: Christine Weiss, Eric Weiss, MD
: Educating Marston A Mother and Son's Journey through Autism
: Changing Lives Press, LLC.
: 9781732258457
: 1
: CHF 10.50
:
: Lebensführung, Persönliche Entwicklung
: English
: 144
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
With Marston, I'd start every morning believing today was the day he was going to look into my eyes and really want me. He'd reach for me, smile for the first time. Walk. He'd say, 'Mama,' 'Daddy,' or even 'ball.' By 1998, when he turned three, I'd uttered that same old prayer a thousand times, and I was more determined than ever to shatter the glass wall that separated my son from the rest of the world. Autism wasn't widely talked about back then, and Facebook (networking) didn't exist. Eric and I were on our own. This memoir is our journey of educating Marston through programs like The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, Vision Therapy, the Tomatis® Method, Marion Blank's approach to reading, hypotherapy, balloon dancing, and the list goes on...until we discovered stem cell replacement therapy

1. LIFE IN FIFTH GEAR

“What really matters in life, is what we do with what we know.”

—Oprah

I WAS BARRELING DOWN I-95 in the breakdown lane, hoping a cop would pull me over. Five weeks before my due date, I’d gone into labor. Eric was in surgery, a long and difficult case. He wasn’t going to be available for hours. We hadn’t even lived in Florida for a year, meaning I didn’t know who to call when I couldn’t reach my husband. So, there I was, drivingmyself to Baptist Hospital in downtown Jacksonville, scared, crying, praying—about as panicked as a person could be.

Let me back up for a minute….

Upon receiving his undergraduate degree in chemistry, Eric was awarded a United States Health Professional Scholarship, which paid for Duke University Medical School. After Duke, there were five years of general surgeryresidency at University of California, San Francisco. Two years of plastic surgerytraining at the University of Miamifollowed that. Then, the Navy owned him. We wanted to move somewhere that felt more permanent for raising a family, so Eric put in a request for Navy Hospital, Jacksonville, and it was accepted. The catch was we had to move right away. In the summer of ’94, we found a cute, little house and, a month later, moved to Ponte VedraBeach, a small town between Jacksonville and St. Augustine. We soon found out I was expecting our second child.

Austin was five. I enrolled him in a kindergarten class at Ponte VedraElementary. I remember meeting his first teacher, Miss Baxter. She noticed that Austin seemed extra bright for a kid his age. They’d later have him tested and inform us that he would benefit from being in a classroom setting designed for gifted students. I remember thinking how awesome it was that my child got his daddy’s big brain.

I wanted to do all things new moms do to ensure their child would be loved, protected, and have the best upbringing possible, so I became a room mom. Watching Miss Baxter in action with young kids every day was nothing short of inspiring. Even though she was the first teacher I’d ever been around as a parent, I knew she was top notch.

And life went on without any speed bumps until March 17, 1995, St. Patrick’s Day.

It was a Friday. I dropped Austin off at school but didn’t go in to be the room mom, as I had a routine OB appointment scheduled.

It was supposed to be a regular checkup. When I got there, the doctor asked the typical “how are you feeling today?” question. I had noticed that it felt as if I couldn’t control my bladder that morning, like I was leaking urine a little bit or something. With Austin, the pregnancy had been wonderfully uneventful. I gained the right amount of weight and experienced all the other things that happen to a woman when she’s pregnant—the first-trimester fatigue, moodiness, a bit of morning sickness, heartburn in the last trimester. It all went down just as the books said it would. I carried him to term, too.

The doctor gave me an examinat