Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

Hello, hello!

Presently, I’m sitting in the backseat of my car while me, Brad, and his brother, Jeff, head to Charlotte for a concert. We’re going to see Breaking Benjamin (can’t resist one of their concerts if it’s within a 200 mile radius), Chevelle, Three Days Grace, Diamante, and Dorothy at the PNC Music Pavilion. It’s a three hour trip so I have plenty of time to marinate on the different ramblings in my head.

First, we’re doing the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in North Charleston on October 27. I’m excited. Team More Than Ribbons is back! If you want to come walk with us, please do! I want lots of people to join! If you can’t walk but want to make a donation, that would be amazing!! Here’s the link to join our team: click here.

This is the second trip to Charlotte Brad and I have made this summer. We went up back in July for a book signing. We had a great time and even brought Barkley along. The little guy had to have surgery last month because he broke a tendon/ligament in his knee, so we didn’t feel right leaving him behind when he was recovering. He’s doing great though, it’s like there was never even anything wrong with him. Before his surgery, he was running around on three legs like he didn’t even need the fourth leg. Anyway, he goes for his six week post-op checkup next week. He’s a maniac though, so you’d never guess he had surgery.

We have a couple more weekend trips planned this year. We’ll be heading to New York for a book show next month, and West Virginia for another in November. We’re also entertaining the idea of heading to Universal Studios in Florida in October to do their Halloween stuff. Busy, busy, busy, but always looking for an adventure!

In other news, I’m taking the last two classes for my graduate certificate in the fall, beginning right after Labor Day. I sent my thesis proposal in to my adviser for feedback, and hoping to get the go ahead from him on that. I’d like to present it at a conference here in November, so that’s my completion goal. It’s my priority for the next two months, so hopefully that’ll get rolling soon.

At work, we had camp for our kiddos this summer. It’s always such a great time and it got me thinking about the long term. I volunteered to help my boss organize Social Saturdays at our clinic for our kiddos during the school year. This is something I’d love to continue to do in the future. I was thinking about what I want to do with my degree and certification once I’m finished and while I would absolutely love to continue to do home-based therapy with kiddos with autism, I think I’d also love to run a camp, too. It’s something that’s always been a little niggling thought in the back of my head, but not anything I thought I could really implement. But our camp at work has really inspired me and I’d love to do more. In fact, I’d love to start with a summer camp and grow into a year-round school for kids with autism. It’s such a long term goal, but it’s there, and when I get an idea in my head, I tend to aim high and go for it. (If you haven’t already figured that out, haha.) So I’m looking into special education and autism education doctoral programs to help make this dream a reality. I’ll keep you posted.

Ok, I’m getting a little nauseated from trying to be productive in the car and I still need to post to the More Than Ribbons website and make some fundraising notes.

xoxo

SC ABA Conference

I had a great time at the South Carolina ABA conference in Greenville! I went with two of my co-workers, and we met our boss there. I always loved going to work conferences at one of my previous jobs. It’s so rejuvenating being around like-minded individuals and I always leave full of new ideas and feeling even more excited about my job.

I absolutely love my job. I know I’ve talked about it here and there, but I’m not sure if I’ve gone into detail. I am a Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) and I work with kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities. I’ve worked in this field for a year and a half, and pretty much anyone I talk to about it needs an overview. ASD is a developmental disorder; the key characteristics are social and communication deficits and repetitive and restricted patterns of behavior. ASD cannot be cured, but the symptoms can be treated (there’s still SO MUCH that is unknown). An RBT (me) is a provider of ABA therapy to children with the disorder. ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) is the best evidenced-based practice for treatment of the symptoms of ASD. You can read up on more of this stuff at some of these websites: Autism Speaks, NIMH, or BACB.

Anyway, like I said, I love my job. I work with some amazing therapists and amazing kids. The job is so challenging sometimes, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. Hearing a child say his or her first words, respond to a request, make a request…there’s just no other word for it. It’s amazing. Being part of milestones in the lives of kids who are living with so many challenges is amazing. They’re not lucky to have me, I’m lucky to have them. I probably learn as much from them as they learn from me. They’re just incredible kids.

I’m currently a lead therapist, which basically means I’m a team manager. Each kid has a team that consists of a consultant, lead therapist, and line therapists. I started out as a line and was promoted to lead, when I had cancer no less. I have five kids at the moment, but am hoping to pick up another one in the spring. As lead therapist, in addition to providing line therapy, I also manage paperwork, graph data, do reports, and act as a liaison between the families, therapists, and consultants…a jack of all trades, really. I love the work and it keeps me very busy, which is great.

I’ve loved my job since the moment I started it. There are definitely high days and low days, but all days are great days. Initially, I felt like my job was great experience towards my graduate degree (first clinical counseling, then school psychology). I knew of ASD and ABA when I started, but I didn’t really understand the whole process, but I was willing to learn. Of course, I have a better understanding of it all now. Anyway, over the summer we did these Fun Friday social outings for the kids. They were so much fun. The kids loved them and so did the therapists. There was this one event where we took the kids to Little Gym. They had so much fun. It was wonderful watching them in their element. It was on that day that I realized I’d finally found what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

So, for what seems like the umpteenth time, I changed my degree plans. Fortunately, I was in a place where I could just complete my education at The Citadel with masters degree in psychology. I have the course credits, I just need to complete my thesis. To become a BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyst), I also need to take a verified course sequence of six classes, complete experience hours (which I can do while I work, like a paid internship), and take and pass the certification exam (which is not terrifying at all).

Anyway, blah blah blah back to the conference. It was great. I’m excited. I love my job. It’s the first job I’ve ever had that doesn’t feel like work. I feel like I could learn about this stuff forever and I definitely want to work with these kids forever. I seriously can’t imagine doing anything else.

We learned stuff, met people, ate some yummy food, and just had a great time.

Now I’m home and exhausted and ready for bed! I’ll report back later after my pre-surgery vacation! One more week until my last surgery! Hooray.