ARCHIVE OF WRITING
When Pat Leseman was a young girl, her Italian grandmother told her, in broken English, that God sends everyone an angel or two in their lifetime. They do not come dressed in white and they don’t tap you on the shoulder...
It has been 16 years since we learned our son has autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Since that time, I have traveled a very confusing and circuitous route...
An autism diagnosis turns a family’s life upside down. The complex disorder may not manifest uniformly, but the accompanying heartache is universal, whether families struggle to accept a child or sibling may never speak, write his name, have a friend, sleep through the night, or toilet independently.
Today is World Autism Awareness Day, designated by the United Nations as a day to increase knowledge about autism as well as to inspire compassion, inclusion and hope.
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Last year I stumbled across a book called “Look me in the Eye.” As a parent who spent years trying to get her son with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to do just that, the title intrigued me.
"I would rather be in a gunfight than have to watch my grandson go through what he is going through."
This statement expressed the sentiments of many at a November meeting of the Minnesota Autism Task Force. The state-Senate-appointed panel is investigating the causes and statewide incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and assessing availability and effectiveness of services for screening, diagnosis and treatment. In 2009, it will make recommendations to the governor and Legislature for improving, coordinating and funding services.
The past few weeks I’ve watched politicians point fingers and craft hasty (and unsuccessful) solutions to a global economic fiasco. I’ve now lost more than money. I’ve lost confidence in the integrity of our leaders, as well as their willingness to address difficult problems before they devolve into a crisis.
It was a difficult summer. After nine months at boarding school, our 17-year-old son with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) returned for a 12-week break…
When I saw Gov. Sarah Palin deliver her acceptance speech at the Excel Energy Center last Wednesday, I understood what Oprah Winfrey meant when she said that Sen. Obama’s convention speech made her cry her eyelashes off…
Recently, national radio talk show host Michael Savage caused an uproar when he called autism a ‘racket,’ ‘the illness du jour’ and a ‘fraud’..
Last week, the Pioneer Press featured an article by John Campanelli with the headline: “Truth? They dare.” Campanelli wrote that one of the terrible things about being a parent is…your kids are going to embarrass you…
I’ve been following, with much dismay, the media reports and Internet blogging about the parents from Bertha, Minn., who were repeatedly asked, then finally ordered, by a court, not to bring their son with Autism Spectrum Disorder to St. Joseph’s Church...
I was walking with an old friend recently when the conversation turned to the challenges we both faced in our households. I had angst about what the future holds for my teen-age son with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She was worried about the future with her mother, who is in the early stages of dementia…
The federal compensation court settlement of Hannah Poling’s autism/vaccine claim has shined a spotlight on an emotionally charged controversy within the autism world.Since our son’s autism diagnosis, I’ve sat on the sidelines of this rabid dispute, deliberately focusing on the fix, not the culprit…
Last spring, I had a troubling conversation with my adolescent son who is on the autism spectrum…
All around me, parents fight the October blues that set in after their high school grad officially becomes a college freshman, leaving an empty spot in their hearts and their homes…
I remember the conversation with my brother as if it were yesterday. We were grousing about the fact that obstetricians deliver babies without a parenting manual…
I had been ruminating about death for days before I saw the images of the I-35W bridge jutting out of the mighty Mississippi at grotesque angles. Just two weeks earlier, I had experienced my own close encounter…
In the school of hard knocks, I’ve learned that words that describe people can have lasting and unintended consequences. In years past, I happily embraced several designations... All was well until … I was pummeled with a most unwelcome label: “refrigerator mother...”
I can’t pinpoint the person who first spoke the word “autism.” I do recall with great certainty that I could not repeat the word for months after I first heard it...
Driving through central Wisconsin this past week, I battled the melancholy that crawls into my heart each year at this time, around the birth date of my first-born – my son, whose needs have driven me to near exhaustion and stretched my limits of patience my son, who is clever and sweet and has expanded my level of compassion… My son, who has autism…
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They were once parents, children, and friends who lied, stole, betrayed, neglected, and prostituted themselves to support their addictions. Many lived lives full of chaos and confusion and lacking...
I saw my internist the day the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against mammograms for women aged 40 to 49. With my feet in the stirrups, I asked
Monday night’s historic bout between the Vikings and the Packers featured a clash of purple and yellow with green and gold – but my eyes followed the pink...
I was a college student in the late ’70s when word came that my 47-year-old single mother of five had colon cancer.
I am beginning to think that contracting breast cancer in 2003 was a blessing in disguise. For if proposed health care reforms are enacted,
School’s out, and for the next couple of months young fingers will fly across keyboards as classmates strive to remain connected during the school recess via text and Facebook. That may work for them, but what about their parents?
I walked into the Mall of America the day before the annual Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure and came face to face with the registration signs. In the six years since my
After a journey from southern Minnesota to southern California and back, cancer-stricken Daniel Hauser capitulated and is continuing his chemotherapy in Minneapolis, in the custody of his
The bags were packed, the boarding passes printed. My passport rested on my desk, unopened since I last used it two years ago. Months of planning this save-my-sanity getaway would soon culminate in an escape from a frigid, gloomy winter.
My husband and I watched the primetime television debut of Nadya Suleman, “the most sought-after mother in the world.” The 33-year-old mother of six used in-vitro fertilization to implant six embryos last spring in the hopes of having one more baby, but delivered octuplets instead.
All around the world, eyes focused on the Capitol steps Tuesday as our 43rd president relinquished power, authority and responsibility to our 44th. I was intrigued by what the historic moment meant for the wives who stood beside them.
When we visited our son with autism over parents’ weekend this fall, he hugged his dad, then handed him a list of 24 items he would like for Christmas. He lives a cloistered lifestyle at a remote, old-fashioned school that has no Internet or TV, where they play Wiffle ball and parlor games to cultivate fitness and social skills.
It's that time of year, when the drearies materialize after a strong wind blows in, whisking colorful leaves off the trees and ushering in gray skies for a long, and most unwelcome, stay. This year, it is especially difficult to fight the November blues, particularly if I've indulged my news-junkie tendencies and listened to the radio or watched TV and heard the latest reports on the economic downturn.
Sometimes powerful messages resonate on multiple levels. At the 2008 Arc of Minnesota’s annual awards program, a group of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities performed a skit that railed against the ‘r word.’ Their provocative, take-away message: We’re pushing back against a demeaning and demoralizing ...
As summer comes to a halt, so does the best TV entertainment I’ve seen in years. The Olympics coverage is family-friendly reality TV…
The phone rang early on Saturday morning, waking me from a restless sleepl Friday ended with concerns about our daughter being at a western Wisconsin lake that was potentially in the path of a tornado…
I won’t be taking my mom to brunch or sending her flowers on this Mother’s Day, for I lost her years before I became a mother myself…
Over Sunday morning coffee, I read about Bridget Tierney, the Stillwater physician’s assistant who, late in 2006, told friends and co-workers that she had first breast, then brain cancer…
A recent story about the New Jersey parents whose two sons have a rare skin disease…caught my eye and captured my heart…
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