(NewsNation) — Born in St. Louis, when the doctors delivered NewsNation’s Leland Vittert, the umbilical cord was knotted and wrapped around his neck.
“The doctor who delivered me came by with a Sharpie and crossed out Leland and said, ‘Call him Lucky,’” Vittert said.
The host of On Balance told Bill O’Reilly in a NewsNation special report “Born Lucky” that on the surface, his childhood resembled any other American middle-class kid’s, but problems started to arise.
“My dad could see it because when I would play with other kids and I was running into kids, I was hitting kids. Kids would try to joke with me or throw me the ball and I’d get angry. It was very clear,” Vittert said.
After he was tested, doctors revealed he had a learning disability, which would later become known as autism. Vittert said his father, Mark Vittert, was defiant.
“So Dad took it upon himself to say, ‘I’m not going to adapt the world to my kid,’ right? Because that’s what was very in vogue at the time,” Vittert said.
O’Reilly asked, “Did the word autism arise at all, ever?”
“Not until I was out of college. Mom and Dad never wanted me to think I was different,” Vittert said. “They didn’t tell anyone. There was no special diagnosis, there was no special treatment in school, none.”
Vittert said his father became his best and only friend at the time.
“When I was about 5 years old, there’s a big tree in my grandparents’ front yard, and the tree had a notch, so almost up where that picture is up there, and he put me up on the tree in the notch. I’m standing in the notch, look down. It might as well have been the Grand Canyon. And he says, ‘Do you trust me?’ And I said, ‘Of course I trust you, Dad.’ And I was a scared little boy. I was a fat little kid.
“I had no friends. I was not confident in any way. He said, ‘OK, jump into my arms,’” Vittert continued. “Obviously, he caught me, as any loving parent would. And he said, ‘You can always trust me.’ And that was the beginning. And that foundation of trust is what allowed this story to happen.”
“Born Lucky” is the story of a kid born with a serious, untreatable condition whose parents made a radical decision to give their son the support and tools to find his place in a tough world.
Written by Vittert, the new book discusses how growing up with autism affected his life — and his family’s.