A Change of Approach

June 21, 2016 By in Special Needs Friendly Products Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

The vision of this site has always been to help parents of special needs or medically complex children thrive. The devil is in the details, as they say. This came down to three main pillars.

  1. Provide important and timely information
  2. Share our struggles and progress, good news and bad
  3. Help parents find products that can make their lives easier

The first two are primarily driven by writing and they’ve been going well based on reader feedback. The third has been significantly more difficult. Setting up a retail store was not as easy and straightforward as it sounded. I made the attempt but getting a wide range of products and offering them at competitive prices while also taking care of our son wasn’t practical.

My most recent attempt to satisfy this last piece of my vision for the site was to partner with Amazon. I’m happy to report it seems to be working well and I hope it continues to work well into the future. There are a wide variety of products, I don’t need to stock the items, and Amazon handles the shipping. That said, it’s still our store. We choose what to list in the store. The products in the store have been recommended by other parents who have used them or we have used them ourselves with positive results.

If you’d like to recommend a product there’s a page for that.

If you’d like to take a look at the products in our store there’s a page for that too!

If you have any feedback please feel free to share it with us. We feel that to meet our overall vision we must be successful in all three pillars.

You’re Not Alone

June 18, 2016 By in Controversial Topics Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It’s been a rough week. There was so much violence and death reported on the news it’s difficult to even register the full gravity of it all. On top of that, loving parents on vacation with their son learned the hard way that, in Florida, deadly efficient predators lurk in water so shallow even adult fish would prefer not to swim there. Did I know that before this week? Yes, I did. Would I expect anyone else to know who doesn’t live in the areas these predators thrive? Absolutely not.

Next week we meet with therapists and a teacher from our state’s early intervention program to discuss our son’s progress and our goals for the next year. He was tested last week by neurology and the teacher. It was devastatingly obvious he’s behind. How far behind is difficult to discern. Neurology told us he’s performing between 18 and 24 months in general. The teacher gave no hints about what she thinks. We’ll find that out next week.

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#OrlandoUnited

June 13, 2016 By in Observations Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Donations can be made at this GoFundMe page. It’s been vetted by NBC Miami and is being managed by Equality Florida.

Local hospitals are in need of blood donations. This is a list of local blood donation centers. Despite rumors to the contrary gay men may not donate blood unless they’ve been free of sexual contact with another man for a year or more.

Attacks like this are perpetrated to instill fear. If you see something suspicious, please report it immediately to local police. While it’s legal to have guns in many places, it’s more than reasonable to question anyone openly carrying a firearm in a place where shooting it would not be appropriate. Keep in mind some may carry today for self-defense.

Hatred and violence against any group of people is NOT OK. Anyone viewed as different from mainstream society is at risk of being targetted. Regardless of whether the attack is perpetrated because of Race, Color, Religion, National Origin, Age (40+), Sex, Pregnancy, Citizenship, Familial Status, Disability Status, Veteran Status, Genetic information, or ANY OTHER REASON, it’s just as horrible.

The special needs and medically complex community stands with Orlando. We’re sending prayers and positive thoughts your way.

Statement from Pulse

Like everyone in the country, I am devastated about the horrific events that have taken place today. Pulse, and the men and women who work there, have been my family for nearly 15 years. From the beginning, Pulse has served as a place of love and acceptance for the LGBTQ community. I want to express my profound sadness and condolences to all who have lost loved ones. Please know that my grief and heart are with you.
– Barbara Poma, Owner

What Can I Do to Help?

June 5, 2016 By in Controversial Topics Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
What Can I Do to Help?

This is the number one question we hear from family members and friends. It doesn’t always come out explicitly and sometimes it’s not even clear. I can see it in their eyes. They want to help and they have no idea how. They feel powerless and it doesn’t feel good. It’s uncomfortable, confusing, and frustrating.

It makes it even more difficult that we don’t always have an answer. Feeding our son isn’t as straightforward as it is for most kids. If someone does watch our son for us we need to be back before it’s time for him to eat. Some aren’t comfortable watching him at all because they don’t understand what it means to have a feeding tube or how to handle an emergency.

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Becoming a Medical Mom Review

June 3, 2016 By in Book Announcements Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments
Reblogged from Sunshine and Spoons. Thank you for the glowing review! ❤ ❤ ❤

 

This post contains affiliate links.  Buying from them does not cost you anything extra, but I will get a small commission which helps me keep this blog going.

 

Several days into Davy’s 9 day hospital stay at the age of 2 months, I realized that I knew nothing.  I felt ignored by the doctors and confused by the terminology.  I constantly thought of questions to ask, but forgot by the time a doctor made it into the room.  I cried frequently, unable to figure out how to deal with the fact that there was something wrong with my baby boy.  I wanted to know why this was happening.

Becoming a Medical Mom Review

When we were discharged, it only got worse.  In desperation, I bought a plain spiral bound notebook, the kind I used to use in grade school, to try to keep track of all the information and questions I had for Davy’s many medical concerns.  I stumbled along and eventually came up with a coping system for navigating my new life as a medical mom…

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Live Happier. Here’s HOW.

June 2, 2016 By in Caregiver Health and Wellness, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments
Live Happier. Here’s HOW.

I don’t reblog often but this post touched me. I hope it lifts you up as much as it lifted me.

Nina's avatarthehappylife101

I want to share with you 4 key points that I have learned in order to live a happier life. Believe me when I say that I am still trying my very best to adapt these everyday, and sometimes I fail, but what’s important is I don’t stop trying =)

1. ACCEPTANCE

“I’m okay with what I ultimately can’t do, because there is so much that I can do.”-Sam Berns

It’s our automatic response to make excuses when we are afraid to fail at something that we really want to achieve in life. We can come up with all the reasons that hinders us from doing what needs to be done. But we need to be bigger than our limitations! We should focus on the things that we can control and change.

2. GRATITUDE

“We have a choice. Either to be angry for what we don’t have, or be thankful for what we do have.”-…

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Feeding Tubes and Swimming

May 31, 2016 By in Controversial Topics, Feeding Tube Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Feeding Tubes and Swimming

It’s a common question. “My child has a surgically placed feeding tube. Can they go in the water?” To answer there’s some context required so it’s best to consult with your physician. This is especially true if the tube site is less than 6 months old. Assuming the tube site has completely healed from the surgery and the stoma is well established, the rest of the post applies to you.

If your child gets in the water and the water goes through his stoma it lands in his stomach which is the exact same place it would end up with any other child. There are plenty of places where swimming is simply a bad idea. Lakes can grow many different types of bacteria which can make you sick. If you’ve been swimming in a lake your whole life you’ve probably already been exposed to whatever is in it and it’s unlikely you’ll get sick. A child who has never swum there before might get very sick from that same bacteria.

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Packing for Vacation

May 30, 2016 By in Vehicle Tips & Tricks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
Packing for Vacation

First, congratulations deciding you’re willing and able to take on a vacation. I personally find the idea of going to some other place foreign to our toddler and trying to stay there for more than just a few hours terrifying. Staying the night is quite an undertaking. We’re planning to do it for the first time this summer. Anyway, the whole process is scary enough without forgetting something so here’s some helpful information on how to pack for your adventure.

If you touch it on a normal day for your child it needs to go with you. Find a way to mark items with brightly colored tape or maybe placing them in a certain place. The last use of the day means the item gets packed up. This does make packing an all-day process, however, it makes you much less likely to forget things. When I pack myself I do it a few days before we leave. That way I don’t forget anything I need to be comfortable in the process of making sure my son has everything he needs to eat and stay healthy.

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Networking Opportunity

May 25, 2016 By in Networking Tags: , , , 8 Comments
Networking Opportunity

This blog is visited and read by a wide variety of people from many different countries. It’s followed by parents with children who have special needs or are medically complex, adults who are themselves chronically ill, and people with no serious health concerns who enjoy following our journey. I can’t help but think my readers would be interested in each other as well. Many of the parents and chronically ill readers don’t get a lot of chances to network in person.

If you have a blog a re-blog would be helpful. Also, please share on Facebook and/or Twitter if you have an account. It’ll enable this to reach a larger audience. I’m interested in connecting with new people as well. Even if you don’t blog, readers are also welcome! Just comment with your name/handle and any contact information you’d like to provide. For us bloggers it’s usually our Facebook page, Twitter handle, blog address, and similar. It can be as simple as, “here is my name, friend me on Facebook if you’d like to connect.”

I look forward to hearing from many of you and connecting with different social media accounts if we haven’t done so already. Here’s my info:

Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/strugglingtothrive
Twitter – @ashleybergris & blog posts only @helpmomsthrive
Pinterest – http://www.pinterest.com/abergris
Gumroad – http://www.gumroad.com/abergris

To save the blog for later reading you can follow via WordPress, sign up with e-mail, or bookmark the page.

Thank you for visiting!

What to Do When Emotional Pain Turns Physical

May 22, 2016 By in Caregiver Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
What to Do When Emotional Pain Turns Physical

It’s probably safe to say by the time you become a parent you’ve experienced this phenomenon. Your emotions become so overwhelming they cause a tightness in your chest and abdomen. “Tightness” doesn’t get anywhere close to describing the feeling. It definitely brings awareness of how the person was feeling who initially coined the phrases “heartache” and “gut-wrenching.” The discomfort is, quite frankly, horrible.

No one fully understands yet why this happens but the why is only tangentially relevant. The real question is, “how do I make it stop?” The physical pain is wired directly into how you feel emotionally. The only way to stop it is to calm the emotional pain. There are a couple things you can do to relieve some types of mental anguish. Keep in mind that traumatizing events like losing a loved one may not respond immediately or they may get better only in small increments over many years.

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