Telling Brady’s Story … One I Am Blessed to Tell

Telling Brady’s Story … One I Am Blessed to Tell

I am blessed … blessed to have been chosen to be Brady’s mother. I will be telling Brady’s story since he will be unable to tell it himself completely and accurately.

Brady was born about 4 weeks earlier due to severe preeclampsia. It was an awful birth, although I do not remember much, my husband remembers it vividly and remembers praying to God that I would survive.

Brady’s infancy was also stressful. He had horrible colic due to a cow’s milk protein allergy, he had C-Diff two times along with many bouts of RSV, ear infections, and many other illnesses that babies get.

We started to notice he was not speaking much when we had to see the doctor for his one-year-old well visit. The doctor suggested that we enroll Brady in speech therapy with Early Steps to get ahead of the delay in hopes that he would progress. While he made slow progress with his speech, Brady started to have sensory issues as well as food aversion. The worst was washing his hair, changing his clothes, loud noises and trying new foods. Our speech therapist recommended that we start Brady in Occupational Therapy for his sensory issues as well as set up an evaluation with Tulane Autism Center. My momma gut told me that something else was going on.

Once the evaluation was completed, we received the diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder but not Autism. He was too social to be considered Autistic. The doctors at the Tulane Autism Center recommended we have an MRI completed of Brady’s brain as well as full genetic testing as they did see some autistic markers in his evaluation.

After weeks of waiting, we received the results of a microdeletion of the 16.13.11 chromosome. There is a slew of side effects from this deletion, but the main side effects are Autism, learning disorders and epilepsy. We are so thankful that Brady has never had a seizure to this day. So off we went with this new information and not a clue as to how to handle it or what the future holds.

Brady’s learning struggles began immediately at school … he repeated kindergarten and at 1st grade, he had a 504 plan for accommodations in the classroom. School was a daily struggle. No matter how much we studied, he was still far behind. Thankfully, he was at a school that advocated for him. At 4th grade, his teachers recommended he have an evaluation with Jefferson Parish, but then Covid hit and everything shut down. Since we did not really have any answers, we decided to have Brady evaluated at Brennan and Associates. After a few weeks, we received the diagnosis of severe ADHD and Level 1 Autism.

At 5th grade, Brady was finally evaluated by Jefferson Parish since the schools do not accept private evaluations. Brady tested at a 2nd grade reading level for reading and 3rd grade for math with an IQ of a 9-year-old. He was finally approved to be in the SPED classes for ELA and Math. Middle school is tough, but especially for those that have special needs. Socially we hit a rough patch as well as academically.

We moved Brady to St. Therese Academy in January of 2024, and it has been the best decision for us as a family. I have learned to accept that my child will not attend those normal New Orleans high school functions with his group of friends and most likely never be able to live on his own unless he receives some sort of government assistance. He is simply put, special. He truly has a heart of gold, and I would not change him for anything.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here