Category Archives: Uncategorized

Vancouver here we come!

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Well, as you can tell dear reader, this blog is oft ignored by me. But that’s about to change! I started the blog, Travels with Autism when my son was in elementary school. He is now almost done with his senior year.

It would be impossible to summarize how much easier it is to travel with him now than it was when I started the blog. However, there will always be parts of his environment that I need to adapt for his neurology to stay calm. In travel, that can be hard to do. Thus, the need for the blog.

Into that, my son has picked what he would like for a graduation present and he has decided he would like to return to Vancouver! And Squamish, British Columbia!

So…comment with your favorite recommendations on where we should go in Vancouver for a person that loves the Olympics and loves all things Japanese.

He had the chance to go to Japan this summer with his teacher and a student group but was worried about the flight length. He said “that sounds too nervewracking,” when the length of the flight was described to him. And if there’s one true rule of travel, it’s know your limits and your interests and pursue the latter while adjusting or planning around the former.

So…Canada, here we come!

Staycations make holidays special

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My son LOVES to “visit local hotels,” for vacations. Honestly, we do want to feel like we travel even though leaving our own city is really challenging. So we make the most of Austin. Over the holidays, we visited the Ikkikkan conference held at the Renaissance Hotel and it was like going to Las Vegas and having a costume party with hundreds of people. My son LOVED it. And because we stayed at the hotel, he could come and go as he pleased. He made a work of art to celebrate his fun.

“Ikkikkan” on Wood Panel, ©️Jackson’s EyeTV

One thing I wish I had done YEARS ago, when my son was first diagnosed and our expenses were sky high was to put all of the therapy bills on a hotel-chain credit card. We got one a few years ago and I have put every single medical expense on this card. If you have a special needs child, I don’t need to tell you how fast the bills add up. With what I spend on this hotel credit card each year, we earn enough points to stay at two nice hotels each year, we take a winter weekend and a summer weekend each year on the points we earn on the card from our medical bills.

While my husband reminds me that these are not “free” trips, I was going to spend the money on my son’s therapy regardless so we might as well have fun!

Oh Canada!

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We are headed out this summer, my son with autism and I, on our biggest, boldest travel experiment yet. We are going to travel thousands of miles to attend a wedding of a former therapist who is getting married in the Canadian Rockies. This trip is fulfilling a lifelong dream for my son–leaving the country!

More details to follow!

Navigating Life in Texas

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I have been lucky enough to work on a project for the State of Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission to help launch (in a very small role in a huge major multi-year effort) a new website that will help parents with children with disabilities and special health care needs find their way to services. It’s called http://www.navigatelifeTexas.org and boy, is it a revelation. There is so many ways that parenting a child with special needs is confusing and this takes so much of the guess work out.

If you know anyone that parents a child with special needs, I encourage you to have them visit the site: http://www.navigatelifeTexas.org.

New York, New York

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One place I’ve always wanted to take my son, who loves art, is to New York City. But, my goodness, the sensory challenges. And now, with the 25th anniversary of the passage of the American with Disabilities Act, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is highlighting its programming for people with disabilities. I am very very curious if anyone has experience going to the museum with an autistic child or adult. It’s a loud place, I was just there, on a solo trip in May. But, the art. Oh, breathtaking.

Touring the Capitol for Autism

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As a parent of a child with autism, I have taken many “trips” to the Texas Capitol building, and it is a gorgeous structure to tour. However, I’ve never been there as a tourist, not once in my eight years of trips as I’ve always gone there as an autism mom and advocate. I’ve testified at every session since 2007 (the first session that I knew my son had autism) on legislation related to disability services, special education and access to autism therapies. I have seen many interesting nooks and crannies of the Capitol building during my now eight years of autism advocacy and learned a thing or two about how laws are made and how advocates working together can make a difference.

I started my efforts with the 2007 Session working to get laws passed for the coverage of autism therapies and now just finished testifying at the 2015 session, again in support of access to autism therapy. One of the things that I learn is that slowly oh, so slowly, does autism law change. But, the few laws I’ve been able to see change have been well worth it.

This year I was speaking in defense of funding that is certain to be cut, and that’s a real shame, because my own child has benefited so greatly from the type of therapy on the chopping block–funding for Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). ABA can help children with autism gain speech, reduce tantrums and allow them to more fully participate in life by helping them overcome some of their anxiety that keeps them homebound. I testified, not because my son would likely use this program, but because other children in the state need this opportunity.

I know for my own son, ABA helped him immensely. He’s able to leave our home, attend school without tantrums (well, very few) and speak in sentences, all things that were impossible to him 8 years ago. I’ve even asked him as I’ve watched him excel in school and manage his tantrums, “How did you accomplish so much?” and his answer, “the therapies worked.”

Sometimes the best trips are those not taken

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In 2013, we were able to manage and enjoy the Austin Trail of Lights at Christmas time. It was a wonderful experience for us and really made our family feel like we had turned a corner in our son’s autism. It was something that for years he could not manage and then through buying a FastPass and paying extra to enter early, we were able to stroll through the lights and displays joyously as a family. For those of you who have autism, you know that getting to be out in public can be a challenge and this was a big event for our son. He loved it.

So, we eagerly bought our tickets to the 2014 trail event. However, our day that we chose, was cancelled and we were given the option of attending on the weekend to make up for it. And we just thought as a group, “no, that’s too crowded” to be fun. So, sometimes, you make the decision NOT to travel and that’s also a good part of the journey. Instead we watched a Christmas movie on TV at home and baked cookies and this activity still felt plenty festive.

We didn’t consider it a “failure” that we couldn’t attend, just a change in venue for our family party. Also, my son was very flexible, although disappointed that the evening we had tickets for was cancelled. So, that was another big step on our journey in autism–learning and accepting changes to our travel plans.

Have you had a time when NOT traveling was actually the best idea for your family? Leave us a comment and share your story.

Sleep Away Camp is a Dream Come True

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I never dreamed my son could manage sleep away camp. His autism used to impact him so severely that he wouldn’t leave our house for days at a time if there was cloud cover. He hated gray skies. And now, he was a part of a camp experience (as an inclusion camper with a 1:1 counselor) where every other week, they went out of town. And this camp was not special needs camp with specially trained counselors and an itinerary with sensitivity to autism. This was for typical children and wouldn’t have the kind of daily structure that his brain craves for a successful experience. But one day recently he said, “I want to go on the camp overnights.” Dumbstruck I asked, “How will you handle this?” And in a very nonchalant way he said, “I’ll be fine.”

I’ll Be Fine.

Oh my.

For years we’ve managed his every new experience, through writing social stories (copyright Linda Gray), prepping him, preparing his caregivers, having lots of options if Plan A doesn’t work out, you name it.

And now, in early teenage years, he’s telling us, he’s fine.

And he was. We held our breathe, packed him up and let him go. For days he had to wander around San Antonio doing what the group was doing, managing the sounds, the sites and the smells of a large group of middle school kids. None of whom had autism. My son was the camp’s first overnight camper with a disability. He is breaking barriers, and more importantly, changing hearts and minds about what people with autism are interested in doing. Autism for him means not talking to others much, but he likes to be with others. That’s his brand of friendship–presence.

The week wasn’t completely glitch-free. On the last night, the counselors, not trained in autism tantrums, accidentally made the group late for a concert that my son was excited to go to. When they were late, he threw a pretty big fit on the bus, but recovered once they arrived at the concert venue. I think the counselors learned, “don’t be late!” as a primary autism imperative when traveling.

When he triumphantly returned home, I asked, “How did you do that????!!!”

And he said, “I just stayed flexible and survived the heat.”