2.03.2011

Vrrrrrooooom!

Here's Leo riding his first-ever go kart racer with his dad, while we were in Phoenix over the holidays. He had a great time!

This is also a good representation of the clip at which are days are going lately. Don't blink, is all I can say.

There are two massive top secret projects on the front burner, I'm hoping I can share the news about them eventually.  But even just living the lives we've arranged for ourselves is not an endeavor for the faint-hearted or the easily winded, not lately.

So I'll likely be re-evaluating participation in a number of those day-to-day things, mostly with an eye towards improving quality of life with my family by being less tired and therefore less grumpy and twitchy, and snagging more hours of sleep than I can count on one hand per night. Reasonable goals.

I have to say, I am really proud of The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, even though crafting the associated book in a manner than does its content justice has taken longer than we editors anticipated. But as for quality of content: In the last two weeks on TPGA I interviewed vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit about the most commonly held public myths about immunizations,  I interviewed investigative reporter and The Panic Virus author Seth Mnookin about why we need to hold the media resonsible for allowing vaccine fears and misinformation to proliferate, we featured Mark Osteen's powerful insights on his son's never-ending attempts to talk despite largely uncooperative wiring, and Jennyalice wrote a barnstormer, When Medication Is the Right Choice -- a post I think should be posted on every parenting forum in the country (or dropped on the head of every parent who has ever gone around proclaiming "I could never medicate MY child" because they've been fortunate enough to have a child who doesn't require medication just to get through five minutes of a day, let alone an entire day).

I'm also considering going to the IMFAR conference this year. Have any of you ever been? What did you think? From the INSAR website:
The International Meeting for Austism Research (IMFAR) is an annual scientific meeting, convened each spring, to exchange and disseminate new scientific progress among ASD scientists and their trainees from around the world. The first and primary aim of the meeting is to promote exchange and dissemination of the latest scientific findings and to stimulate research progress in understanding the nature, causes, and treatments for ASD.
Also, I'll be speaking on iPads for people with special needs at the UCSF Developmental Disabilities Conference on March 10th. Our key note speaker will be Surgeon General Regina Benjamin:
Dr. Regina Benjamin, [...] our major keynote speaker [will] address issues related to diversity among health care providers serving an increasingly diverse population of children and adults with autism and other disabilities.
Here's info about the conference itself:
This conference provides a practical and useful update for primary care and subspecialty health care professionals caring for children, youth and adults with complex health care needs and developmental disabilities. This year’s topics offer new perspectives, research findings and clinical guidelines, including an overview of relevant information for pediatricians, family physicians, internists, and nurse practitioners who are involved in the care of individuals with autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, and other disabilities.
Even though the conference is geared towards health professionals, much of the information will be useful for families, too. I'd be so grateful to see familiar names and faces.

---

By the way, it's Jennyalice's birthday today. Please go wish her joyeux anniversaire (she has a thing for French).

2 comments:

  1. Agree about Jennyalice's post on medications--it's so well-written, and covers both the therapeutic aspects and the (unfortunate but real) social issues. Applicable to many people, not just those with special needs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Was that Go-Cart at the Phoenix Malibu Grand Prix? I went there for my High School Senior Trip :)

    I like your blog. I'm going to add it to my blogroll. My son has Autism too.

    ReplyDelete

Respectful disagreement encouraged.