Special needs parenting is exhausting, overwhelming, heartbreaking, isolating, demoralizing and STRESSFUL. It's also amazing, beautiful, humbling and rewarding. Despite the constant financial, physical and emotional struggle we get up everyday and keep moving forward. What truly sets the special needs parent apart from the rest? Given the chance and with the FULL knowledge of ALL the struggles we would face and pain we would endure, we do it all over again. While it's a constant struggle and often completely overwhelming, it's also the most rewarding experience I can imagine.  

After a really bad day the one saving grace was opening the mailbox. Inside I found a package sent to me from Cinema Libre Studio. That package contained my review copy of "Loving Lamppost: Livingston Autistic". It arrived this afternoon while my horrible day was unfolding. I'll watch this tonight and let everyone know what I think.... Thanks again for thinking of me and asking me to d this :)  

Today just needs to be over already. How much more can we possibly take much more of this.  It's only Monday so that doesn't hold well for what the rest of the week has to offer us. Today got off to such a rough start and to make matters worse, I forgot to give Gavin his meds this morning. I realized this after we rushed out the door to get Lizze to her appointment this morning. I figured no problem, the appointment is at 9:15am and we should be out no later then 10:00am. I was thinking that we would swing by and pick up the boys from my parents house and then grab Gavin's meds and give them to him at school. An easy fix to a serious problem,…

Lizze and I sat at the neurologist for the better part of 3 hours. When we were finally seen the appointment went quickly. A few medication changes were about all that really happened. As I discussed previously, Lizze is about out of options when it comes to her migraines. Basically the only one our insurance will cover is something call "headache/migraine infusion" . Essentially what happens is she will be hooked up to an IV for 6-8 hours at the doctors office. They will push drugs in order to break the migraine. This process is repeated for 3 days. The goal is to bring the pain and severity of the migraine down at least a few points. We were also told that sleep issues and stress can make these migraines untreatable. Unfortunately,…

I'm waiting for Lizze to be seen at the neurologists office. I noticed these pictures and thought I would share something about my back injury. I have an L5/S1 left sided herniation that requires surgery. I did this during an EMS run about 10 years ago.

In about 1 hour Lizze and I will be meeting with one of her neurologists to discuss the procedure required to break her current migraine (that has been raging for over 2 weeks) and treat the future ones. Neither the occipital nerve blocker or the headache infusion are pleasant procedures and run the chance of not working. I'll post more details and links about these 2 procedures later today. Thanks for your continued prayers and support. - Lost and Tired

Monday is here and already it's unpleasant. Lizze isn't feeling good and is having a really hard time getting up. This means I'll probably have to bring the kids with me to take Gavin to school. Emmett hasn't been doing well on short trips like this because he expects to get into the van and go somewhere. When I take him to the school and then drive home all he's going to to is scream because it wasn't long enough. Elliott is already super whiny and pitching a fit because he wants candy for breakfast. I'm still exhausted from yesterday and I have to get some work in so I can pay our insurance bill. Feeling quiet a bit of pressure right now and   the way the day is already going…

Today has been one of those days were nothing seems to go right and all my best efforts fall short. I used to love the holidays. I loved getting together with friends and family. Honestly, anymore, it's just easier to avoid them all together. The boys just don't handle them well and the fallout that occurs afterwards far out weighs the pleasure of a nice visit with family. Today was no exception. We decided to go to Easter dinner with my family. By the time we left to go Emmett was already back form Lizze's parents house. So he did actually accompany to dinner which was really nice. Typically the way it works for my family is if they plan dinner for say, 3pm then we will be eating around…