There Are No Magicians

     The thing about having a special needs child is that the day you realize that this is not an illness that goes away or something to be cured, is the best and most liberating day of your life. A few years ago, when my son was maybe somewhere between 3 and 4 years old, I asked my pediatrician to please tell me when enough was enough and when I was simply spinning my wheels. When you have an undiagnosed child your life can become about chasing the "diagnosis". You go from specialist to specialist, lab to lab and hope for some answer. At the time he told me that we weren't yet at that point and promised that he would tell me when it was time to stop searching. When that day finally came, while it was hard to stop, it brought with it a sigh of relief. When you stop searching and begin realizing that in most of these cases it is not the diagnosis that counts but rather the treatment, you can begin to shift your focus to giving your child every possible advantage.
     While it was obviously extremely important for me to know that I was doing everything I could for him and that he was receiving the best therapies available to him, I no longer felt the pressure to "cure" him. I began to hope for the same thing that I hoped for all my children, which was to simply provide them with the tools to live the best possible life they could. While my husband and I will do anything in our power to help him (and his siblings for that matter) we clearly understand that there are no miracles.
     The decision to bring Yonatan to this program in Israel was not so that we could "cure" him. As far as we are concerned, he is not in need of a cure. He may struggle more than other children to do what comes naturally to most but that is not because he is unwell. Our goal was simply to try anything possible to give him every tool and every advantage in life. Before we left to Israel, I sat at a table with a bunch of friends and was asked by one of them what I expected out of this program. I answered him that my husband always says "if you have no expectations, you can never be disappointed" and so truthfully we were going with out any expectations. His response to me was brilliant. He said that we should hope that at the end of the month Yonatan was equally as expert at delivering the mail in Jerusalem as he was in Beverlywood. (FYI- if that was our goal, we have totally achieved it!)
     Having special needs is not an illness. It is not a cancer that can be cured with chemotherapy and radiation. It is not a parasite that can be killed with some anti-biotics or appendicitis which needs a quick surgery and has you back at work the next day. It is simply who you are. Some people are tall and some short. Some ugly and some beautiful. You might have brown eyes and your brother or sister blue. It is simply part of your genetic make up.
     When we embarked on this journey we hoped as parents, that doing this would provide only good and do no harm. Which is exactly what is has done so far. He is learning a lot and working very hard. He has incredible therapists who believe in him and his abilities. As his parents we are learning valuable skills. I fear that we may have provided false hope to people out there. We are constantly asked how he is doing and what changes we see. People want to know if it is "working". My answer to them is simply to say that there is no magic wand to wave, no fairy dust to sprinkle. Yonatan will always be Yonatan. He may speak more clearly or learn to read and write he may honestly be whatever and whoever he chooses.  We hope that every journey we take with him and every different approach we try will only serve to help him. To us though, he is perfect and so we are not looking at this and wondering if it is working. We are simply proud of him for trying every single day.