I will always be an autism mom.
Job description of "Autism Mom" includes :
1. Running a 40-hour/week in-home therapy program
2. Begging parents of typical parents to allow a facilitated playdate or expose my children to a chicken pox party (not so popular anymore).
3. Enduring the endless IV's, supplements, and Blood Draws right alongside the child.
4. Cooking food without dairy, gluten, or soy.
5. Taking one's child to many doctors, clinics, and other professionals all over the United States (thank goodness my son loves airplane rides)
6. Fighting with the insurance company as I headbang my self!
7. Honing in on the spiritual aspect of autism...learning to be openminded about medicine and how it works.
8. Research, Research, and more Research (Lorenzo's oil!)
9. Lobbying for a just and safe world for our children.
Treating autism is about money and time-lots of it. Even if someone takes your child to therapy-after you find and schedule the therapies--he needs full-time help with speech, social skills, and fostering emotional security. My son and I built his language word by word, from breakfast table to bedtime story, which helped him become the gifted conversationalist he is today. Truth is, if not for autism, I'd probably have two published novels and be a college professor, and I try not to think about my income and Social Security earnings.
I was forced to learn science, law, therapy and advocacy, and became fierce in the pursuit of justice in being an autism mom. Indeed, becoming at least proficient about the Individual for Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to develop one's child's IEP, about numerous biomedical interventions and about medication, about an alphabet soup of therapies (ABA, RDI, DIR, SI, OT, and many more), are all part of the job description of being an autism mom and, too, an autism dad. No wonder so many parents, and especially mothers do not-cannot-work.
My purpose for this blog is to inform the public and to empower those mom's who have been given the gift of these special children.
I have also worked part time for most of my son's life at a mindless job (my clients are clueless that the peon behind the desk holds a Masters and Bachelor's, and is a 12 year military veteran), but it allows me the freedom to get a tiny bit of respite and catch up on the endless paperwork involved in being an autism mom.
This is our work. And very good work--the work of a lifetime--it is.
Join my facebook group: Fighting Autism and Winning
Donate to my foundation to help families directly living with autism
Someday.....I'll find balance in my life and look like this again ;)
