October 7, 2010 It's that time again...my semi-annual date with the Defeat Autism Now! conference. You may remember from an earlier blog that autism research is the number two reason I ignore my husband in the evenings. The number one reason used to be HGTV, but that has now been replaced by the entire Matt Fitzgerald Runner's World library, which I am furiously reading in order to further my racing skills. But back to DAN!...This informative medical conference happens twice a year, which means I feel the compulsive need to go to both, so I don't miss out on any new tidbits of cutting edge autism treatment. This time, the conference is in sunny Long Beach, CA. I'm feeling a little frivolous flying across the country, since the conference will be back on the East Coast in the spring and I just went this past April. But sometimes I just need a little inspiration when I am feeling clueless on how best to help my son, so this seems like just the ticket. It was time to start concocting a meaningful excuse to attend: RUNNING!It just so happens that I have been running with Train 4 Autism all year, a fantastic fundraising organization based on the West Coast. Conveniently, they have a chapter in Long Beach, so I decided to meet up with them for a Saturday morning training run, and finally introduce myself in person to the great individuals I had met this year via Facebook, Twitter, and the web. Molly R., the T4A Director of Communications, kindly agreed to taxi me from my hotel to the start of the group run. This weekend, they were getting ready for a local race, and we were out to run the course and conquer the "Big Hill" at the race finish. It was a lovely run, but to be honest, I don't actually remember running a hill. You have to understand that I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains, so my concept of a hill is quite a bit more steep than the Long Beach version. Regardless, although East Coast hills are bigger, we sure don't have the sunshine and palm tree action that Long Beach has going on in October. I could actually feel my Vitamin D level rising! I also had a bit of ocean envy, as I heard them discussing all their open water triathlon training adventures.
I had a great run, and really enjoyed meeting Ben F., the founder of Train 4 Autism, and all the other dedicated runners. They gave me such a warm welcome & made me feel right at home. Best of all, they took me out to breakfast afterwards at the Coffee Cup Cafe, where I had the best black bean soup in the universe, complete with fresh grilled jalepenos. Since I was an out-of-towner and clearly not a competitive threat, the owner of the restaurant even came out and revealed her secret recipe to me. I've tried to replicate it three times, but with no success. I guess you just have to go there to get the real deal. A big thanks to the T4A Long Beach chapter for being the highlight of my trip. I'm looking forward to racing with you all one day!
Yeah, I was planning to attend the medical conference at some point, but next on my schedule was surfing. It had been a secret dream of mine to take surfing lessons, after winning a surfboard in Kauai several years back. Since I was gonna be on the West Coast, I felt opportunity knocking. After 9 months of tweeting my heart out in cyberspace, I had raised over $8000 and met a lot of cool people across the country involved in the autism community. One of those organizations was Surfers Healing, a group of surfers dedicated to helping kids with autism find adventure on the ocean waves.
I sent a tiny little tweet to Surfers Healing, figuring if I was going to take a surfing lesson while in Long Beach, I wanted my money to go to an organization that helps kids with autism. Not only did they respond to my tweet, they bent over backwards trying to accomodate my request. After a little bit of schedule juggling, several surfers, including the actual founder of Surfers Healing, Izzy Paskowitz, had offered to give me a surf lesson while I was in town. I was supposed to meet up Saturday morning at San Onofre State Beach park in San Clemente. After Googling directions, I learned that besides being a nice spot for beginning surfers, this area is also known for its nuclear power plant and nudist beach. (*crickets chirping*) Well, this was my year of adventure, so what the heck.
Molly, from T4A, generously offered to drive me to San Clemente, since I was lacking a rental car. I was really excited at the prospect of learning to surf, but suddenly, I felt a twinge of guilt. After my extended morning breakfast with the Long Beach runners, if I went surfing, I would basically miss the entire day of the DAN! conference. I thought of explaining that to my husband, who was dutifully watching the kids back home so I could learn more about medical treatments. How could I be so selfish, and waste the money I had spent to travel out to Long Beach for this conference? In the end, I chose to pass on the offer, and do the responsible thing by returning to attend the conference, a decision I will probably regret until I actually follow through on those surf lessons. I owe a big thanks to Surfers Healing for being so generous with their time, and you can bet, when I scrape up a few dollars, I am going to be making a donation as a downpayment on my future surf lesson.
Well, I did finally shower and show up for some of the medical conference. Besides attending a great nutrition seminar, I got the chance to catch up with some parents I had met at past conferences and chat with some folks from Bailey's medical team. I learned a bit about insurance coverage, GI treatments, promising new research, and I met a few book authors that I had been stalking lately. All great information, but I still felt unsatisfied. Why had I come here this weekend? What was I going to do next to help Bailey? After pondering this for a while, I decided that I was already on the right track with my son's treatment and I needed to just relax and give nature time to take its course. I don't need to do any more autism research right now, and I don't need to sit around waiting for a new treatment idea to hit me over the head. Instead, this time I picked up a different kind of inspiration at the DAN! conference. I needed to say yes to the surf lessons. Not because it would help my son, but because it would be fun, adventurous, and a great memory. Opportunities to do extraordinary things are rare, and you need to recognize them and go for it. Sometimes, putting your responsibilities on hold and saying yes to adventure is the best medicine of all. I reminded myself to give my son more time to have fun, because sometimes fun helps you more than pills, therapy, and special diets. He's only got one childhood, and I want it to be filled with happiness and adventure. Perhaps we'll go surfing together some day soon. Lesson learned.
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