One Foot In Front of the Other

Alan has had no incidents of difficult behavior, problems, uncooperative episodes for six weeks now. This medication change has been nothing short of a miracle. Like all miracles associated with autistic adults and children, I think this one may have a shelf life. We rejoice in the "spendor in the grass, glory in the flower" for now, because we know nothing stays the same. But right now, it's glorious!!

We received an e-mail from Alan's caseworker. This one line made my heart happy. "Alan continues to be awesome."

We've recently had a couple of great changes in the way we are managing our son's health and behavior. DHS and a new psychiatrist have really come through for Alan. One of the issues we have had come up over and over is medication management. For a person on Medicaid, finding a psychiatrist who is willing/able to take a Medicaid patient is difficult. We have recently stumbled onto such a person, and what a great find he is! Alan has had so many behavior issues in the last several years. We have tried to find a good mix of medication and staffing, but to no avail. We have provided DHS with a long, detailed narrative of the behavior issues, hoping to get approval for 24/7 staffing. We are on the road to that approval. Provisionally, we have about 18 hours a day of one-on-one staffing. Now to the medication part. It is so hard to make changes to your child's medications. Many times, there is a lot of fear that willy-nilly changes (and we have been subjected to them...