I Got My Book....and even read it.

I pre-ordered the book "Carly's Voice"  and picked it up Monday.  I spent the next few days reading it.  It's a father's take on how having a daughter with severe autism has affected the family.  The epilogue was written by his non-verbal daughter, Carly.

I would say it was "refershingly" honest, but that'd be a lie.  There wasn't much about it that was "refreshing", but I would say it had "raw honesty".  He discusses all of the decisions he and his family had to make to try and help their daughter the best way they knew how.  Some decisions that no parent should ever have to make (in my opinion).  Carly has autism, OCD and oral apraxia, meaning that the muscles in her mouth don't work right.

There were many similarities between Carly and Faith, neither are apparently very big fans of televisions, they like to shred things, and make different types of noises to filter out other sounds.  Faith doesn't really appear to have OCD (or if she does it doesn't seem to be a driving force behind things right now).  

I've always found hope in Carly's story because it reminded me so much of Faith and gives me hope for her future, but it was kinda tough reading through all of the obstacles they had to tackle to get there.  Things that we may one day have to face.  While we don't have nearly the income her family does, we still try to do whatever we can to get her what she needs.  It takes a lot of creative thinking (I'm not one that's really good at that, but as the years go by....just from sheer need...I've gotten MUCH better at it).

The end had many questions that people over the years had asked Carly and she was kind enough to answer.  It gives great insight as to why some kids do things they do.

So, if you're ever curious about this kinda stuff from a Dad's perspective and from a girl living with non-verbal severe autism you should check out the book.  Parts of it made me laugh, cry, terrified me a little and ultimately left me with hope.  A book that does all that has got to be worth it. :)

It's Spring Break time in the Brownell house.  It's not been too fun with all the rain (although all of the farmers and their animals around us needed it terribly).  I had some "grad plans" of taking the kids on an outing or two...that didn't involve therapies of any kind for Faith.  Sadly, it has not happened.  Maybe Saturday or Sunday we can do something.  Tommy is going to a wedding Saturday so guess it'd be just me and the kids doing something (if the rain lets up).

We are gonna have one of Angelus' favorite people come and hang out with him on Friday for the whole day, his cousin.  He's been excited about it all week.  So excited to the point on Tuesday he tells us; "Don't wake me up until Friday, okay?"

The ever dreaded second dentist visit went really well.

Faith let the hygienist  attempt to look in her mouth (a little anyway), and now we have to have Faith in the hospital around the end of April so they can "knock her out"  So far she will have to have 4crowns (but they will look just like her teeth). Her teeth cleaned and x-rays and whatever else might need to be done. I loved the doctor, hygienists, and even the receptionists. 

I thought it might go well when we walked in and both kids were happy in the waiting room.  Angelus thinks he needs to start seeing this dentist too.  I don't blame him one bit.

We *finally* got Faith in for her additional speech assessment (after being rescheduled on for two weeks in a row). The SLP was way more than okay with us (me and Angelus) going back there with her. Although she didn't realize Faith already had a diagnosis of Autism and within 2 or 3 minutes of meeting her was trying in the politest manner to tell me that she's pretty sure Faith was (she had a big sigh of relief when I told her she'd been diagnosed....guess she dodged that bullet). 

She also thought Faith only getting speech 1 to 2x a week wasn't nearly often enough (as I thought) so we are going to see what we can come up with to help our little lady get the help she needs. 

Angelus and I went out one of his Spring Break days and had a Mommy/Son day.  We ate donuts, got hair cuts, new books, a couple of new toys and just had a good time in general with each other.  He ended the day with having spiky blue hair (trying to look like Sonic the HedgeHog is hard work), and a new Mad Libs book along with a book about the Cult of Lego's.

All in all an alright Spring Break.  It'd been so much funner for the kids if we could've actually done something.