Izzak turned 9 and a diagnosis

Izzak turned 9 and obviously continued his love of water can you tell? He is very intent on spraying his brother with a water cannon in this picture.

He did his very first oil change on his dads international scout....

Yes he did it by himself.....

More pictures of Izzak on the beach...I did say I like beach pictures, right. He does the same thing I do he just loves to look out at the waves.....

More skateboarding, I'm not sure why he was chewing on the chin strap though....he was always doing that, weird kid.

In the fourth grade he finally had a teacher that could really see something was wrong. She helped us insist on a full evaluation of him. We loved that teacher by the way she was the most helpful we had ever had with him and really took an interest. She was already changing her lessons to help him and trying to make school less stressful. He did so much better this year!

So they finally did a FULL set of testing on him and when it finally came back with everything I left the meeting in tears. Partially because I was glad we finally knew everything that was wrong. Sad because I didn't realize it was so bad......

He was diagnosed with one we pretty much knew even though we were told he didn't and that was Dyslexia , he is also Dysgraphic, has a Working memory disorder which is really hard to explain.....on the link it is more toward the bottom, but thats not all he also has an Auditory processing disorder, many of these also go along with having a sensory integration disorder. A very long list you might notice coming from the same school that said he was fine! A little frustrated was I?? Uh yeah, just a bit. He also has issues with anxiety disorder.They said that at the end of fourth grade he was working around the level of a first or early second grader. All I could think of was, so much time lost and the anxiety was probably brought on by his struggling for so long and the schools not believing it was as bad as it was. Finally they knew something was wrong and would do something about it....or so I hoped. When he was finally diagnosed it was toward the end of the year and that teacher did a lot to help him but it is something we still have to fight for to get teachers to understand and deal with. I walked away feeling so guilty and trying to figure out how and why I didn't just keep pushing harder, but honestly at the time I didn't know how and I didn't know our or his rights. I do now and I'll tell you I do push for him! In one sense I really was relieved it answered so many questions like why he took so long to learn to talk and seemed at times like his hearing was bad. I started reading alot about it and gathering as much information as I could to help myself and my family help him. To another degree I was sad because with all of these issues life is going to be hard for him he is going to have to fight that much harder for everything he wants and I have to and will fight for him to have everything he wants, it just makes me sad to think it might be so hard for him. Also I was angry, at myself, the schools and so many more for feeling like we failed him for so long......

The hubby was great about all the information and like me felt "well now we have something to go with" we started learning more to know how to help him and understand him better because obviously it explained alot about his behaviors that seemed difficult for us. He needs alot more guidance then a lot of kids on how to do things even just cleaning his room, it has to be broken down and sometimes he just forgets he was told to do something and its not because he is being naughty, but he actually forgot! The rest of the family has been another story. His aunt Gloria has been great she listened to us and has a better understanding on how to deal with him (she also has some similar issues). My parents are okay. They don't always get it really. I feel like I have to remind them alot that he is not ignoring them or not listening and they try to understand. Kelly's well thats a different story and I touched on that a little last night. His dad is in total denial. He was even when he had the speech delay. Now he just insists that he doesn't have these problems and we are just labeling him. Well sometimes they need the label to get the help! He doesn't try to work with Izzak or understand why he acts the way he does and that is hard because Izzak loves family and wants to please everyone and sometimes it just can't be done.

Okay so there is his 9 year post. I hope it wasn't depressing or anything but its Izzak and he's my son and I love him. There are two poems that have been around for awhile I have posted them before and I will link to them again as they really do explain what its like first one is this one and that is followed by this one. Izzaks problems to outsiders somethimes talking to him don't seem like much but unless God has other plans for him they will be around for his whole life and most likely he will always need our help to some capacity and that is just really hard to handle. But like I've said I love my son along with his problems and his dad and I will stand beside him whenever he needs us to. And fight for him we needs us to but we also want to teach him to fight for himself and become the independant man he wants to be whatever that is he wants to be.