I don't like to say 'I told you so', but...

Being told that there is something 'wrong' with your child is one of the worst things you can ever hear. It doesn't matter how big or small that something is, it can be devastating nonetheless. How you deal with it is what is important, and I try not to make a big deal out of my middle son's special needs. Autism isn't who he is, it is something he has. It doesn't define him as a person, because he is a wonderful, affectionate and caring little boy and he would be that with or without ASD.

This week hasn't been a good one. Last week wasn't great either. Twice he got into trouble for hurting another child, and while he was not entirely to blame for either incident (six of one, half a dozen of the other), he did go too far and he had to be punished for it, and rightly so. I always dread July, and December. Logan knows that change is coming and he reacts quite badly when there are big changes to his daily routine at school, obviously Christmas time and the end of the school year are big changes and he certainly lets us know his thoughts and feelings about them!

This year we have had something new to contend with, on top of the diagnosis of ASD. We discovered a few months ago that his toe-walking wasn't just a habit, an outward sign of his ASD. On examination by a professional we have learned that he has tight hamstrings which mean it is uncomfortable, even painful for him to walk flat footed as "normal". Not only that, but he has a condition called Persistent Femoral Retroversion. The opposite condition to this is called Anteversion, you try looking up information on that and you will find it by the bucketload. Unfortunately for me, Retroversion is much less common, and information is very limited.

Persistent Femoral Retroversion appears to be a deformity of the hips, they face the wrong way, and causes "outtoeing", meaning Logan's feet point outwards, like Charlie Chaplin, and it causes pain and discomfort in the hips, which Logan suffers with even when walking very short distances. From the very limited information I have found (and I wasn't given any by the hospital), I have learned that an outward physical sign of this includes dimples in the skin. So, while I have been chastising myself for not having realised something was wrong sooner, I have now realised that I DID know, and I DID ask for help years ago.

When he was small, I found an odd dimple at the base of his spine, which was very deep. I took him to my GP who referred him to a Paediatrician. The Paediatrician told me it was nothing. So an outward sign of the problems to come was obvious years ago and nobody did anything. Myself included, because I let them fob me off. We're back at the hospital for another review of his hips and hamstrings next week and I am not leaving without an appointment for some form of bone scan, I want them to check him over completely because I feel they have missed something.

The moral of this story, if you think there is something wrong, then you stamp your feet until someone takes notice of you. I am seriously going to be their worst nightmare until they have checked my boy from head to toe.