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Surviving A Stay In Hospital

Nobody likes a stay in hospital and it is no different for a child or young person with ASD The BIG difference is that most people are fully capable of enduring the process with no extra help apart from the occasional visit from family or friends But what happens when the patient needs that extra help with normal daily routines like washing, eating or communication? You sometimes have no alternative but to have someone stay with them 24/7 . As I write this I’m currently spending time with my 17 year old son who has Aspergers in our local hospital so I’ve compiled my list of the 10 most important things to remember to make the stay as easy as possible. 1. Know Your Environment You may be here for a while so it is important to know where everything is.  Firstly  make sure you locate the patient and visitor toilets. They can sometimes be separate and the visitor ones will likely be outside the ward in a corridor. Check with the ward administrator or sister whethe
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When Plan A Is Not Enough

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We're all going to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow...or the seaside...or some other prearranged alternative A s I've said before, we have a 17 year old son called Sam who is on the Autistic Spectrum. Sam is now a model of (almost) perfect behaviour but this wasn't always the case.... In the early days nothing upset Sam more than suddenly changing the plan. Cancelling a pre-planned event, changing a destination or just switching his expected sandwich filling. This almost drove us mad until we realised exactly what was causing the random meltdowns. F or instance, we had a number of occasions when I needed picking up from work and we always used the same route home. However one day we'd decided to stop off at the local supermarket on the way home. When we turned left instead of right at the roundabout Sam started to cry and shout. In-between wracking sobs (his, not ours) we managed to elicit that he was upset because we had deviated from our normal route. He was s
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Friends Relations Countrymen

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So where was I? Oh yes, Sam had just been given a diagnosis of ASC - Probably Aspergers and it was now time to tell our family and friends. We hadn't shared our concerns with anyone apart ftom one cousin and the health visitor so we were not looking forward to telling the world. As it happened it wasn't as bad as we feared, although a few people said that they had been worried about Sam but didn't want to say anything. Ok, they were not to know that we were already seeking specialist advice so it would not have made any difference to getting him diagnosed as early as we did but had this not been the case then these worries could have been the spark to get the ball rolling. It is never easy to tell someone that their child is possibly not the same as their peers and some parents would likely react angrily or be in denial if you raised the issue - it could even lead to the end of a friendship.  Sometimes being so close to the situation means you don't always s
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Living With Autism - Support Groups

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When our son Sam was diagnosed with ASC we were devastated. 15 years ago Autism and it's related conditions were nowhere near as widely known about or publicised and we had absolutely no knowledge of what it's effects were or how it would impact on our lives. Whilst medical professionals could answer general technical questions, none of them lived with it on a daily basis or really knew how it feels to be someone with the condition. This is where the internet came to our rescue. Now I know you shouldn't always take at face value everything you read on the web and there are definitely mis-informed people that are less than useful and sometimes deeply upsetting to deal with BUT there are many resources available to parents and carers who don't know where to turn. Blogs from parents, facebook groups, local support groups and other websites are available and they are all run by people who are in the same situation, some of which have been dealing with AS
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Living With Autism - Our Story

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Hi Everyone My name is Kevin and for the last 17 years my wife and I have been dealing with the fact that our son - who for the purposes of this blog I'll call Sam - has an Autistic Spectrum Condition, specifically Asperger's Syndrome. His name really is Sam - Autism isn't a condition to be ashamed of or to hide away from your friends and family so he won't mind me using his real name. The intention of this blog is to share our experiences with the growing number of parents, carers, siblings and people with any of the conditions covered by the autistic spectrum. Sam was born exactly a month early when his mum was rushed into theatre with severe pre-eclampsia and underwent an emergency c-section. He weighed in at 4 and a half pounds and was the cutest and most adorable thing I'd ever seen. Although he was in good health he had to remain in hospital until my wife's blood pressure was brought under control - a whole 11 days before we could bring him hom
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