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Health & Fitness

Autism is a Marathon

Autism is hard work and you need to train like you do for a marathon or you will surely fail. Autism awareness month is sending a mom on a training schedule for marathons and life with autism.

This is a training program that I never ever dreamed I would be participating in.  Seriously, not ever did I think I could do this.  This is not about running, but it is about training, and perseverance, and dedication, and pain, and enduring when you don’t think you have another step in you to go.  It is exactly the way I felt on the two half marathons I ran last year. 

After a brief hiatus at the end of the year, I got back on the training wagon and have been planning these races, and training around my kids schedule and school, therapy, and our family.  I run and train when I can, early in the morning, late at night, on a treadmill, or out on the trails.  Whatever and wherever I can, to be able to finish this race next month.  Well low and behold Autism must have found out that I actually made plans, and it is trying to bitch slap me down every day.

So, I’m trying my best to stay on track.  Autism has for the last few weeks, hijacked my older son, and is taking him on a horrible ride.  We are exhausted, worried, confused, and just plain sad.  He was making these great strides, and now in the last few weeks a major back slide.  Activities he loved are now cause of tantrums, places he liked make him troubled, he is tolerant of very little.  His frustration level is high, as is ours.  My sadness exists on so many levels, because I frankly cannot stand watching my child go through this neurological torture.  

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The fact that this is Autism Awareness Month, is just irritating and a farce that makes me crazy.  TRUST ME, WE ARE AWARE!!!  I do not get what in the hell anyone thinks we should be celebrating.  Should I be celebrating the sleeplessness, the tantrums, the rigidity, and the frustration from not being able to communicate with my child?  Which part are we having the party for??? The friends that have disappeared off the map because they don’t want our kids to play together?  The friend that don’t invite us anywhere because we look haggard?  The family members that stare at our kids like they are going to blow up?   I celebrate my kids everyday, autism not so much.

We need action, and we need people to start training and working for this MARATHON OF AUTISM. The wave is here for crying out loud, and there are very few who are doing anything about it, and this mother is beyond PISSED.  Where is the research?  Where are the services?  Where is the help for these kids, as they get older?  Does anyone not see that the number is now 1 in 50, WAKE UP!!! When we were diagnosed 4 years ago, the number of kids diagnosed with 1 in 150, then 1 in 110, then 1 in 88 and last week the CDC reported that the number of kids diagnosed with Autism is 1 in 50.  The finish line is getting closer.  There are going to be thousands of these kids growing up and at the rate our lame ass government and education system is going we are doing a disservice to these kids, and everyone is going to end up being injured.  (SORT OF LIKE RUNNING A MARATHON WITHOUT TRAINING FOR IT – See what I did there?)  So perhaps while we are lighting things up blue, we could use some of that effort at a marketing campaign – on actual help for the families of autism???? Just a thought.  Perhaps everyone could get off of Sandra Fluke and her free birth control and focus on a problem that might actually affect people that aren’t selfish ho bags.   Just saying’.

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 I am doing my best to remember minute by minute the life of both of my kids are a marathon.  I have to be patient, and strong, and endure every single kind of terrain that comes with autism.  Right now I feel like I’m running on a 95-degree day in the desert up hill with no water and no relief in sight, just like I did running up Irvine Avenue at mile 11 up a hill that was torturing me.  My children do not have the luxury of saying they don’t feel like having autism that day.  Neither do I.  I  no longer have luxuries of saying that I don’t want to do that, or I want to go there, or even making a plan is a JOKE.  I have to train, I have to be strong, I have to have endurance, I have to have patience, I have to have stamina, and I have to have the integrity and sportsmanship of an athlete to get through autism and a marathon.  Autism is a life long marathon; it is the most important training of my life, of our lives.  This life long marathon of autism requires that we be in shape and sharp, mentally and physically.  It will take more from your body than people can possibly fathom.  I never in my life thought sleep was important, until autism robbed me of it. 

I will run this race in a month, and I will be well trained, probably not trained the best.  But it’s just like being an autism parent.  I am doing the best I can with what is put in front to of me.  I don’t know the most, I don’t run the fastest, but I put my heart in this race, my entire heart, and do my best every single day to love and care for my boys with every single cell of my being.  I will give this race all I’ve got, because my boys deserve the mom that doesn’t give up.

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