As we left the office hand in hand with Ryan I leaned down and said to him quietly "Give them a big Hollywood kiss!" Ryan looked around at all the adult faces smiling friendly faces watching us leave most were waving bye to us..  Ryan brought his hand to his pursed lips and with a big sweeping gesture in grand Hollywood style he blew everyone in the room a kiss." He grinned happily as folks said "Awww how cute!", "Great job!" or even just clapped and smiled back at him.

  Ryan used to blow "Big Hollywood" kisses, waved "hi" and "bye bye". He would tell the Dog "Down" with an authoritive voice. (Surprisingly enough the dog listened about the half the time) He said mama and dada, and called up the stairs (where his aunt Amy lived)  "NayNay" when he wanted her to come down and play with him or even for just a hug sometimes.  He would point to show us things, he would say "Car!"  as they whizzed by our home.  He would say "please" and "Dank you" and much more.. in all Ryan had about a 35 word vocabulary  when he was about 16 months old he had even more gestures such as tilting his head and smiling to be "cute" he enjoyed singing and dancing to his favorite videos, then just a short 2 months later,  he didn't.

Our world fell apart. Our child was stolen from us. We know the thief’s name...   Autism. 

 10 years ago,  only 1 in 200.00 children were affected with Autism.  Today the CDC (Center for Disease Control) says that the numbers are 1 in 166.  Almost everyone knows at least one child or adult who has stolen by Autism.

The following is basically our story in how we are helping Ryan, our thoughts feelings, things we go through, things we feel we have to put Ryan through and basically this is a journal and an outlet for me to keep things as straight as possible in my own way.  This is raw, ever growing and more than likely are going to bad mis-spellings, grammatical errors.  I will try to go back and fix them as time allows.

Hello, my name is Fay, and I am Ryan's Mother. 

  At first we didn't notice the subtle changes or we dismissed them because we thought Ryan wasn't feeling good this day or that, or he was just being lazy and not wanting to say "please"  drink or whatever.  Then my mother visited from Texas over the Thanksgiving holidays.  The last time she had seen Ryan was when he was about 11 months old and this would be our wake up and see the warning flag alert.

Mother is not the type to be nosey or for that matter to even really notice details so when she started asking us questions such as "Doesn't he talk?", "Doesn't he point to things?", "Doesn't he do this ..or that"   With each question, dread began to creep into my heart ..and then it started screaming at me. I and the rest of our family realized something was going horribly wrong.

Our sweet, outgoing, funny boy was gone.  He had been replaced with a child that was detached, silent (other than a consistent hum that he makes to help tune out sounds)  He would lay flat on the floor, so flat that his cheek would be on the floor, and he would roll his toy cars back and forth and stare at the wheels for very long periods of time.  Then when he did get up to "play"  he would run up and down our hallway (sometimes for hours if we let him) Humming loudly.  Not a humming you think of like when humming a song but a droning,  sound obliterating consistent note type of hum.

  I can only speak for myself as to my feelings and fears if other family members decide to write something it will be added here later.  I felt as if my Ryan had been replaced with a small human that looked like him, but had no traces of the of the personality that we knew to be our little boy.  Basically it was as if our little boy had died, but the confusing part of things is that no one else knew it. 

   We took Ryan to his pediatrition, and were told "not to worry boys develop differently."  I didn't buy this explination and my next step was to contact Early Childhood Services.

  The next month or so is a blur in my memory of doctors, social workers, speach pathologist, and other verious professional people that visited our small home.  Our lives had suddenly become an open book for all to see.  Up until then only a few close friends were allowed into our home as we were very private people.

  The professionals only knew this shell of a child that was left.  The rest of the family (other than his Dad and NayNay) really didn't know Ryan so they saw some changes but never realized just how much was lost.  The profound loss was crushing.  To this day I can think back and feel the weight on my chest, the same type of weight as  I felt when I was a 10 year old daddy's girl who lost her father only it is worse.  When you loose a child you not only loose the little person you so dearly love but you also loose the dreams of the future that you had for that child.  Your life is never the same this was different in that when I lost my Dad I was expected to grieve and was given time to do so.  As far as anyone could tell (other than very close friends and family) I still have my child therefore there is no time to let it all soak in.. It’s just time for action.