Last night, as I lay next to my 3 1/2-year-old son, willing him to go to sleep already, I started thinking about everything I've learned in the past two years since we got our diagnosis: what it means to get a diagnosis, what to expect---and not expect--from the medical community, how to find therapists and figure out if they're any good, how to deal with insurance, how to deal with birthday parties and family gatherings and school and toys and haircuts and airplanes and food and sleeping and well-meaning strangers and work and the grocery store and bathtime and babysitters and the car wash, which Web sites are useful and which ones leave you breathless at 3 a.m. with the anguish of parents struggling to understand what is happening to their families.
And I've learned more about who "gets it": which therapists and teachers see my son as the lovely and unique guy that he is, who sees him as a set of symptoms, and how to deal with that and advocate for him.
I've learned to trust my gut, my husband and, most importantly, my son.
I can't tell you it's easy to do this. Both my husband and I work full time. We don't live close to family who can help us on a daily basis. We don't get out a whole lot. But we have good help, and a wonderful extended family of people who who have helped us tremendously. Our son has a lot of potential, we're told. And we have slowly built a collection of tips, resources and understanding about where we are and what we have to do from here. So this blog will be our place to share the stuff that we've found to be useful.
Yesterday the CDC released a report that nearly one in 150 children has autism. There are a lot of us, and more every day, so we'd better figure out a way to help each other out.
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