It's coming together...

In my latest entry, I talked about speech generating devices and the teaching method that I learned about in the documentary A Mother's Courage: Talking Back  to Autism, and the more I learn, the more hope I have that Aidan will be able to one day communicate with us.  In the past month, I have made him an appointment at the Augmentative Communication Center at Childrens' Hospital, joined HALO(the school featured in the documentary), and we're planning to take a road trip to Austin, TX next summer to attend a camp at HALO (date to be determined, hopefully we'll be able to get a spot!).   These are two separate methods, but I think that they will complement each other nicely. 
 While the appointment at Childrens' is no hardship, the trip to TX will be quite a challenge for us.  We have discussed at great length the cost and what this means to our current situation, and even though it will be a huge struggle, have decided that we must do this. Only the parents of a child who is nonverbal can understand how compelling this is, to be willing to sell your soul just to know the child who you live with, gave birth to, are with 24/7, yet whom cannot tell you what he did today at school, why he is happy/sad/pensive/angry, etc.  I can tell you about his temperament, and what he does, but not why he does it.  He nearly died of lead poisoning because he couldn't tell us his symptoms...one never forgets being told that their child might not live through the night.  To this day I panic if he gets a stomach virus or acts lethargic or irritable in any way, which is probably really annoying to him!!  There is nothing I wouldn't do for my kids, and sometimes what is necessary is simply bigger than anything done thus far, and there's no choice but to go for it.  There's nothing more important than giving him a voice.
On the lighter side, the other kids are really excited for this trip.  We're going to turn it into a family roadtrip because we want to experience this all together, and I think it will be a nice little adventure for the kids (we also share an extreme phobia of flying!!!).  I'm learning more about this method and plan on purchasing her book so we can get started ASAP at home so he'll be familiar with it when we go.  We're so excited and I think we're finally on the right track, though it'll be a long one!