Micah Nathanial Jones

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. How is everyone doing? I pray that this post finds everyone in good health and spirits. Everything is going good out here. I am currently in Kannapolis, NC. Werner has been keeping me quite busy. In fact, I keep running out of my 70 hrs. I got to thinking about something today. April is Autism Awareness Month. April is also Micah's Birthday. That is very interesting. On July 26, 2010, Micah was officially diagnosed with Autism. I thought it was interesting that he was born the same month as autism awareness. I don't remember when my wife first suspected that our son had autism, but I do remember it was early. Micah had started showing signs that something wasn't right pretty early and I thank God that I have a very smart wife who caught it. When my wife first brought it up, I was in denial. I remember reading a book while in the Navy that was written by a mother and her autistic son so I knew a little bit about autism. There was no way that my son had autism. My wife had actual experience with an autistic child so she knew a lot more then I did. She picked up some books and read more about it and even had a check list of the signs. Sure enough, Micah had the signs. I was still not totally convinced though. I remember even noticing every time Micah did something that wasn't an autistic trait and saying, "Did you see what Micah just did hon?" We took Micah into the doctor and had him evaluated and the doctor saw what my wife was talking about and agreed that Micah was showing signs of autism. The doctor then had him seen by a couple of people who worked with special needs children and they agreed that Micah showed signs of autism. This wasn't looking too good, I thought. We were then scheduled to take Micah to the OU Medical Center. It took a long time to finally get the appointment but the day did come for us to take Micah in. They did LOTS of tests. Now, by this time we figured Micah had Aspergers. After the medical team was done testing him, we found out he didn't have Aspergers, he had the actual autism. My wife and I was totally shocked. Since that day though, Micah has made lots of improvements. God has really done quite a bit and even more amazing is that our family has worked together. It is really amazing even seeing our daughter helping and interacting with Micah. She is the one I thought would have a hard time because Micah would be getting special treatment. Think about it. If she has a fit, she gets punished. Micah has a fit, we have to find out what is wrong. To a little girl who doesn't understand autism, that seems unfair. But she is very good about it and loves her brother very much. She shares and interacts with him a lot and I know it has helped him a lot. It is kinda hard not to interact when you have a big sister always around wanting to play. The biggest help in Micah's improvement though comes from his mom and my very smart wife, Paula. Paula is amazing. Even before Micah got evaluated at OU, Paula was already having a game plan ready to help Micah. She was already doing therapy with him before the state started doing therapy on him. She knew that early intervention was important and wasn't going to be waiting around for others. Even the therapists are impressed with Micah's improvements and tell Paula that we are the easiest family to work with because we are so active with Micah. God has told me before Micah was officially diagnosed that Micah will not be cured but that Micah was going to be a testimony to God's grace. You know what? I am seeing how God is working in Micah's life. How God is using the love of our family to help Micah grow up to live a normal life. I know that Micah will grow up to live a normal life. Yes, he will still have his autistic traits that will never go away. But Micah will grow to live a normal life. I also see how God is using the Autism that Micah has to grow our family. As I said, Abigail is wonderful with Micah and so very caring. Another thing Abigail will do is go into Micah's crib and either play or even share her snacks with him if they are up early. If Micah and her wakes up before Paula, she will go into the kitchen and get her snacks. She then will go into the bedroom, climb into Micah's crib and share her snacks with him. Isn't that special? I really think that God is using Micah to help teach Abigail about caring for others. Well, I have to get some sleep. I will be posting information about Autism all month at www.facebook.com/oktomcat. You can also learn more about autism at www.nationalautismassociation.com. It is very important to catch autism early and that is what autism awareness month is all about. It is important that you know the signs because you may come to know someone who has an autistic child and they don't know it. You may be the person that can bring it to that persons attention and help the child. The earlier it is detected, the easier it is to treat. Take care and God Bless. Love, The Oklahoma Tomcat