Letter to My Aunt

My aunt has taken an interest in learning about Autism and she has called or emailed me a couple of times in the past week about programs that are going to air-- I makes me extremely happy yhat someone in my family has taken time out of their busy life to learn a little more about Dakota and this terrible disorder

She had told me about Oprahs show and i responded back with the informationI had -- I have not seen the progarm-- I have taped it but not veiwed it so I will reserve my opinion until i see it but this is what I wrote :

Thank you Auntie
the autism  boards online have been buzzing about it-- there's quite a bit of controversey about Oprah who before this has been extremely resistant to do a show on Autism---
I guess shes had her battles with other "lobby-ists" and supposedly she has a lot of pharmacutial  sponsors  -- so she has never had a show that discusses the topic in depth--All eyes are on this show to see what info is produced
Many of the Moms on the Autism web sites are very involved with Bio-medical treatments  followed by the DAN protocol __Defeat Autism Now  which believes in chelation therapy and GFCF diets{glutein free cassein free} Oxygen therapies and many other  "controversial" strategies    Also many of them have children who have fallen to Autism after their childhood immunizations and they believe that the Theimerisol {mercury perservative in the shots} caused the Autism
No one wants to highlight or talk about  this-- most shows are PUFF pieces on kids with exordinary talents {what most refer to as "savant-idiot skills}{similar to the movie--Rainman}
The flip side of all of this is  we just dont know what causes Autism -- but it is a  horrible disorder that affects the whole family--mainly because the behaviors effect  all members of the family and have to be addressed  and managed constantly--every day all day long    there is a huge amout of denial {usually with one spouse and sometimes with the whole family}. It is also a disorder that has one of the highest divorce rate something like 80%

My biggest revelation is that every child who has Autism is different  and has different strengths and weaknesses-- this poses a real challenge because the same applies to treatments. What seems to work for some doesnt work for all so you have a population of parents who are desperate for a "CURE" . We go thru  life grasping at every "solution" that comes our way-- millions of dollars are spent and hopes are raised and we find this kid benefited from it but mine didnt -so another "CURE" comes along and you try again  usually to find that it isnt going to work on your kid -- and you are so frustrated because it had so much promise and it had worked for this kid or that kid  but not my kid .

My final obersavtion is  we all hope and pray that a cure will be discovered but reality is that those that have Autism  now will probably always have Autism --all we can hope for is eventually they will learn how to treat it and  there will be children in the future who will  only hear about how terrible Autim was!

WELL NOW THAT I GOT ON MY SOAP BOX
         I will also post this  on my Journal!
anyway
Thanks for the heads up and keep sending me this info-- I truly appreciate it