bountifulplate

Last Thursday morning, my husband, Dominic and I went to our county's Probate Court and had Dominic's Guardianship Hearing. My husband and I are Co-Guardians, and we were granted "Partial Guardianship," which means Dominic can make some of his own decisions (future educational and vocational placement options, what to wear and how he wants to spend his free time), but my husband and I will make his medical, health care, legal, contractual and major financial decisions. The subject of Guardianship in the disability "world" has been and continues to be a controversial and divisive topic.  I was a panelist for an Autism Conference this past summer and presented on what it's like to have a child with Autism. Towards the end of my presentation, I mentioned that Dominic had just turned 18 and that we were going through the Guardianship process. When the attendees could ask questions, the first person that went up to the microphone started telling me that I was...

  When Dominic was first diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2, I truly had no idea what would happen when he turned 18 (which is now just 8 short months away) . Would he go to college? would he live in a residential facility? would he have a job? It is so hard to predict the future for any of your children, but especially for those with higher support needs. Today, marks the one-year Anniversary of Dominic's baking business, " Baked Goods By Dominic ." I have spent the past few days thinking about that. I read recently that just 32% of adults with Autism have paying jobs. That means there are 68% that are not employed. That is a HUGE number. I have told more than one person since Dominic's business started, it's not like someone was going to knock on our front door when Dominic turns 18 and say, "hey, I'm here to offer Dominic a job!"  We had to create an opportunity for him.  Living in Michigan, he can be in the school district until he is 26. We had ...

Dominic starts his senior year of high school this coming Tuesday. Living near a large university, we have received a handful of brochures and letters in the mail addressed to Dominic asking him to consider going to their college. I came to terms with the diagnosis of  his Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a long time ago (like two weeks after the diagnosis) , but I have to admit a small part of me was sad.  If Dominic was a "typical" incoming senior, we would be making an appointment with a professional photographer for senior pictures, visiting possible colleges for him to go to and he would probably be driving a car to school everyday.  Instead, I decided that I wanted Lauren to take his senior pictures, we will not be visiting colleges and he won't be driving himself to school everyday.  When Dominic was first diagnosed with ASD, I truly had no idea what to expect. I have said it before and I'll say it again, my only frame of reference of ASD was the movie, "Ra...

This Friday is Dominic's last day of 11th grade. He did part of 10th grade and all of 11th grade "virtually." While "virtual learning" has been good in some ways, there definitely has been one huge disadvantage. He has had seven seizures since March of 2020. All of Dominic's seizures, except the very first one, have been caused by anxiety/stress/change of routine. Each time he has had a seizure, I have had to call his Pediatric Neurologist and we discuss his medications. At Dominic's most recent in-person appointment, the Pediatric Neurologist basically said Dominic was at the top limits on his two current anti-seizure medications and she was very concerned about adding a third, especially since he was continuing to have seizures.  After some discussion, since Dominic also has Generalized Anxiety Disorder , we decided to treat the anxiety with a low dose of the generic version of Zoloft . Thank goodness he hasn't had any side effects and he has had ...

Both of my parents passed away of Congestive Heart Failure , my mom almost three years ago and my dad almost four months ago. So, I guess you could say it runs in the family.   I never thought in a million years that I would be diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure , but I was. It will be ten years on November 21 of this year. It was interesting how I was diagnosed. I had routinely been giving blood at the local American Red Cross and the nurse noticed an irregular heartbeat when taking my pulse. She said, "has anyone ever told you that?" I was like, "no, I don't think so." Around this same time, I noticed that I was having shortness of breath, but attributed that to possibly walking too fast during my daily walks. I reached out to my regular doctor, told her my concerns and she ordered a stress test. It involves walking/running on a treadmill. When I had my appointment at the local hospital, they had to stop my stress test because I was breathing really, r...

This month marks the one-year "anniversary" of Dominic being home full-time from school. When the Pandemic started, I guess I was VERY optimistic and thought it would only last a few weeks. Little did I know, that almost a year later, the Pandemic would still be raging on. It has been of a bit of a "learning curve" having Dominic here and my husband working from home (the hubby likes to call it a "preview" of what it will be like when he retires)!!  We have worked out a good system, so one of us is always home with Dominic. He can't be left alone because of his Complex Partial Epilepsy .  He has had six seizures since the Pandemic started, the most recent one was the beginning of January. Since we have had LOTS of extra time in our schedule, in June of 2020, we went from once-a-week private speech therapy to twice-a-week. It has been a pretty seamless transition from in-person to "virtual" learning with her. His private speech therapist h...

I have mentioned before that when we first received Dominic's diagnosis of Autism at age 2 1/2 , my first thought was him as an adult sorting paperclips into boxes. I thought he would never talk. I knew nothing at all about Autism. I did grow up with a neighbor named Tommy who had intellectual disabilities and he would visit our home frequently.  This was the 1970's when those with disabilities were separated in school and many parents were told to institutionalize their children. Looking back, Tommy's parents went against that thinking. They let him walk around the neighborhood unsupervised. I never asked Tommy if he had Autism, we accepted him the way he was.  Speaking of acceptance, it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis of Autism. In my own opinion, I think that is very important to do because you really can't move forward until you have done that. After the diagnosis of Autism, Dominic subsequently received diagnoses of ADHD, Gener...