By Antigoni Zachari / info@eurohoops.net
Joe Ingles is father of two children, a daughter and a son, while at the same time he competes at the highest professional level. Managing to be on top of everything should be challenging enough, but parenthood itself is a long, long challenging journey itself.
Joe and Renea Ingles’ son, Jacob, was recently diagnosed with autism, and the couple wrote a powerful story for Exclusive Insight, sharing their journey, titled “Jacob is still our Jacob”.
The couple writes:
“The only way for us to share our story is to start from the very beginning.
There are no words to describe the unconditional love we have for our two beautiful children, Jacob and Milla. Nothing does, or will ever come before them.
Parenthood is by far the greatest challenge either of us has ever faced – a constant challenge that gives more reward than ever imaginable. We are learning each day, and continue to strive for the absolute best for our kids, and family.
We are in constant wonder as to who these little people will be and become.
Milla is the ball of energy. The organizer. She doesn’t miss a trick and keeps us on our toes, has since day one. Milla picks things up really quickly and was the first to talk of the twins. Talks too much, just like her Mum.
Jacob on the other hand, crawled first, walked first, and is the first to climb a fence and escape. He takes everything in – the world around him, with very little fuss, and very little attention for what others are doing or thinking. He is fascinating. Likes to know how and why things work. Jacob loves cars, just like his Dad.
People always say not to compare the twins – that’s a lot easier said than done. We have found it enjoyable to watch them both grow, to watch them both develop their own little personalities alongside one another. We let them go at their own speeds.
Whilst they were quickly navigating their way through their development, there was a feeling in our gut. Something wasn’t quite right. Girls develop faster than boys, we know. Although Jacob wasn’t where other kids his age were at, or supposed to be. He wasn’t communicating, and wasn’t showing natural signs of social interaction and development.
THE DIAGNOSIS…
We started to worry. We started to ask ourselves, our friend’s, family and our paediatricians some questions.
We have never expected Jacob to be where Milla was/or is. However, the lack of communication, social isolation, sleeps disturbances, light sensitivity and extremely picky food preferences gave us concern.
We sat with the paediatrician for what felt like hours. We talked, and answered question after question about Jacob’s day-to-day behaviour, activities and way of life. By the conclusion of the appointment, the paediatrician had the same concerns we did.
“Joe, Renae – we will get Jacob in to see a specialist, and they will run a series of assessments before drawing any conclusions, but there is a chance that Jacob has Autism.”
FINDING OUT JACOB IS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM…
We were rocked. We knew what Autism was, I mean, we had heard of it. However neither of us really knew or understood the complexity of what ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) looks like.
We were positive, and quickly agreed that we would rather go through the assessment process and find out everything was okay, than to not do anything and miss a diagnosis if we needed one.
Jacob almost immediately started weekly speech therapy and occupational therapy. Either way, we wanted to be proactive in getting him communicating to us, and interacting with his peers. We saw a change in Jacob straight away.
His non-verbal communication improved dramatically – we got eye contact within a week and started working on some different techniques to improve his social anxiety.
One of the really positive things for us was that he was loves therapy, and his therapists. A relief!
The next few weeks were a real emotional rollercoaster for both of us, and Jacob of course. We spent countless hours on the phone, setting up more appointments and completing what felt like a lifetimes worth of questionnaires and assessments.
Therapy continued, and some days could be really great (beneficial), or really awful (total waste of time).
Some days, Jacob would simply find it really difficult to understand which boxes to take or colours to press and couldn’t complete tasks he was asked to do.
As hard as the therapy sessions were, the assessments were harder. It almost felt, that after each assessment meeting, the doctors’ (and our) suspicions of autism were growing stronger and stronger.
We remained positive throughout the entire process, it was about getting some answers so that we can get Jacob the best therapy, or the best help, or the best people around him to get him to where he needs to be, or at least closer to where he needs to be.
On January 8th and the final stage of assessments, we watched over Jacob as he was completing tasks, playing with the specialist, making sounds, and lining up his cars. We were looking across at each other, and squeezing each others hand as he completed tasks we hadn’t seen him do before. He was acing this. We were so proud.
Filled with optimism, we waited while the pediatrician finished the rest of the session, so she could collate and deliver the detailed report on Jacob’s results.
We knew before it even came out of her mouth. Maybe it was the way she tilted her head, maybe it was the way she clasped her hands. Don’t know – but it was at that moment we were left feeling empty.
Our concerns had been confirmed. Were we shocked? No. So why all of a sudden were we so overwhelmed by the diagnosis? We were numb.
So what was next? This is the moment it all hit home for us. It took a couple of weeks for the tears to stop welling up in our eyes, and to get some decent sleep again.
Jacob is still our Jacob, always has been, always will be. And this makes him even more special. He is who he is, we wouldn’t change him, we all just have some challenges ahead of us.”
Head to Exclusive Insight to read the rest of the story.