This week, I'll be making 4 trips to Akron Children's Hospital.  It's only about a 30 minute drive on most days but I'll be there 4 out of the 5 days this week.  Monday, Gavin gets fitted for his Holter Monitor. The actual appointment shouldn't take very long because they are just attaching it to him.  However, he'll be home from school....all day.  He has to wear this for at least 24 hours and that will give his cardiovascular team a better idea of what is going on with his heart.  When the monitoring is completed, most likely on Tuesday, I'll drive the device back up to the heart center so that the results can be read before our appointment on Friday. This appointment will be to discuss what's going…

Lizze discovered that Gavin is losing control over his bladder.  We're finding his clothes and they are soiled.  I'm not sure exactly when this is happening or why. My guess is that this is tied to the autonomic dysfunction. Bladder control can be affected by autonomic dysfunction and he has had troubles with this, even before he went to stay with Lizze's parents.  While they never said anything about this being a problem while at their house, I can't imagine how it wasn't.  I expect to hear from Gavin's autonomic specialist at the Cleveland Clinic early this week.  I'll be sure to let them know what we are finding.  In the past, this has happened at night.  However, Gavin's never had this type of problem before, so this wouldn't be…

Thanks to my amazing wife (you can find her at My Life Beyond Labels), I was able to sneak out and hit the track at the park again.  My goal is to get in 15 miles at minimum per week.  Today, I was able to sneak in 3.05 miles in just over 50 minutes.  At around 300 lbs, that's pretty good time.  It's actually a bit slower than usual.  I'm normally doing about 15 minute miles.  I have to lose weight and my goal is to lose at least 40 lbs busy the end of the year.  Getting away is not easy, especially with 3 special I'll needs kids and my wife incapacitated most of the time.  I'm hoping to find a used treadmill at some point so I don't…

I'm totally aware that the meltdowns are not their fault. I also know the difference between a meltdown and a tantrum. What I don't know, is how much more I can take today. Good lord, it feels like it's been one meltdown after another.  Emmett's been a constant stream of screaming and melting down,  over God only knows what.  Trust me, if I could identify the stressor, I would do horrible things to it and make it go away and leave him alone.  Of course, if the stressor is one of the other boys, that would make me a monster so scratch that idea.  The ugly truth is that even though I know, these meltdowns aren't his fault, they are quite literally driving me crazy.  I can feel myself cracking…

Let me just share how the last 12 hours have gone. The Cat Last night,  Lizze and I were watching a movie and we heard this really loud noise.  It sounds like someone was trying to kick in one of the bedroom doors. Maggie and Bella heard it at the same time and they followed me upstairs. To be honest, I don't know what I really expected to find but it was a bit creepy. When I got upstairs, I couldn't see what was going on.  Next thing I know, I see my bedroom door shaking  and I hear this howling.  The dogs were going nuts but I finally found the source of the commotion and shouted for Lizze to come upstairs right away. I wish I would have gotten…

With Gavin being home again after 7 months of staying with his grandparents, one thing is for certain, he has no filter. The filter thing was a problem before but it's definitely a problem now.  The filter I'm referring to, is the thing that stops him from saying every single thing that pops into his head. I'm pretty sure this is a relatively common Aspie trait. Although, in Gavin's case, it's the things that end up coming out of his mouth that's the real problem....and of course the fact that his little brothers are right there to hear it doesn't help either. How many of you experience this missing filter issue? This site is managed via WordPress for Android, courtesy of the @SamsungMobileUS Galaxy Note 2 by @Tmobile. Please forgive…

Emmett is going through something and it's remarkably similar to the terrible 2's. With Emmett, the terrible 2's were awful the first time around.  This isn't any better. He's really struggling right now and my heart breaks for him. The reality is that we are dealing with sensory related issues and there isn't a whole lot we can do to help him.  I have no idea what the triggers are and why he's so upset but he's definitely upset.  He's already been screaming for the last 20 minutes and at the time of writing, it's 7am. While Emmett is definitely paying the higher price, this is destabilizing to the whole family. Now with Gavin back in the mix, we need to keep things as stable as possible.  This site is…

Gavin's been home for 2 full days now and we are already having a few issues.  Gavin's not used to having a lot of rules. In our house, we have to have rules because kids on the Autism Spectrum need ridged routine, firm boundaries and as much predictability as possible. Gavin's already getting frustrated at times because we don't allow him to play Sonic games on his tablet.  For many years,  Gavin was very, very into everything Sonic.  It was so bad that it interfered with everyday life.  We basically had to ban Sonic from the house because Gavin just got way, way to into it and became so incredibly intense, it wasn't healthy.  Since the dawn of the autonomic dysfunction, we have to be extremely careful because the level…