I had the pleasure of attending a tennis tournament in Pensacola on March 15, at the Roger Scott Tennis facility. The benefit, headed by Keri Langlinais and Elizabeth Payne was a big success and fun was definitely had by all!! It was a very dreary day, but still got some fun and interesting photographs of the players! I am always so amazed at the warrior moms and dads out there who have children with disabilities yet still manage to find time for things like putting on Tennis Tournaments!!
I have no idea how they do it, but I am so thankful to all of the folks who do this for our children and for the folks who participate and donate their money and their time to these causes. It's very heartwarming for a parent of a child with autism to see people show up at a benefit such as this that I know will help my son. I want to say THANK YOU from a parent of a very special and incredible little boy!!! Thank you to Keri and Elizabeth and the Gulf Breeze Chamber of Commerce for sponsoring the event and to ALL of the sponsers who donated food, items for the silent auction, or any 'ol thing associated with putting this thing on. You are all heroes in my book!!
I was so happy that Keri asked me to attend as the photographer and am hoping to donate more of my time as a photographer to help this cause. This summer will be the Kids for Camp here in Pensacola, which will be giving children the opportunity to have one on one ABA therapy every day for 6 weeks for a nominal charge. The camp made national news last year and was a huge success! I am thrilled to say that Laws was accepted into the camp and my heart is full just thinking of how much I know he will benefit from this one on one therapy. At his age, it is imperative that our children receive this therapy that is outrageously expensive and for which insurance does not pay.
I hope to document a lot of what goes on at camp through my lens and will be reporting it all here........on the FUNKY BLOG!! But for now, I am excited that the money Keri's group is raising will go toward purchasing a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for our children. This is a biomedical approach to treatment for autism that so many people have seen incredible results with. Laws has not yet had an opportunity to participate in a "dive" as they call it, but hopefully soon he will. I am not exactly sure about the science behind it, but when you are faced with autism and you see so many people getting amazing results from things like this, you go for it. There are definitely some things that doctors throw out there that I think are a little cooky and are only trying to make money, but I have personally talked with several moms who saw striking results from the chamber dives and I plan to try it. These children are sick and need help.
I have to admit too, that while taking these photographs (which was a first for me...have you ever tried taking photos of a tennis match?) I was getting caught up in the game! I almost got NAILED a few times, but thankfully I walked away unharmed! I took over 350 photos, so this is a very small random sample of some of them.
I hope everyone had a safe and happy Easter! Lily had a great time and a great weekend, but my boy was sick, sick, sick. Sick with what, we are not sure.......but he sure made our lives a little less fun over the holiday weekend. Poor little guy ran fever for days, but upon seeing our good friend and gracious doctor over the weekend I find out that ears, chest, and throat are all clear. And while it was very generous of him to give up his time to see Laws on Saturday, I was bummed to find out that it's most likely just a bad cold making him this miserable. I wanted to body slam the man when he broke the news, but realized it wasn't his fault and that the sleep deprivation was most likely causing some irrational thoughts to take control! I am comforted however, to know that as a pediatrician he most likely sees and knows of some irrational moms and am certain that on most occasions I am not one of them. :)
So, we are pushing on with our week and finally have therapist back in the house today......YAY, YAY, YAY!!!! I had an incredible photo shoot over the weekend with the editor of a local magazine who needed some fun head shots and will have to blog about her next time. We headed back downtown to some of favorite spots and got some gorgeous shots of her! Will post some of my little ones at Easter too......
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Thank you so much for your kind words!Iam so proud to have your help on this autism project!
In case you missed it, The American Academy of Pediatrics announced on April 2nd, World Autism Day, that they want to work with the ARI'S DAN!program to look at other ( like biomedical, ABA,etc.) treatment options!!!!YEAH! Now maybe we can make faster progress.
Your work is truly AMAZING!! THANK YOU!!
Posted by: Keri Langlinais | April 06, 2008 at 04:50 PM
Thats really good we should organise these typr of programs time to time.
Posted by: ADHD Therapy | January 06, 2010 at 01:47 AM