My son has Tourette's

*NOTE: This was actually written last Thursday, right after our first visit to the pediatric neurologist. As of this time, there is still a possibility (though quite slim) that his symptoms are caused by something as simple as a strep infection, which we should know more about soon. However, the doc looked me right in the eye and said, "We don't diagnose Tourette's until a child continues symptoms for a year, but I really think your son has Tourette's." That was the statement I was processing as I wrote this. If the final diagnosis is even more simple, then great. If not, we journey on in faith.

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My son has Tourette’s! MY SON HAS TOURETTE’S!!

That would probably sound like horrible news to anyone else, but the joyful excitement I feel at this moment is hard to contain. I want to jump up and down, wave my hands in the air, and call every friend I’ve ever had and tell them the great news. My son has Tourette Syndrome!

There really is a reason for all the burping over and over, day after day, from his first waking moment till his exhausted body finally succumbs to sleep. There’s a reason he doesn’t want to eat anything and that he can’t settle into sleep at night. There’s a reason that his body is so depleted that his face appears ashen and downcast. A reason that his normally laid-back, cheerful, playful demeanor has been hijacked and replaced with a distorted, discouraged, withered version of itself.

The explanation for his symptoms doesn’t simply lie in his emotions. He’s not traumatized or neglected or anxious or emotionally troubled—though eight months of burping non-stop would cause anybody to feel some degree of all of those things.

Nor does the explanation lie in his tummy. He doesn’t have bowel problems or acid reflux or gas or constipation—though eight months of burping non-stop would cause anybody to feel some degree of all of those things, too.

He has Tourette’s. There’s a tic in his brain that goes toc in his tummy.  He can’t help it. I can’t help it. It’s outside of his realm of control and mine.

I’m sure there will come a day, maybe soon, when I am crushed under the weight of the severity and finality of this diagnosis. But for today, I am ecstatic. I am jubilant. I am free of the weight I was unaware of carrying—the weight of not knowing, of not being able to fix it, of bewilderment about what to do about it. All that not knowing paralyzed me. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t know what to think. So it was easier to just not think about what I felt about it and busy myself with trying to make Tyler more comfortable, trying to ease Brian’s mind, and trying to coordinate doctors and teachers and children. All that trying is so very trying.

So for now, I will be joyful in the present. I will be grateful for this day. I will be thankful for expert doctors, championing friends, compassionate school administrators, my sweet boy, and the potential for relief in the form of medication. For this is the day the Lord has made—a long-awaited, much-hoped-for day. The day the first brick in the long road ahead was laid. The day we put a name on a problem. My son has Tourette’s.