My thoughts – Page 284 – The Autism Dad

I’m really getting pissed

I left a third message at the pharmacy that supplies Gavin's IVIG infusion supplies. You can't just get these anywhere, as they are considered specialized items or something to that effect. The pump that Gavin's been using for his IVIG infusions is going bad. It's about five years old. It's successfully delivered nearly five hundred infusions for Gavin but it's on its last leg. It no longer applies consistent pressure and that makes for a difficult infusion. I called on January 2nd to have a new one delivered. I was promised it would be here by last Friday, in time for Gavin's infusion that day. It never arrived and they never provided an explanation as to why. As I stated above, I've left three messages this week alone and not…

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January 11, 2018

My thoughts

We had some time to ourselves today

Lizze and I had some time to ourselves today because the boys were at school and Gavin was at my parents. We had to run some errands and while we were out, we began making plans for this year's tax return. There are a few things we want to do and some that we need to do. We need to get Ruby fixed and we can't do that until late February because she's in heat at the moment. We need to replace some furniture in our living room because what we have is in bad shape. We need to replace the curtains in Gavin's room and have been looking at Cactus Curtains for ideas. We need to replace some dishes and silverware. We also need to get the ferrets in…

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January 10, 2018

Autism Parenting Advice / Discussions / My thoughts

(Discussion) How do you know when, if ever to mainstream your child with #Autism?

Lizze and I have been debating this for the last few school years but either can't agree or just don't know what to do. This debate or discussion is in regards to whether or not Elliott and Emmett's current school is going to prepare them for higher education adequately. Elliott and Emmett are both in grade school and have been at their current school since kindergarten or first grade. This school is specially designed for kids with Autism and are surrounded by a blend of neurotypical, spectrum and ADHD kids. The curriculum is built from the ground up to be supportive and meet at least most of the needs that a child with Autism would have in the school environment. Lizze and I both agree that we have concerns about…

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January 10, 2018

Autism Parenting Insight / Family Therapy / Gavin / My thoughts

Why family therapy is important, especially for special needs families

One of the reasons we have maintained family therapy for all this time is because it's so easy to overlook things when it comes to the emotional health of our special needs kids. Last night is a great example of when we learned things that we hadn't known prior. This newfound knowledge helps us to address things that are upsetting one of more of the kids. We spent Tuesday night focused on Gavin. Dr. Pattie needed brought up to speed because Gavin's had several appointments since the last time she saw him and it's important that everyone be on the same page. Gavin had mentioned that he needed to talk about one of his recent missions. These missions are the result of schizoohrenic hallucinations and while they are very real…

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January 10, 2018

Feeling Blessed / My thoughts

I’m grateful for the mornings like this

The boys had a good morning and Lizze did a great job of getting them ready for school. All I had to do was physically drive them there. Good mornings like this don't come around as often as I'd like, but when they do I'm certainly grateful. Life is full of ups and downs. When you're a special needs parent, those highs and lows tend to be more extreme. Unfortunately, there's nothing that can be done aside from riding the wave at times.

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January 10, 2018

My thoughts / Reviews

Review: The Botvac D3 Connected Robot Vacuum (@NeatoRobotics)

This review is sponsored by Neato Robotics. They were kind enough to send out the Botvac D3 Connected Robot Vacuum for me to review. All opinions are my own and were in no way influenced. About 2 months ago, I received a Botvac D3 Connected Robot Vacuum from Neato Robotics. While I've become more familiar with Robotic Vacuums, this was only the second one I've used in my home. I've previously reviewed the Shark Ion Robot and loved it. I was anxious to see how the Botvac D3 Connected would stack up against it. One of the first things I noticed about the Botvac D3 is that it's built like a tank. I don't think durable does this thing justice. I'm a stickler when it comes to build quality of…

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January 10, 2018

Emmett John / Meltdowns / My thoughts

We spent the morning in meltdown hell

It was a morning from hell. I'm going on about 3 hours of sleep and needless to say, I'm exhausted. Everyone was doing well this morning until we realized that Emmett didn't know where his crocs are. We searched the house for almost 30 minutes and Emmett melted down the entire fricking time. He screamed and screamed because he was so freaked out over his crocs. By the time we found them, they were already 20 minutes late for school. My blood pressure is still up and my ears are still ringing. I'm more exhausted then I was before, which I didn't think was possible.

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January 9, 2018

Gavin / General Update / My thoughts

Here’s an important, decent size Gavin update

I've made some pretty significant progress in regards to figuring out all the Gavin related things I set out to find the answer to this afternoon. There are still a few things I'm waiting on return calls for. I'll start with what I learned today. I was able to speak with the Cleveland Clinic about Gavin's EEG from last week. The reason we hadn't heard back is because his doctor is out of town until later in the month. They were able to have another neurologist look at the results and I'm pleased to say that Gavin didn't have any seizures during the 23 minute test. I'm not sure how much better I feel because it was only 23 minutes but at least it went well. While he didn't have…

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January 9, 2018