This past month has been crazy! Some of it good, some of it not so good, but all of it full of change. First for the not so good, because I’m not an optimist. Some would call it pessimism, I call it realism, but whatever the case I appreciate dealing with the not so pleasant stuff first and getting it over with. I travel in worst case scenarios, call it anxiety, or call it preparedness, but most of the time it serves me well.

Anyway, I’ve mentioned before that our son Josh, who has Autism and ID, has not been doing well since our move in January. February was thankfully a very quiet month and then came March. He never does well in March. His birthday is March 18 and it just seems to make life difficult. People with autism don’t appreciate change, good change, bad change, it doesn’t matter. And Josh has always had behavior issues in March around his birthday. This year was no exception. We struggled with some monster fits and then a few days after his birthday we found ourselves in a new and scary place of having to take him to the ER in the midst of a fit. I’m not going to go into all the details as to why this became necessary to respect his privacy but it was what we felt we needed to do and was what his psychiatrist had advised. We HATE the ER. It’s the worst and we have way too much experience with it due to our daughter’s issues. At the height of her illness we found ourselves in the hospital 6 times in 3 months. So we are well familiar with the good, bad and ugly of the ER and a hospital stay. Josh was admitted and stayed for 3 days. In that time they choose to switch his medications. And low and behold we were finally approved by our insurance to get ABA therapy which we’d been waiting on for months. I know how the system works at this point and I will admit this was in the back of my mind as a reason for going. Insurance companies listen when you make them spend money, unfortunately it means we also get to spend money, but it’s where we are. I can’t really say that things have been more settled since he was discharged. I didn’t really expect they would be, if I’m honest, but we did make noise and are now getting ABA therapy which should start soon and his psychiatrist is following us closely and will admit us to an inpatient crisis center instead of the hospital should the need arise again. We are hopeful for change, but also preparing for that not to be the case. It was a traumatic experience to go back to he hospital where our daughter passed away just four years ago this month. The poor doctor in the ER had no idea what to do with us when she asked how many kids we had and Josh brought up his sister and we both started crying. But healing only comes through experiencing the grief so, I guess it was helpful in some way. We cannot control Josh’s choices or his behavior, but we are resting in the fact that we are doing all we can to help him.

Now, on to the good news. In February, I called the Autism Society of NC to get some help for Josh. I talked with a woman who is a Resource Specialist there. I told her my situation and she asked me if I had done this and that, and I said yes. At the end of the conversation she said, “do you work?”. I said, no, and she then told me she was retiring at the end of May and that since I was so familiar with resources for kids with special needs I should apply for her job. It’s part time and mostly work from home. I kind of laughed and we got off the phone. I looked at the job listing and thought well, it’s the kind of thing that would work for our family but I wasn’t really planning to work until Gavin started school in another year. I felt like God had really just placed this in my lap in such an obvious way, so I decided to apply and just see what happened. So, I did. A month went by and I heard nothing. So, I moved on and decided to pursue becoming a Relationship Coach through this training program. The program is six months long and then I would slowly build up my business so it would be ready in a year when Gavin is at school. Then a week after I started that program I got an email from the Autism Society telling me they wanted to interview me. Three interviews later they offered me the job, and I start May 5. So, now I went from not having worked in 20 years to becoming a part time Autism Resource Specialist and in relationship coaching school all at the same time. Crazy!

This will be a huge change for our family, having me working and in school after not doing any of that for so long. Thankfully the kids are older now and are mostly self sufficient except for Josh and Gavin. So I will lean on my older kids some for help with them and Josh will be going to summer day camp most of the summer. I’m excited and also overwhelmed at the same time. I totally never thought I would work with families of kids who have autism, but I do have so much experience with my own kids and those around me that I do feel like I can be of help to other families, particularly those in crisis like we have been. And I am also excited to get to do relationship coaching and help other people in their marriages with the information that has helped my own marriage tremendously. It’s a huge season of change for us. And a great new adventure.