I remember one of the first visits Julian and I ever took together to see Dr. Hameed, the paediatrician CHEO (Children’s Hospital Of Eastern Ontario) referred us to when they noticed that Julian had completely and totally stopped growing and was actually shrinking a little. (Trust me, there is no comfort in the words, “we’ve never seen anything like this” and it’s okay to laugh…I did)

I believe it was our initial meet and greet appointment. Julian screamed through the whole thing and thrashed and bit the receptionist and tried to rip off the face of the medical student/intern and we all had to literally shout at each other because nobody could hear a freaking thing. The only upside to that situation is that it really makes nonsense questions disappear quickly and helps everyone, even a learning student, get right to the fucking point.

I was doing what I did at that time, before I had any understanding of what made Julian behave the way he did. I restrained him in an effort to stop him from hurting himself. It rarely worked, but what was a Momma to do?

After running through the “organic” or medical reasons why Julian may have stopped eating (and he had. He can still go days without consuming anything if something has disrupted him) and then listing all the ways I could help him bulk up (Pediasure, three times a day when he isn’t eating and one a day when he is and oh yeah, start eating meat again because we all know that’s the answer to everything) Dr. Hameed asked me a question about my son that would change the way I looked at things forever.

To back up a bit, I should give you an idea of what Dr. Hameed looks like. You’ll have to forgive my political incorrectness but the dude looks like he could fly the plane, okay? Julian and I were the whitest people in the office, including the receptionist, intern, nurse and other doctor and by whitest, I mean the only white people in the office. Dr. Hameed himself is six foot huge with the biggest feet I’ve ever seen in real life. His shoes look like boats. He is a little intimidating. Or a lot intimidating. Julian couldn’t care less. (and to Dr. Hameed’s credit, he has very kind eyes, has gone to bat for Julian a hundred times over and has been one of our best allies, even if we haven’t always seen eye to eye).

Now. Where was I?

Right. So there we were…Julian writhing and kicking and screaming in my arms, which were hurting and sweaty at this point and the pretty intern with the scarf on her head looking at us like we were something out of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and the biggest doctor I had ever seen looking right into my eyes as he phrased a question that would change our family forever.

“Does Julian have any odd behaviour?”

I swear, I SWEAR, even Julian stopped for half a second when he heard that before he resumed his fit.

And I laughed out loud before I began to list the rituals that had recently consumed my son’s day to day living and the sometimes strange things he did that rarely made sense to any of us.

That was over a year ago.

Since then I’ve learned a lot and gained a better understanding of what makes my son tick. But this afternoon, well over a year since Dr. Hameed posed that ground breaking question to me, I found the perfect answer.

Does Julian have any odd behaviour?

Well, today I had lunch with Barney the Dinosaur.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll delve into why Barney was at my table. Right now I have to start preparing dinner for him.