Hi, I am Tanner Hutchison.  I appreciate all of the response I have received to help my family come up with money for our trip to Virginia for the Tourette’s Convention and my training as the Tourette’s Syndrome Youth Ambassador of Ohio.  I am really excited to help other kids with TS, and most importantly educate others about Tourette’s Syndrome, and what it is like to have it.  I think people have the wrong idea of what Tourette’s Syndrome is,  thanks to all the crazy hype by Hollywood to portrey it long ago like everyone who had it was crazy, and swore.  This is not at all what it is.  Not everyone who has Tourette’s Syndrome has Copralia, or the swearing, tic.  I don’t,  but I do have a lot of other tics, that can be annoying. 

Some of my tics are, clearing my throat, cracking my wrists, grinding my shoulder blade, pushing on my eyes, rolling my stomach, nodding my head, clinking my tongue, and blinking my eyes.

I was diagnosed with Tourette’s when Iwas 9.  I was in 4th grade.  It was kind of hard to accept but I got over it in a couple of months.  My family was very good at helping me through those hard months.  We decided that it would be my best friend since I had to take it with me where ever I go.   To help me feel for comfortable with my tics, help us laugh, and also be able to talk about them privately,  we have special names for each one.  There is Screech, R.O.U.S’, Buns of steel, just to name a few.  It helps me laugh, when I get frustrated that I can’t control my body or stop ticing.

See how cute I was when I was diagnosised, 

My family gives me a bad time about my “slickty-Do’s” I would do with my hair when I was little.  I loved to have it plastered to my head.  I guess it was a kid thing. 

I am so glad that my parents had the courage to take me to a Neuro-Psychologist Dr. Steven Guy, in Columbus, Ohio to have me evaluated.   After a lot of years asking questions to my “Quirky” habits. Someone finally had it right, and was able to tell my parents within 10 minutes what was wrong.  It was the beginning of a new life of understanding for me, my family.  Tomorrow I will tell you what it was like when we told my teacher at school. 

It’s been 6 years since I was diagnosised, and this is me as a Freshman at Milford High School.