jchrisobrien (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jchrisobrien) wrote2005-12-29 11:22 pm
jchrisobrien) wrote2005-12-29 11:22 pm
Hey, I'm back
My Christmas has officially drawn to a close. Today I returned from my trip to New Jersey. It seemed shorter that past visits, or perhaps more focused. We watched an episode of Nightline that featured my autistic cousin Paul. The special focused on how Paul is functioning in the world as an adult with autism, and how unprepared we are as a society for the huge numbers of kids with autism who are becoming adults. Paul has it lucky, relatively. He can go to work, and function during the day with a high degree of skill. He does still have problems with social situations (like when he asked me if I was going to be marrying Theamazingjb, who was my traveling guest). What shocked me most was watching my aunt say on national TV that Paulie wouldn't be able to go on living if she and uncle paul died. I forgot to press on that point in person, but hey that's what email and the telephone are for.
Driving lost distances in the rain, when the road and the sky become one grey blur, isn't something that I'd recommend doing. I was pretty keyed up, but I managed to wind down by doing some cleaning and organizing. That will likely be a theme for the next few days. Another theme will involve browsing through my old journal entires. We all go through our periods of mocking Livejournal, but for me it has proved a useful tool for going back and seeing the road I walked during the year. Maybe my NY resolution should be to do these reviews at the end of each month, so I can save time at year's end. Heh.
Time to get a good night's sleep. I should have a half day tomorrow, which will be a nice start to my three day weekend.
Driving lost distances in the rain, when the road and the sky become one grey blur, isn't something that I'd recommend doing. I was pretty keyed up, but I managed to wind down by doing some cleaning and organizing. That will likely be a theme for the next few days. Another theme will involve browsing through my old journal entires. We all go through our periods of mocking Livejournal, but for me it has proved a useful tool for going back and seeing the road I walked during the year. Maybe my NY resolution should be to do these reviews at the end of each month, so I can save time at year's end. Heh.
Time to get a good night's sleep. I should have a half day tomorrow, which will be a nice start to my three day weekend.
no subject
And I assume we're still using the same vaccines?
That's insane.
anything I can do to distract myself from work..
So from what I could find, the vaccines are changing in the US, but not in developing countries because of cost. However, the flu shot seems to high high levels of bad things as well.
And some more scary facts:
In the last 20 years there has been an increase in the diagnosis of autism in pockets around the world, which cannot be explained by genetics alone, nor can this increase be secondary to only increased awareness. A California review completed in 1999 showed that autism (all categories) increased 210.43 percent, while other categories such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation and epilepsy increased 42.84 percent, 48.74 percent, and 30.69 percent respectively. In comparing autism with other pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), autism (CDER level) increased 272.93 percent, while other PDD types increased 1,965.79 percent.