How many of you have had your relationships with others affected by Autism? I know how stressful raising 3 children with Autism is for me and my marriage is not exempt from feeling that strain. Lizze and I don't always get along. In fact, the strain, stress and constant sleep deprivation has taken its toll on our marriage. We love each other and will be celebrating our 10th anniversary in a little over a month, but to say that our marriage hasn't been impacted would not be true. We've lost touch with friends and family as well.  I would even go so far as to say that some relationships simply were not strong enough to weather the special needs Autism journey.  Lizze and I both have been unfriended on Facebook…

Lizze woke up sick this morning and is likely going to be sleeping most of the day.  This is all tied to the massive fibro flare she's been coping with for the last few days. Apparently, this is something that is impacting many members of the fibro community and is being caused by the recent weather. I'm feeling very overwhelmed right now because I'm failing at so much and with Lizze down, there is even more on my shoulders. We lost our internet this morning because we are behind on the payments. This impacts a great many things in my life, including my ability to maintain this site. Lizze and I have tried every agency and resource available to us and we still can't get the gas turned back on..…

My boys are doing pretty well today.  Emmett doesn't appear to be in the fever flare, which is fantastic. Gavin's doing well this morning and while Elliott's a bit on the whiny side, he's well also.  How are your kids doing today? Just so that you know, I'm not looking for anything in particular.  You can share the good and the bad. Sometimes just saying it can help you feel better.  This site is managed almost exclusively via WordPress for Android. Please forgive any typos as autocorrect HATES me. ;-) Follow @Lost_and_Tired Visit the My Autism Help Forums To reach me via email, please Contact Me

Why I decided to put this together I decided to put this together because I'm constantly being asked about vaccines. Parents are understandably worried, confused and overwhelmed by all the information floating around. Will vaccines cause my child to be Autistic? The truth is that kids are diagnosed with Autism, regardless of whether or not they've been vaccinated. So it's not that simple. Personally, I'm a believer in vaccines and I don't think there is any denying that they save countless lives. However, not everyone feels the same way. My goal with this article is to help parents to rely less on what celebrities like Jenny McCarthy have to say and more on their own personal research. I think that if we can take the power away from the people…

One of the things that I'm working really hard to do, is teach my kids the things that they won't learn in school.  Things like every day life skills that help to foster independence. As an example, I take the boys grocery shopping, so they can learn healthy food choices and even how you check out. Today I showed Gavin how to clean out the litter box. I'm going to double check with his immunologist to make sure that's safe but it's a new skill he's learned. While not a glamorous one, if he wants a cat later in life, now he knows how to cleanup after it.  Gavin also helps with trash day and small repair jobs around the house.  He loves cleaning and actually looks forward to trash…

I wanted to give you all a peak behind the curtain, so to speak.  Every Monday night, we have to refill Gavin's pill dispenser for the week.  We go one week at a time because the pill dispenser is broken and we haven't been able to replace it yet. This may look like two weeks but it's actually divided up by AM and PM. The top row is given in the morning and the bottom row is given in the evening, at bedtime. For the most part, he's taking the same thing in the morning and at night.  Doling these pills out one week at a time has actually worked out pretty well for us.  Thankfully, Gavin is amazing at taking his meds. He never complains and never gives us…

I'm trying to handle Gavin's hallucinations in a calm manner. We listen to all his stories allow him to talk to us about his adventures. Today was one of those days that he was deeply entrenched in hallucinated world's. In the picture below, you can see how he documented his poker game with his less than visible friends. Gavin was the winner of the poker game, Sonic came in second and Manic was the third place winner. I always find it interesting how these things work out because he never likes to lose at anything in real life. He doesn't lose to his less than visible friends either.  Some how, he always seems to win, although he does admit to cheating. As crappy as this situations is, it's a real…

It's really weird.  About 2 years ago, I developed seasonal allergies for the first time in life. I went the first 33 years of my life without them.  Over the weekend I ran out of my allergy meds and couldn't get them refilled until today.  I was fine all weekend. Even after cutting the grass. That said, I wake up this morning and can't stop sneezing.  My right eye won't stop watering either.  It's pretty miserable..  I picked up my prescription but I probably won't feel better until tomorrow morning.  There's no doubt it could be worse and I'm grateful  that Zyrtec controls them so well.  I'm so looking forward for tomorrow.  Perhaps, if Lizze is feeling up to it, I'll take some Benadryl to get me through the day. …