Welcome
My name is Ann, and I have a story to tell.
My son Isaac was born with a rare genetic variant, a life-altering diagnosis. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. He suffered from another, invisible illness—PANS—that went undetected for over seven years and turned our entire family’s life upside down and inside out.
Years ago, I was sitting on a restaurant patio, trying to think of an image or phrase that could help me put our life into words. I pictured my son’s face, angelic and pained, his eyes meeting mine through tiny Miraflex frames, and there it was: gray colored glasses.
There is no rose-colored filter for the story of our life, for childhood interrupted, family trauma, and finding our way through the unknown. But there is beauty even in the gray. And there is power and purpose in sharing our experience—to raise awareness about PANS and generate compassion and understanding for medically-complex children and their families.
Get to know us
In addition to being Isaac & Gillian’s mom, Ann is a Houston-based writer and editor with publications in religion, parenting, and children’s literature.
Our vision
Gray Colored Glasses’ vision is to make PANS a household name, leading to decreased suffering and isolation & increased community understanding and support.
From the Blog
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Writing his own story
The first days, weeks, and months after we received Isaac’s genetic diagnosis were full of challenges, none more important than learning how to accept this new reality. Here I share some of the words that gave us hope and still help me through the hard days.
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He’s not sick
Having a child with developmental delays would force us to contend with our biases and those of our society, values that are deeply rooted and not easily shaken, like the worth we place on education, ability, achievement and strength. These are not bad things, mind you. Todd and I had top scores in this value…
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A Rare Diagnosis
A peek behind the curtain into a parent’s grief and what it’s like to receive a rare diagnosis for a child.
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Still Not Knowing
This post continues the story of our concerns about Isaac’s unexplained developmental delays and our search for answers. For more backstory, see my previous posts, “The Very Beginning” and “Not Knowing.”
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Not Knowing
In my last post, The Very Beginning, I told the story of Isaac’s birth and the swarm of questions that began with his first breath. Here, I go back to the early months of “not knowing,” a gut feeling that something was different about Isaac that we couldn’t quite articulate. Fifteen years later, it is…
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The Very Beginning
Even as I aim to bring awareness to PANS, which is a huge part of our family’s story, there is another, equally weighty story that precedes it: the swarm of questions surrounding Isaac’s birth and early development and his diagnosis with a rare genetic disorder at 15 months of age.
Gray Colored Glasses 