“You’re so lucky to have him diagnosed so young!”
Autumn was dealing with:
Guilt, in not listening to her baby and herself.
Anger, for not standing up for him.
Frustration.
Invalidation, because her concerns kept getting pushed aside.
Shame, for even wanting to have her son tested.
And finally justified because she was right all along.
But the one thing Autumn wasn’t feeling was luck.
Luck had nothing to do with it
It wasn’t luck that made her wait an additional year and a half to get a diagnosis. Luck had nothing to do with it.
Luck doesn’t take away the emotional and physical trauma her family had to endure.
Luck doesn’t make the misdiagnosis and the struggle to be heard, disappear.
Luck isn’t going to wipe away the needless pain her son suffered because no one was listening.
Luck isn’t going to make her son’s body heal faster.
Luck had nothing to do with it whatsoever!
The only way to describe it is, tragic. It should’ve never happened in the first place. And saying Autumn should consider herself lucky that her son was diagnosed so young, was a slap in the face; another way of saying “Be thankful it didn’t take longer.”
But as a parent:
- What do you do when the people who are supposed to help you don’t listen to your concerns?
- What about when the experts insist everything is alright but the nagging feeling inside of you keeps telling you it’s not?
- How do you advocate for an issue no one else thinks is important but you?
This month’s Conversations is with Autumn and we’ll be exploring how she dealt with these problems and the lessons she’s learned.
Biography
Autumn was born and raised in Oklahoma. She moved around quite a bit because her father was a lawyer who worked for the state and he was required to live in the county he worked in. Although Autumn lived all over Oklahoma, most of her childhood was spent in a place called Tishmongo which was the largest city in Johnston County.
Although Tishmongo has recently risen to fame because Blake Shelton makes his home there, this wasn’t the case when Autumn lived there. It was a small rural county, so small that Autumn’s high school graduating class only had 56 students!
But Autumn left rural Oklahoma behind to pursue a pharmacy degree at OU (University of Oklahoma) in Norman. After graduation, she moved to Tulsa to pursue a job opportunity. It’s also where she currently lives with her husband and two sons.
Her story begins with the birth of her youngest son.
Thinking horses
In medical school, doctors are taught “When you hear hoofbeats think horses not zebras.” The idea being, think of the most common ailments first before the rare ones. This simple teaching would be detrimental for Autumn because in her son’s case they weren’t dealing with a horse or even a zebra; they were dealing with a unicorn. Unfortunately, when you’re taught only taught to look for horses, that’s all you will find.
And so it was after the birth of Autumn’s second son, nobody was thinking anything other than horses.