I’m Thankful For You: My Son’s Super Grandma
(Editor’s Note: This article was provided by Corinne Doyle and is part of Cooper’s, ‘I’m Thankful For You’ Campaign.)
This December, I would like to honor and thank my mom, Mary Doyle. She is the epitome of a SUPER GRANDMA.
My son was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder on May 26, 2017. A day that forever changed my life. Jett has always kept us on our feet starting from the day he was born. He was born premature at 36 weeks and then shortly after birth caught RSV at five weeks old. He was hospitalized for two weeks during that time and this is where I needed my mommy to help me learn to be a great mom.
As the months went by, I followed all of the milestone books looking for what my son ‘should be doing’ at his age. Slowly, around 12 months, I noticed he was not hitting his milestones. He did the typical babbling and cooing, but somewhere around 18 months the words he was gaining disappeared completely. He has always talked like a “Minion” as we say, but I started to see him being in his own world, not responding to his name, running without looking back for us, and finding intense focus on certain activities.
This is when I decided to start with Early Intervention. A Speech Language Pathologist evaluated Jett and after months of Speech Therapy only and a diagnosis of “Mixed Expressive/Receptive Language Disorder” I knew something was still off. He just wasn’t making progress with talking and some of his behaviors were getting more intense. Jett was falling significantly behind and I wanted answers, so we scheduled the appointment to have him tested for Autism and our results were a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (Moderate/Severe).
Those words chilled me to the bone and my life changed instantly. I sobbed in the waiting room and my mom simply said, “What are you going to do? Are you going to sit here and cry or are you going to “man” up and take this head on?” Something in me clicked and I chose to take Autism head on. With that being said, my mom was right by my side through the whole process along side with my fiancé. We are a team who fights to help Jett each and every day. As you know Autism does not come with a manual and the road is rocky.
We have good days and we have bad days, but we are always Jett’s biggest advocates and we believe he can do anything! Many of my family members fell in the “he’ll grow out of it” group or the “he’s just a boy” group, but we decided we were going to do everything we could to get Jett the help he needed. We are team Jett!
My mom, who goes by ‘Maw Maw,’ watches her three grandchildren every day (two typical and one on the Autism Spectrum) and she is the epitome of SUPER GRANDMA! 58 years young and she manages to help take my son to Occupational Therapy appointments, Speech Therapy appointments, ABA Appointments, and the list goes on and on, while watching two other children at the same time and I do not think she has ever missed or been late to one appointment.
I work full-time and unfortunately I am unable to go to all of Jett’s appointments, but my mom has always come to the rescue. She even retired so that she was able to watch him full-time and take him to preschool in January. We would not be where we are today without this woman and she deserves the recognition (and an all expenses paid vacation)!
Thank you mom!
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