After a relative twisted some strings and pulled some arms, we got Isabella in with a respected out-of-town doc. Once again, flash forward several hundred dollars. “CAPD,” he said. “So, she can’t swallow or walk because she’s got some issues with auditory processing?” I should have asked, though I was too addled to think of it at the time. Here’s how I vaguely remember the exchange:
Doc: CAPD
Us: Whaah?
Doc: Central Auditory … not process sound properly… etc.
Us: What do we do?
Doc: That will be $500.

We noticed early on that Isabella’s development was delayed. What really got us worried was that she choked frequently when trying to swallow foods. Someone (a nurse? her pediatrician?) found that the right side of her swallow reflex wasn’t working. We’d already discovered that she very strongly favored her left side. So we were all thinking: stroke… she must have had a stroke during or before the birth.

Before I introduce myself and family, let's first run through some acronyms for the uninitiated (myself being only partially or quasi initiated):
LD = Learning Difference (or Learning Disability)
NT = neurotypical: kids without LD, though they may not be typical in other ways (they might have a physical disability or might have an unnatural skill at building Spam sculptures, say).
CAPD = Central Auditory Processing Disorder, aka APD; not to be confused with Peripheral Auditory Processing Disorder, which is so rare that it actually does not, as of yet, exist.