I guess I should start with our first trip. Hunter was almost two years old and had not received an “official” diagnosis of autism. At this point, we still had eye contact and he had not totally withdrawn… but the speech that had developed up to this point was slowly diminishing. We proceeded with hearing tests and ruling out other potential causes for the speech loss. He would not receive the official diagnosis until he was 3 years and 4 months old. But for the most part, he was just my wild and crazy little guy!
So, the first journey we embarked upon was to Las Vegas, Nevada. I know, weird place to take an almost 2 year old but it was kind of a family affair. My mom, sister, and her son joined us. His dad, my ex-husband was supposed to join us as it was also our anniversary, but things don’t always go according to plan; in more ways than one. But I digress….
I packed up the little guy, his Elmo collection and a multitude of Fruit Loops, graham crackers, and whatever else I thought would get us to safely delivered to our destination. It was Hunter’s first time on an airplane… He sat on my lap and thankfully dozed off for the short flight. In addition to the previously mentioned snacks, I had packed another bag full of Rice Dream. We had discovered at this point that Hunter had anaphylactic reactions to milk, eggs, and peanuts. We suspected wheat allergy at this point but had not changed his diet yet. In addition to the allergies, Hunter had also developed food texture aversions and would not eat anything with the consistency of oatmeal, pudding, etc. This noted the beginning of travel challenges that we still face today. One of the biggest issues now is wondering if the place we will be traveling to will have food that he will eat and hopefully will not kill him! We had thankfully discovered at this point his love for French fries. Fortunately, the texture aversion has improved and so has the food arena for him, but we will discuss that in detail in future posts. We had hoped Hunter would outgrow the allergies by the time he hit the teen years. So far, that has not happened.
It is not uncommon for kids on the autism spectrum to have food allergies and/or sensitivities. Hunter has both, and we later learned learned that we needed to avoid wheat, soy and shellfish in addition to the others. Many kids on the spectrum also may be partial to certain foods and avoid certain textures. The food dilemma often keeps parents from exploring with their kiddos. With planning, thankfully this challenge can potentially be overcome. And with McDonald’s French fries… lot’s of McDonald’s French fries (there will be more on this later, rest assured)!
The only problem I ran into on this trip was I did not bring enough Rice Dream. It took several calls to the hotel concierge and ultimately a long cab ride to the only market that carried Rice Dream during that time. Milk alternatives other than soy were just beginning to break out and finding one that Hunter would drink was not easy. Using another brand was not an option.
The trip for the most part was fairly uneventful. It was the initial spark that got us where we are today. Not only was it the first journey to a different destination, it was the beginning of what I would later learn was a life journey on the autism spectrum. The take home points from this story is that we began light travel while Hunter was still pretty young. That may have had an influence on how he responds to travel in general now. Also, I learned that the importance of the 6p’s: Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!
But before I go… one more shot of my crazy little guy… cute little stinker wasn’t he!
Autism Travel Adventures 