Welcome to 2012! Our family has entered 2012 in a very good place. Maybe I have been stuck in my Happy Place for a while. So happy that I have started blogging a lot more often. So much to be Thankful and Grateful for. So happy to be through the roughest days of my life. Looking up and looking forward…our little family laughed our way into 2012.

You know how you can be going along in life and BAM! You get sick. Really sick. Sore throat, fever, chills, body aches…..Crazy sick. Days pass and you still feel terrible. Maybe you even lose your voice. It feels like it will never end. You count the days… 10 days. You should feel better, right? No – not yet. The fever is gone but the throat still hurts. It goes on and on. Then one day you wake up and *notice* that you don’t feel sick. That day is suddenly the best day since you can’t remember when. The sun shines a bit brighter. You feel normal. Not that normal is usually that SUPER FANTASTIC. But when you have been really sick, normal feels like WOO HOO NORMAL!!!

“‘Look at me, look at me, look at me now!’ said the Cat in the Hat to the Fish in the Pot. ”

Feeling normal can feel like *Magic*.

2011 did not start with the shimmer of magic. The Spring of 2011 was one of the tougher times. We came to a turning point with Ethan and how to help him. We prayed for God to help us figure out what to do. Ethan’s anxiety began to consume him. His fog caused by autism had begun to lift. But his stress over trying to filter ‘life’ was the unfortunate side affect of this fog lifting. We were gaining our son but he was not ready for life as we know it. With his internal panic button pressed ‘on,’ we were pulling him out of his shell with no real plan of what to do with him once he was out. Behavioral therapy makes a big difference with how Ethan acts and reacts to life. But nothing we had found would help Ethan’s heart. Just because he would deal with something, did not mean it wasn’t breaking his heart.
So Ethan’s emotions started taking over and starting winning. Fear is powerful.

I had just arrived at work one morning when my cell phone rang. It was the Principal at Ethan’s school. The conversation was a bit of a fog as I started hitting panic. Ethan was having a tantrum…pushing book cases, almost over. Crying. Screaming. Running. The Pastor of the school was blocking the doors so that he would not run out of the school, but Ethan was not being restrained. But I should get there…quickly. It was 8:30am. I had just left him. My car sprouted wings and I got there in record time. I went in and saw Ethan leaned up but slumped against a wall in the hallway. He was weeping and apologizing. “I am so sorry about this Mom. I am so sorry…” I got him together and took him home. We both cried all the way there. I called Freddie to explain what had happened. “They are going to kick him out of school. If they do, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

They did not kick him out. The Pastor and Principal helped us get a new plan together. They did not desert us when I just knew anyone would. I am still amazed at the heart of the people at Lighthouse School in Brandon, Florida.

But we had to do our part for Ethan. We took him back to his Developmental Pediatrcian at USF. We decided to try medicine for his anxiety. We got the prescription filled, set the bottle on the counter, and looked at it for days. And we prayed. Prayed and prayed and prayed. When you are a Christian, God can let you ‘know’ which way to go. Freddie and I both felt a calm about the medicine that was unexplained other than God’s reassurance…so we went with it.

Within 3 days, he was not the same child. He started smiling again. Within a month, he stopped having tantrums. Within 2 months, his speech and comprehension Exploded. And 7 months later, still no tantrums. Oh …and 3 weeks after he started the medicine, Ethan told me that he loved me.

He loves me.

Autism is many times combined with other diagnosis. Ethan’s diagnosis is autism with anxiety disorder. So he has the fog of autism and then the weight of anxiety – pure, raw fear.

The fog of autism was already lifting with all of the therapy. Now the weight of the fear was lifting. We started seeing Ethan. He started getting mad at things that scared him rather than running. He started advocating for himself. He found joy in life, FINALLY! Rather than whining throughout the morning, we hear his laughter. We hear him beat boxing songs he makes up and laughing at himself. He comes up to me all laughing and trying to explain that the M & M he is holding has a piece of it’s shell cracked off – so the M & M is ‘naked and showing his booty!’ HA HA HA HA!!!! He bends over in laughter “The M & M booty Mom!” At 7 years old, booty is such a funny subject…for a *normal* kid.

We moved this past Summer and left this Wonderful school and FABULOUS Doctors at the University of South Florida. Dr Lilly, Dr Armstrong, Dr Williams….all of the Peds TEAM – TOP NOTCH. But we left. Ethan seemed fine with the move. We prep’ed him well. But MY fear was overwhelming. How could we leave this??? How? By trusting God. By trusting that God did not bring us this far to drop us. That God goes in front and prepares things for us. Trust is easy until you need to use it.

With clenched fists, we drove away.

And God did in fact take care of it all.

Ethan is flurishing in his new school and in our new home. Life is calm. It is normal. Not just normal, but just got over being really sick normal. *Magical* Normal.

The answer for peace in life is out there. For each family living with autism, the answer is different. It may take spinning the wheel on meds for years to find what helps. Or nutritional changes or restrictions may be the answer. It is individualized for each child.

For us….for our son….following God’s lead is the answer. Being still enough to listen when the answers come.
Trust is Huge. Trust is our medicine. Jesus is the Great Physician, Y’all. Hearts healed, even in 2012.

Hope your New Year is as Blessed as ours has begun. And thank you for reading this blog. Please continue to pray for our family, as I know that God is Faithful and hears your precious words.