Coming Through the Fog

Coming Through the Fog by Tami Goldstein, OutskirtsPress, ISBN 9781478714132

This is a book where a mother shares her journey with her daughter through autism and sensory Processing disorder to what they call functional recovery to independent living.

As a mother of a high functioning son, who I would assume could now be described as being in Functional Recovery; I am always interested in reading what I can about children on the Autism spectrum. All our experiences are so different. Some parents practically stop their own lives to take on getting their child the best possible help and taking up the call to deal with doctors, schools, therapists, etc. I know I couldn't do that so am very thankful for what we could do with my son and I'm very proud of where he has come from and what he has now accomplished.

Probably one of the best things about this book is learning a bit about the different therapies, tests, etc. that are now available to children. I wish the book would have gone into more detail describing some of the more useful therapies. At least though they were named which would allow parents to look them up on line to get more information.

The book also seemed to be out of sequence as the story unfolded which made it hard to follow. I felt like we heard more about the difficulty the mom was having with Heather's school districts than actually about Heather. I think better editing would have made for a tighter book that made it easier to follow the story.

I also think that we were denied parts of the story that would have helped us understand what Heather was going through during her early years. In the timeline in the back of the book, we find out that during her life Heather had at least eight surgeries but why and what for is missing. I assume the author was trying to shield Heather's privacy, but I can't think of any series of surgeries that wouldn't have affected her autism in a negative manner, as any child going through 8 surgeries would certainly be impacted and not necessarily for good. Also how mom and dad deal with an autistic child going in and out of surgery might have been helpful information to those of us that also have to put an autistic child through surgery. Handy hints are always helpful.

One thing I was extremely curious about is what kind of grant Heather got to buy her home. How does she maintain a home with all the costs of home ownership on 25 hours of work a week? How she copes as an adult would have been a very interesting chapter in the book and one that would give some encouragement to parents still struggling in the early stages of this syndrome.