Little but Huge…

"A little progress each day, adds up to big results." I've always said, I would never try and take Autism away from Alan. It's part of him, a big big part of him, but not all of him. The one part of his Autusm I would love to change, is him being nonverbal. I would change that in a heartbeat, I would give anything for our guy to have a voice.

It's easy for people to look from afar on the outside and say "but he does have a voice in his own way." Which, yea he does, in his 7 years of life our family has figured out what works for him and us to be able to commit together. BUT I am not settling. We are not settling. He deserves more. We are one full week into the start of his detoxing plan and let me just say we are pleasantly surprised. Not because we are seeing these huge gains in a week, but we are seeing him tolerate what we have started, and that is huge for us. Alley has always been the "side effect kid". When I say "side effect kid" he's always in that 5% that medicines don't work for. Or he's the kid that the doctors usually say "well his behaviors might get worse on this, but not likely", and then they do. So for us to be one week in and still be trending in the right direction, is a miracle! We introduce the 4th part of getting Alan's body healthy enough for a cleanse, today. It focuses on his "Tummy Health" with an 11 strain probiotic blend that he will take twice a day, along with what we have already started. It's a long road and a lot of oral supplements for him to take but hoping it pays off in the long run.

He had had a very good week at school this past week and was phenomenal this weekend with behaviors and transitions which again I attribute to what we started last week. Today, man today got me, good. Being a high school basketball coach, my season is not just in the winter. We started back up today, yes May 30th, with early morning practices which we will have for the next month. I crept out of the house super quietly at 6:15 this morning to get to school. Alan was still sleeping when I left so I didn't get to put him on the bus like I usually do everyday. The day flew by, got a work out in, played with Joey, gardened, house stuff, you know the usual. I sat on porch and waited for his bus to pull up. As soon as I saw it coming down my street I started to make my way to the sidewalk. The bus pulled up and stopped at the end of our driveway. Now I can't see his face because of the glare but I can see the outline shadow of his head and his headphones. He was facing me from the opposite side of the bus. At that moment something so little but SO huge for us happened. He waved to me. Alan waved TO ME! He has been waving for a while but ONLY if he is waved to first and I remind him, Alan wave and say hi. Then he will reluctantly throw his hand up to wave. This though, this was absolutely magical. He waved first, on his own, for what seemed like 20 seconds, but in reality was about 5-6 seconds. Nonetheless, he initiated the greeting, ON HIS OWN. Again, something so little to do many was immensely huge to me.

I think we are on the right track, I hope we are on the right track, and all I can do is keep hoping.

With Grace-

This Autism Mama