Family Hope Center (FHC) is a good place. They help kids with hurt brains. They want you
to eat healthy and to do a program called therapy. I only know one fun way to do therapy–building with blocks while I’m crawling and creeping. The stuff in therapy I do is: reflex bags, crawling, creeping, smells, Egoscue*, reflexes, hyperbaric chamber, listening therapy, and my favorite…eating healthy food!
We go on a plane to Philadelphia and drive to Norristown to eat at Applebees. And if it’s a Tuesday night, we get to see a Cartoon Magician named KooKoo. KooKoo goes from table to table and does magic tricks. He has a really long tongue that he pulls out of his mouth. It was really surprising, and I jumped. When I go to Applebees, I eat two kids mini cheeseburgers (no
bun!) with a side salad (no onions, no dressing, and no croutons), and tomato-basil soup. Sometimes I like to eat adult-size grilled chicken, two sides of broccoli, a side salad and tomato-basil soup.
We sleep at Homewood Suites and then the next morning we go to FHC. When we first get there we sit and wait for Matthew, the leader of all the doctors at FHC. There are other families there, and I made some new friends. Matthew leads a short meeting and tells the families who they will go see first, and then we go to our first appointment. My first appointment was with Mark.
Mark tested my sight by asking me to follow a toy with my eyes without turning my head. I did hearing guesses. Mark made a sound, and I had to guess where it came from. Then I did some smells. I guessed what the smell was. My favorite smell is Jasmine. Mark also tested my crawling, creeping, kicking, throwing, catching, hopping, and my reading and writing. Mark is a nice man.
After we were done with Mark, then we met with Dr. Kristin. She makes sure I’m healthy. She weighed and measured me (I grew an inch!), and she listened to my heart and lungs, and other stuff. I told her about how I had chickenpox and she told my parents that she is happy that I am naturally immune. She was happy that I’m so healthy.
Then we got to go eat lunch. When I came back, we met with Dr. Barry. He does craniosacral myfacial therapy. I laid on a table, and he put his hand on the back of my head and neck. I felt relaxed. [Mommy’s input: Part of this is to measure Aaron’s brain cycle…the brain contracts and releases–breathes in and out–and a lot of people have a cycle with very low numbers, they like to see the brain cycle be 100+, and Aaron’s was 175, so he’s doing good!]
Then after Dr. Barry, we waited a long time for Jennifer who was working with Mark to add up all my scores from the morning evaluations. It was boring! The first day was over 9 hours. Then we went to dinner, back to the hotel, and then started all over again the next day.
On day two, we met with Greg. Greg helped us know what to do for therapy. Then we met with Carol, and Carol told me that I’m getting close to defeating autism, and she told me that I should never call myself autistic again. I do therapy to help organize my brain, and she told me that she thinks I’m ready to start school.
Then we went to lunch, and after lunch we had a Skype meeting with Dr. Kristin to talk about yummy, delicious, and healthy food. She had me draw a circle on a piece of paper, which was like a plate, and she asked me to draw a line down the middle. On one half of the plate should be vegetables. Then I drew a line to cut the other half of the plate into two parts, which should be protein in one-quarter, and fat in the other quarter. Eating healthy is easy.
Then when we were all done, my sister and I got to pick out a prize. I picked a rubber snake and named him Sizzle.
Now I’m home, and I’m happy, I guess, to be doing my therapy.
Aaron's Awareness 