Family Archives - Page 537 of 553

Maggie’s got cyst like growths popping up

Maggie is our 10 year old English Staffy/Boxer mix. She's been one of the best decisions we ever made for our family. While Bella was loved and missed when she had to be rehomed, if anything happened to Maggie, it would be devastating.. While brushing Maggie this afternoon, I discovered several lumps under her skin. These lumps are a little bigger than an average sized marble. They are beneathe the skin and seems to be sorta floaty and squishy. Maggie is a very muscular dog and so they weren't as apparent. She's acting fine but these are concerning and I'm going to get her into the vet sometime tomorrow or Tuesday. Maybe they're just swollen lymph nodes but maybe they're not. 😕 She's also got these black skin tag…

33 Comments

August 30, 2015

Today's Victory

We had a few pretty awesome #Autism victories this weekend

There are quite a few positive things to celebrate this weekend. It's sorta hard to focus on them because the boys are really struggling and that tends to overshadow things. That being said, I wanted to shine the light on a few things that have been positive before continuing on with the less pleasant reality of our lives at the moment. Gavin did something really awesome yesterday. While he was prompted to undertake this task, he did it entirely on his own and without any reminders. Yesterday afternoon, Gavin went and collected up all his dirty laundry from his room and the Mt. Everest sized pile on the landing, going down to the basement. He put them into the washer, ran the washer, moved them to the dryer and then…

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August 30, 2015

My thoughts

I’m so tired of the freaking semantics within the #Autism community

It's been awhile since I've taken a stand on something like this because normally, I just don't have the energy. This time however, I'll make an exception because this drives me crazy. I mean this with the utmost love and respect but the Autism community is fickle and petty. Of course this doesn't apply to everyone but in general, it's a pretty fair observation. We spend so much time splitting hairs, arguing over semantics and judging others for their personal thoughts and opinions. This really needs to stop because all it does is drive a wedge between people who should be working together. Here are a few example of terminology that ruffles people's feathers: With Autism vs Has Autism Autism vs Autistic Obsession vs Hobby I've been called out many…

81 Comments

August 30, 2015

My thoughts

The numbers are in and I still need your help

I took a peak at the server logs today. I haven't looked at them yet for The Autism Dad blog. Frankly, the only numbers I've been focusing on is the ad revenue, which is what keeps my sites online and helps me support my family. When I checked the server logs, this is what I found. The numbers are broken up between viewed and not viewed traffic. Viewed is when someone actually viewed something from my blog and not viewed are things like bots or crawlers. There have been over 1,000,000 viewable hits to the site for the month of August and over 220,000 page views. There have been just under 50,000 visits for the month with roughly 9,200 unique visitors. 😊 I was worried that making the move from…

15 Comments

August 29, 2015

Gavin / My thoughts

Gavin’s significant decline is heartbreaking

The boys are sorta having a rougher day. Nothing outwardly horrible but struggle is in the air, especially when it comes to Gavin. This kid is really, really struggling. I don't know what has triggered this period of decline but he's requiring constant supervision and every last ounce of patience I can squeeze out. He's also creating more work for me because he seems incapable of following directions right now and so I'm having to follow along behind him and clean up his messes. This is really annoying but more so, it's sad. Heartbreaking is probably a better choice of words because that's exactly what it feels like. 😦

27 Comments

August 29, 2015

Anxiety / Emmett John / My thoughts

My son with #Autism will no longer wear shoes

I really worried about this upcoming school year for Emmett. He hasn't tolerated shoes in almost 2 months. He's been wearing flip flops, which sorta seems odd but that's all he will wear. He has to wear shoes at school, flip flops won't cut it. I went out and bought him water shoes yesterday which he did wear for a bit before telling me they feel funny. The sensory issues he's been struggling with for most of his life have kicked into overdrive. At least that's how it seems. I don't know what I'm doing to do for school. Brushing doesn't help either because I've already been trying that. Between the bathroom and the sensory related clothing issues, I'm completely overwhelmed. These not only impact him but everyone else…

35 Comments

August 29, 2015

My thoughts

#Autism, Hygiene and The Teenage Years O_o

There comes a point in my journey as a special needs parent, where I truly find myself in a place where I don't know what to do. I've found myself in one such place and I don't know what to do. Gavin is reaching a point where in many cases, it's think to breathe. God love him because he tries so hard but some of things he does just makes me want to scream. Here's something that happened yesterday that had me wanting to literally be able to climb inside his head and experience his thought process because I'm at a complete loss. Gavin's been having serious bladder issues and the medication that's supposed to help, isn't. There has always been a rule in the house that significantly limited…

27 Comments

August 29, 2015

Gavin / Immunology / IVIG Infusion / My thoughts

Did you know my oldest son doesn’t have a functioning immune system?

Gavin's infusion is underway as is our day. For those who don't already know, Gavin mysteriously lost his immune system a few years back, when all his fragile health issues suddenly began. To counter his lack of a functioning immune system, he receives IVIG twice a week. The process is simple but painful. It involves placing two small needles into his belly area and infusing GAMMAGARD or donated antibodies. This gives Gavin's immune system the soldiers it needs to fight of foreign invaders. Today is the second of his twice a week infusions. It's not the best situation in the world but it is working for now and his immune system hasn't gotten any worse in at least a year or two. Generally speaking, both Gavin and his body handle…

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August 28, 2015