Is Ignorance Bliss? Part II

I was looking at my old school report cards, I.E.P.s

(Indiviualized Education Plans - meeting had every year which I barely remember as I'm sure I tuned them out most of the time as it was my mom talking with the teachers about me and requiring me to agree with whatever they were already doing over and over with little understanding of it all. I did understand some of it at the time, but much of it like the reasons given for me to recive services and why went over my head)

and some medical records from when I was very young (birth, 11 mos, 6 yrs, 7 yrs).

My Kindergarten teacher (one of my favorite teachers as a kid) wrote a letter to someone either at the school or related to my stuff back then (I had almost a year of Language and Speech Therapy before Kindergarden). In the letter my Kindergarten teacher expressed how amazing she thought 6 year old me was and wanted me tested to see if I was a genius (we didn't know back then that I was Autistic). She did comment on my having what was repeatedly called an "Audio-Visual" problem where in my hearing was normal(they tested for that) but I had trouble with following directions as if I didn't hear them or didn't remember they past having heard them. Another term that shows up through the records is "Short-Term Memory" impairment(actual word meant the same but started with 'd' - not delay or disability or disorder).

I only came to understand this fact of my life in my mid-late 20's and until looking at these papers I did not have a name for it or know it was a short-term memory problem.

I was told by my doctor(who was formerly one of my pediaritions) that I had Spastic Diplegia in my legs - I was in my late teens - early 20's then and had no memory of hearing that term or diagnosis before. In the records from when I was tested at age 6 the same diagnosis is discribed and clarified to as a form of Cerebral Palsy.

Is Ignorance Bliss? Part I

I was born November 1984 in California, USA. I was due early March but due to my mom getting an infection (due to my twin not forming right after the zygot stage and causing the infection). I was born st 29 weeks gestation (the doctors had thought I was 27 weeks along before I was born but they were wrong).

Being 29 weeks was better than 27 weeks survival-wise by mid-80's medical knowledge(still better now but medicine is also better now).

I was on a ventilator for a long time and got HepB tainted blood via a blood transfusion (It is believed I had HepB for a short time and recovered. The records are less clear on if I got it or if it was a false positive.)

At birth I weight 1 lb. 14 oz. and was 12 inches long.

I was in and out of the hospital a lot as a baby and toddler. Being premature my body was not fully developed when I was born. Everything was formed and somewhat functional but not at the level of a fullterm newborn.

From the start it was known that I had bad eyesight. How bad would be more fully known as I grew older and randomly felt like telling my family(several issues didn't come up very early as I assumed my vision was normal or that the issue was already known about).

As a premmie baby it was expected that I would be behind my peers developmentally and it was assumed that I'd eventually catch up to them.

At 1 year of age (partly due to being hospitalized at 11 months old for pneumonia) I was not able yet to sit up unsupported as other babies of that age can. I lesrned to walk at 19 months old after I was able to ditch my oxygen tube needed had since birth. I still had weak lungs and would need to use a nebulizer and inhalers for my Asthma until well into elementary school age. Stopped the nebulizer by end of elementary and stopped needing an inhaler at school by High School. (After having Pnemonia as an adult in March 2011 I once again have a nebulizer and occasionally use it instead of my Alburterol inhaler in the evenings during bad Asthma flare ups - when the weather changes every Spring and Fall my Asthma gets bad).

Asthma was the only health problem I had to my knowledge as a child. I knew I was born premature and I had Asthma, that was my identity as a child from a young age. I would introduce myself to other children with "I'm (name). I have Asthma. These scars (largest lays across where the bend of my right elbow bends inward and others are between elbow and wrist) from when I was born prematurely as a baby. I have scars around both of my ankles from when the doctors did cut-downs on my legs when I was a baby."

I only knew they were from cut-downs as that is what I was told when I asked my mom one day what they were from. My mom seemed suprised that I did not know. She did not explain what cut-downs were for or anything so 7 year old unknowingly Autistic me assumed my feet had been cut off and reattached for some unknown reason as an infant for a short time until I shared this logical to me notion with my mom and she tokd me that was wrong. We did not know I was o  the Spectrum then, we wouldn't know until 2010 and it wouldn't be confirmed by a doctor until Dec. 31st 2011.

Response to a topic on Wrong Planet forum

Question(para-phrased):

Did your parents know something was different with you, but others didn't?

My answer:

I was born early and was in and out of hospital a lot for a while before I can remember. My parents also thought something was up with me but the doctors of the mid-80s chalked it up to my being born early with some C.P. on the side and maybe a brain injury(was supposed but 27 years and a MRI later there's no proof to suggest there was a brain injury and certainly not one to any great degree). I couldn't sit up without support at a year old, but I had also just gotten back from a stay at the hospital before that and at that time I always regressed after being in the hospital and no one marked down milestones or remembers when I started talking since they were too busy with my medical stuff.

I asked my mother is they'd ever tired to get a diagnosis when I was little and she said they did talk to my doctors but they all said I was developmentally delayed and that was normal for kids that had been born early.

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Me rambling about elementary school:

I went through public school with adaptive P.E. and was pulled out for a little while to be tested with flash cards and stuff in resource For me resource was me and the rough mannered lady(My family is very mild mannered compared nearly everyone else here). Her flipping cards while I had to read the words off them or say what the picture was or whatever the test was that time. Hated it, but never really questioned it except once. I'd been going since starting school so maybe I thought it was normal when I was little. I did wonder about it once when I was maybe around third or fourth grade and tried to make sense of it in my own head. I think my reasoning at the time was that if there were others that went to resource like I did they were probably in other rooms each with one adult testing them like I was or if they used the same lady then they likely saw her at different times. By sixth grade I knew of a kid in my class that went to something called 'gate' during class time every so often, because he was very smart so while I knew what I went to wasn't the same thing I figured it was normal for some kids to go to places kind of like I did.

I grew up in the days when if I hadn't actually seen 'disabled kids' passing through the resource room I'd have ever known or they were at the school at all. Nor would I have assumed, since I only saw them passing through resource and nowhere else that they had some room far away somewhere in the school that they stayed in the rest of the time(I assumed it was one room for some reason for all of them). I find it odd now that I assumed they all shared one classroom and that I never wondered anything about them having recess or where they would play since I never saw them on the yard with the other kids. Though the recesses were by grade so they may have had their own recess time and I wouldn't have known anyway if it wasn't at the same time as mine Of course I was pretty oblivious to most things as a kid and kept to myself at the far end of the yard all recess with my one friend and the other girl she'd meet that played with us.

I think it was mainly fourth and maybe even as early as third grade when I started hanging out by the far end of the yard where all the mowed grass was(which I told the others was hay - because I didn't know what it was and when I didn't know what something was I would use the closest word I could think of and strong smelling rows of cut grass looked like hay to me since I never saw how the 'hay' got there each day until later in the year and then I was so used to calling it 'hay' that I didn't care that it wasn't really 'hay' nor did it naturally just appear at the end of the yard every day as I'd assumed beforehand. Yes I have a yard and yes the grass is mowed but the grass clippings are not left on the grass, but thrown in the trash can afterward and back then I wouldn't have even known that yet as I wasn't to be outside when the yard was being mowed.

I really need to use this thing more

I keep forgetting I have blogs. I fail. So I have been diagnosed as PDD-NOS or Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified(as 0f 12/31/2011) aka 'Something off, don't know what, here a label for you to wear be happy someone else is paying us the hundreds of thousands of dollars you owe us for it.' (Cosby Show ref.) My mother and I started work on getting money from SSI a few months ago since it has become finally obvious that the whole get a job to support yourself thing wont work for me cause of my disability(sounds so weird to write that). SSI hates me, I knew this already but they hate me more now. They want me to see their doctors who are not trained in ASDs to see if my status has changed since 12/31/2011 which would be a valid concern if I were a kid and still developing and stuff, but I'm 27 and so the chances of my PDD changing much is very unlikely. When my mom called SSI to see if we could postpone the appointments until SSI had all the paperwork they'd asked for(they goofed and messed up some of it, but it's getting fixed slowly), they said the mental part was canceled. Why? No idea. We just hope they didn't think we wanted to cancel it which we don't we just wanted it pushed back until they had all the stuff they needed. We think maybe they canceled it because they had enough stuff to not need to more metal testing, but just today we got reminders in the mail about both appointments and no mention of one being canceled. I just hope I can get on SSI by my birthday or Christmas like they suggested was possible. I really don't want to have to start over again(this is our second time doing this. First time was pre-diagnosis and didn't work out.) I'm praying SSI will be nice and things will work out. I'm also looking into volunteering in the community to try and socialize(which I fail at as socializing doesn't come naturally to me like it does to everyone else) and maybe find and make friends .... and with much lucky maybe maybe one will be a guy and lead to my having a boyfriend for the first time ever. I'd like to get married one day and in a few years I'll be 30 which sounds bad to me though everyone else(all older than me) say it's not a big deal and I shouldn't make so much out of it. I wish my Church had a way I could meet people but it's too small and all the people in it my age are married with kids already. I don't know how to get from here to that myself and no one offline seems to want to approach me in that way(expect for one guy years ago, but he was creepy.) Yeah pity party for me kinda. I'm just stressed and stuff. I've clean up my internet stuff and am trying again to stay away from bad stuff. I was kinda dumb and registered at a dating site(not the first time), but it's helped a little. There are according to the internet single guys that might date me near where I live, I just need to find a way to meet those type of guys offline, like go to another bigger church during the week and try to meet people to be friends with and see what happens. I need reason to leave the house and do stuff and getting friends would in theory help.

Now for something not medicaly related! Yay!

I like to draw and I grew up with the Disney cartoons back when most of them were talking animals (and looney tunes and Tom and Jerry were in reruns all the time. Which they are again - so happy. Also watched old Disney shorts a lot too somehow.)

So I was exposed to much cartoon animals that acted like people as a kid. I draw animal people things much better than people people things. I don't draw either super well but good enough to put on the internet I say. I occasionally draw myself as a cartoon animal thing. First I was going to be a cow. Because 'cows are cool' as a awesome man with a blue box might say. However alas I couldn't draw a nice looking cow or even a not rubbish looking cow so I drew a snake instead. That snake turned into a blue and white lizard because I needed arms and stuff. Tails are hard to draw and I really like rats and not reptiles though they are quite fitting for me. So I think that since I draw my characters very much and two old ones were/are rats I could draw me as a rat(I haven't figured out how to draw a non-rubbish pony yet or I'd have tried that by now). So I might change my cartoon self from a lizard to a rat. Since tails are still hard to draw this may be a tailless rat. This falls under the 'human like' part of things not the 'rat with no tail, which is bad and not good' which would not be good and would not be something I'd want to promote since I love rats very muchly(that's a word now) same as I love cats but rats are less evil in some ways. (I'm sure once I own rats again I will learn how evil they are in non-cat like ways, but til then I will pretend they are less evil than cats. Which is easy because cats are evil. Though not evil like birds which is a bad kind or 'bite your finger off' evil and more of a 'bite you because I think I can eat you who are way bigger than me cause I am a cat' kind of evil which is still not good but not super bad like birds are.

Scale of evil


1. Birds = EVIL x 11

2. Cats = evil x 10

3. Rats = evil x cute

4. Dogs = stupid (I own one and she is this)

5. Well trained dogs and dogs that are not the one we own(ie like our last dog) = Awesome, but still stinky and not a cat.

6. Lizards = boring and not fuzzy.

7. Snakes = pretty but dangerous and slightly creepy.

8. Guinea pigs = taste good with catsup(joke) - and are also cute and skittish. Might own some if the rats thing doesn't work out. Not sure.

9. Rabbits = Flightless birds that hate people. (Based only on rabbits we owned and not rabbits that had an owner who had any idea how to care for them properly at all!)

10. ferrets = cute but illegal. The internet tells me that they make a 'dook' noise. I have since 'stolen' that 'word' as a G rated cuss word for myself. Thank you internet!

11. I forgot what goes here. I think it was something evil like a parrot or something evil like.

12. Mice = not as good as rats.

13. Hamsters = Pure EVIL! And they bite!

14. I got nuthin'. -.-;

No I don't update this very often

Ok so VMRC will reopen my case (which wasn't really ever closed to start with). We should hear from them by Monday and then they'll set up a day to come over and make us do paper work for them that I think they should partly be able to do themselves. They probably(I use that word so much I know) just want to make sure things get updated correctly and stuff. I make all the kids at AWANA re-register each year even if they're the pastor's kids and they live next door to the church and I know who they are, have their info memorized and everything. So I understand why they want us to do the paper work, but I'd much rather they did the testing part already. Maybe the testing part will be soon after the paperwork? (Unlikely).

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VMRC asked us to get tested with some Autism Clinic through our medical people but that place only takes kids so now VMRC has to do the testing themselves instead. I do want a second opinion on my dx but from what I've been told these people will be testing to see if I have High Functioning Autism and not Asperger's Syndrome/Disorder because they don't take people with Asperger's in their program for some reason - no idea why but that's how it is.

So by Christmas(I hope) this stuff will be done, I'll have a nice new laptop that isn't rubbish like this one I'm typing on now, I'll have a new chair that isn't worn out to sit on, and more importantly I'll have 7 units all together from my child development classes! (The minimum units required for a daycare worker are 6, max is 12 - past that I'd need a degree which isn't happening.)

Oh and I'll be 27 by the end of next month - BOO! (Where is my flying car, jetpack, and anti-aging raygun? Mr. Jetson and hand-me-down spaceman storybook, Why did you lie to me so?)

Getting this Blog up to Speed

I haven't posted on here since 2009?! Man that's a long time.


Meh. Ok in 2010 I switch doctors yet again (was switching doctors a lot for a while due to insurance changing over and over).

The doctor seemed to not know that much but we manged to get a referral to a the only person on staff that could give a test to see if there was any chance I had this Asperger's thing someone had mentioned I might have a few years before (and I'd promptly researched it as I am wont to do and thought 'hey some of this does sound like me!')

The doctor didn't want to give me an official diagnosis for some reason but said he was 90% sure I had Asperger's.

Switched doctors again and trying to find a better job. New doctor seems to be helpful. We got a bunch more records that we'd never had our hands on before and after talking and emailing a bit I got an appointment to have an MRI.

That was a few weeks ago now I think (my concept of time passing and having past is poor).

About the MRI:

I'd never had an MRI done before and they said we were good to go but just to be sure we asked about the 'staples' in my heart (the paperwork from ages ago says they're clamps but I was always told they were staples.) Doctor guy said it should be fine but he took the copied paperwork with him and asked to be sure. Then he was 'dumb' and told me that if I felt anything in my heart (literally) to squeeze on this squeeze bulb and he'd stop the MRI and pull me out. >.< ;

How would I, who have trouble knowing where my body is in space at times and rarely know what to do with my arms when not using them, who would I know to recognize some feelings I had no reference for?

Thankfully after freaking out due to nervousness and paranoia(My mind is a scary place to live in) I got pulled out and he asked me if wanted to reschedule or try to continue. I had to wait and calm down so I could think clearly (I was quite upset but not as much as I've been in the past over far lesser things). I thought about it and decided to try again so we could get it over and done with. I don't mind saying that I prayed in that MRI thing for a while before I calmed down and just tried to stay awake in case something did go wrong and I needed to squeeze the squeeze thingy. Due to paranoidness I had removed my under wire bra(had a shirt on naturally) and for modesty's sake had my arms crossed over my chest. The doctor assumed I wanted to keep that pose while in the MRI. Me thinks some people may be too used to scanning mummies. That is not a comfortable position to be in for a half hour or more when you can't move any. It was loud in the thing but I have a good imagination and so I pretended the sounds were music and stuff and the one noise that sounded when I occasionally swallowed was it scanning my brain. Yes I am weird but only some of it is personality the rest I'm still waiting to find out about.

No result back from the MRI people yet. They did call the day after but seemed to have me mixed up with someone who had a mammogram which being a 'bad girl' I have yet to have one. With luck I wont have to have a second MRI but if I do it should go better than the first time since I know what to expect now.

Also a certain support place thing that could help me a lot wants me to go do more testing to see if I have Asperger's or not. The doctor from 2010 isn't good enough for them I guess. So when we have time we'll ask the new doctor (Dr. B) about that and set that up.

So much red tape to get through but at least we're moving forward again unless the new tests change my diagnosis somehow.


It's been a busy year and some change since I last posted as anyone could probably figure out.