with anyone or anything. He stood at the door to the doctor's office crying and banging his head. He threw himself down on the floor, made himself bright red and would not calm down for anything. The doctor and I tried to talk for a few minutes, but finally she suggested that I go sit in my car so E.T. could watch a movie, and she would call me on the phone. This worked out alright. We talked for 15 or 20 minutes while E.T. calmed down, and then we went back on. She observed him playing, and even got him to participate in a few of her tests. I was relived that the appointment was not a waste, and she was relieved that her initial impression of his condition was much worse than what it actually ended up being.

When she finally wrote up her care plan for us to take home, she started talking about her initial diagnosis. She very casually stated that he had some severe developmental delays. His speech was at the level of a 10 -12 month old, his fine motor skills were around 14 - 16 months and his gross motor skills were not much better. Most of that I had known, and was expecting. Then she said that she was diagnosing him with encephalopathy unspecified (meaning disorder or disease of the brain of unknown origin). Even that I could understand. Something was not functioning properly in his brain or he wouldn't be as delayed as he was. Then came the unexpected. She said she had been working with children with all types of disorders for over 30 years, and she felt very comfortable diagnosing him as moderately Autistic, but would like to order further testing to confirm.

My ears started humming and I just stared at her. She didn't just say he was Autistic, that wasn't possible. I had already ruled that out. He pointed at things, he made eye contact, he didn't line up his toys. I expressed this to her, and she gave me a sympathetic smile. She explained how Autism was a spectrum disorder (ASD), and that the symptoms I was describing were the stereotyped symptoms that most people associate with children on the spectrum. However, there were many different ways a child could be affected, and to varying degrees. She said that E.T. fit many of the characteristics, and to a level that she felt could continue progressing to a more severe degree as he got older, especially since he been having some regression. She gave me a list of books to read, a number of a support group for Autistic children and their families and the number to apply for Long Term Care through the Department of Disabilities. I scheduled his appointment for testing, thanked her and left.

I made it all the way to my car, got E.T. buckled into his seat, and got myself settled. I started the car, turned the air up as high as it would go since I was suddenly on fire, covered my face and then I lost it. I cried for E.T., I cried for myself, I cried for my husband. I cried for the life I had envisioned for E.T. being lost. I looked in the rear-view mirror at my sweet, sweet boy. He was happily watching his cartoon again. I realized that nothing had changed for him. He was the same adorable, curious little monkey that he had been before we had left the house that morning. I was mourning the life that I had planned for him, one that he would have been unlikely to follow regardless of what this appointment told me. He was his own person, he was going to walk his own path no matter what a piece of paper told him. I stopped crying, and started planning. I smiled at my boy, told him I loved him, and put the car in drive. I had work to do.