Pools of Water

This is a letter from a Proud Mother of a kid with Tourette Syndrome. I would like to share this to everybody for inspiration hoping that this letter would serve as medium to overcome difficulties of dealing with TS.


This story reflects the heartache and love than can come from parenting a Tourette child. The story of Keith, a young ballplayers with big blue eyes that must concentrate harder than ever before to "keep them open" when throwing a pitch, this wonderful mother shares with us what it felt like to learn her child had Tourette's from watching a network talk show and how she and her husband have learned that although they cannot "fix" their son, there is also nothing for them or him to be ashamed of either.

How wonderful for all the information on Tourette Syndrome. A few years ago my middle boy was diagnosed with Tourette's. Around the age of eight my son began blinking his eyes. Those big sky blue eyes soon became squinted almost all the time. I missed seeing the color that look like pools of water. Soon, other parents began to ask me if Keith had allergies. At first the doctor believed that Keith had developed nervous tics. Child hood tics that would disappear in a short while. Instead Keith started grunting , sniffing and, scrunching up his face. This time I took him to the doctor to have allergy tests done. The test came back ..... no allergies. My husband and I were instructed to ignore the tics. The more we brought it to Keith's attention the more he would tic. This was the doctors thoughts. As these symptoms became more noticeable my husband developed other thoughts. He believed that we could demand Keith to stop. He believed that this was just a bad habit that we allowed Keith to develop. This made for trying moments of the wills. I tried to keep my husband from nagging our boy and my husband along with his father believed that it needed to be stopped. One day on a "network talk show"they had children with severe symptoms of Tourette. My heart went out to these children. Then they talked to a boy who had more mild symptoms. My mouth fell open and my heart broke. This boy was grunting and blinking and scrunching up his face exactly like my son does. I went right to the phone and called our doctored. I told him about the show and my thoughts that Keith's tics may be Tourette. His words pierced my heart ,two simple words,"I agree. I'm going to get him an appointment with a specialist." It was a long wait until that appointment. I knew nothing about Tourette's other then what I had seen on television. I thought about the more severe tics and worried. Do these tics continually get worse and worse until they can no longer play sports. As I looked out at him on the pitcher mound blinking and throwing the ball. Then later grunting and hitting yet another home run I had to stop and face what was in my heart. Maybe next year he won't be out there. How could I ever tell him that.

This all came from no education on the subject and from talk shows putting the most dramatic stories out to the public with very little explanation. He was diagnosed with Tourette's and it hasn't slowed him down one bit. He is still pitching for his team and hitting home runs and grand slams. While pitching his tics increase but he has taught himself a little pattern so his eyes stay open while he throws. His team was undefeated for the past two years and won all championships. His soccer team was also undefeated and won their championship. He also plays great in basketball with only one loss for the season. With this and trick biking, rollerblading and snow boarding he has shown to me over and over that Tourette hasn't slowed him down in any way. He still loves and enjoys everything he always had.

It took his father a little bit to get use to the idea that he could not fix his son nor did we want him to. We look at Tourette as just a part of Keith ...like his blue eyes. Nothing to be ashamed of and never to be used as an excuse.
...................................................
www.tourette-syndrome.com