Life in France with the Autistic Princess and my Aspie

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I wish I could say everything went smoothly....but no!
Things are starting to fall into place. Both the Autistic Princess and my son (who is aspie) have started school. My son Luc knows some French but things have been really hard for him because of all the noise and the demands of school. He has been at home with me in charter school for the past two years. Today is his first whole day because they are going swimming. When he came home from lunch he cried that he didnt want to go but I managed to talk him into it...keeping fingers crossed that he doesnt call me later hysterical. All the kids think he is so cool because he is American, in this respect its good because they dont notice his behaviors...they just think thats what American kids do LOL! He gets his aide next week because he had a medical done just last year so the handicap place is happy with that.
On the other hand, my poor Maddy is having a rough time. She has classic Autism but they are having trouble getting her services started because her medical transcript (in French) is over two years. We had her meeting last Friday and the school doctor pointed out to the handicap people that Autism does not go away in two years (Go Doc!). We will be taking her to a doctor and getting him to fill out the necessary forms so that we can get things going. Fortunately the school she is going to (right next door to Luc and right down the street from our house) is going to privately hire an aide for her. Her teacher is wonderful and has been learning English and bought herself books about Autism. Still my baby is so confused by the language and the move that she is so lost and has regressed to the point where I have a lot of difficulty getting her to answer simple questions. At school she doesnt know what to do with herself. Usually when I pick her up she is spinning in the middle of the room. When I drop her off at the playground after lunch she walks around and circles. Today I got her a tricycle and while I was leaving from outside the fence I saw a little boy take it away from her and she just let him and wandered away....it made me cry. I called my husband and told him that we will have to be more proactive about getting her more services. In California she had a specialized Autism class and in home therapy three times a week. Here she has nothing but the school....no therapy as of yet for either of my kids.
I know most people would think Im over reacting as we have only been here two months but the longer she goes without therapy the more she sinks into herself....and the longer my son goes the worse his behaviors become.
WE will have some services within the next couple of weeks or Im going to be making lots of phone calls and visits and I wont give a darn if they dont understand me....at least they will know Im angry LOL!....Dont worry Ill try not to end up in the French prison system (Joking).
I also lost my little kitty Donut who was Luc's best friend. After the move she started becoming very sick and would not eat. We found out that she had Polycystic Kidney disease and even though we and she fought really hard ,we lost her. We had her cremated and Luc has made a little shrine for her on top of his dresser. Our other animals have done fine on the move but loosing our little Donut has been very hard on me, Luc and my husband (Maddy doesnt pay much attention to the animals strangely enough).
On a more happy note, my husband is doing well at his new job and getting into the teaching thing (hes a professor). We have a really lovely house and I can see the mountains. People are very nice and I have been to a couple doctors who are trying to help me with my problems. I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondlyitis before I left California (actually I was dx when I was in my mid twenties but then the thought I didnt have it). I now have fused joints in my pelvis and other deterioration of my spine and hips. Ive been in serious chronic pain for over a year now. I wish I could just go to school with Maddy every day but my back says, "no way".
Anyway, just thought Id give everyone who remembers us an update and hopefully things will get going for the kids and we can get back to making the Autistic Princess videos....."The Autistic Princess in France!"
Also if anyone has any inside info on how to light a fire under the administration here in France Im all ears .
April

No tips on how to light fires, my 11 year old AS/PDD son has just dropped out of "college"/secondary school after two weeks, because he was bored stiff, and had little or no time to do anything else anymore ( reading, writing stories, creating games, playing on computer, etc ), and so has resumed home-un-schooling.

He went to a little local private catholic primary school for the last five months of last year, and did very well academically despite only ever having been to school for three weeks when he was five and having done little or no "school work" other than the minimum necessary ( an hour a day of exercises ) for a correspondence course we followed for three years, ( 2005-2008 ), and he also made two good friends, a boy in the year below him who was in his class ( because school so small that they combined two years ), and the boy's younger sister.

But "college" was too many hours, no break on Wednesdays anymore, and too stiflingly boring and pointless. So back to "home-un-schooling" for the foreseeable future. He may want to try "college" again in a year or two when he reaches teenage years and has maybe more desire to hang out with his peers and is prepared to put up with the idiocies of schoolwork to get that.

And, yes, I have to agree about the relatively backwards attitude of the french school system with regard to "differences". The headmaster of the college kept repeating defensively to me that they can't do "a la carte" education for children, not without the most cast-iron medical exemptions anyway. They don't even have a protocol for dealing with bilingual children, like my son, and so he would have had to attend and complete all the "obligatory" coursework for english classes, all the four hours a week plus homework.

Whereabouts in France are you? We live in the foothills of the french alps, near Montelimar. It's beautiful here. Peaceful, etc. I've lived in France for 12 years now.

PS. Re. Ankylosing Spondylitis; have you heard about the theory that it is caused by/associated with klebsiella bacteria, and that a diet low in carbohydrates, or better yet a diet with no starchy carbohydrates at all, can help to halt or even reverse the degenerative process because the bacteria positively flourish on carbohydrates?
.

Good to hear from you, but I'm sorry it's been a rough time.

We are in a small town outside Lyon and no I had not heard about the carb/starch thing. I actually dont know everything about Ankylosing Spondylitis other than it is an auto immune disorder and it tends to be genetic. I have an Uncle who they think has it too. Its difficult to diagnose as there is no read definitive test for it. My Rheumatologist says that I have unspecified Spondyloarthropathy. but from what I read if you have the fusing and the genetic predisposition (plus Ive been diagnosed with it before)...its safe to say that is what it is. I dont fit under any of the other categories of Spondyloarthropathy.
I have actually have been on a low starch and white carb diet for many years. I typically only eat whole grain (and not that fake stuff).

I very much remember you, and am glad to see you here with an update! I do wish more of it was good news, but I guess it all really is par for the course. It sounds like you're ploughing on through it so I am sure you will get your children what they need most.

I've concluded that life just wasn't meant to be easy, and there must be some divine reason for it. With any luck, someday we'll understand that reason. Lol, at least we can hope to What we'll say when we learn it, who knows

Thanks for the update Lilolme.....Hope things do get better for you. I guess a move to another country would be hard for anyone, but you do have some extenuating circumstances. Try to keep your head up and keep moving forward. BTW, that is funny that the kids think that your son is cool because he is American and all Americans are like that! Too funny! Looking forward to your posts.

Good luck with the French bureaucrats. I've lived in France for five years now and know how terrible the bureaucracy here is. It seems that half of the working population is employed generating useless forms to pass on to other bureaucrats etc. It is just one long incompetent paper chase here. Entire organisations exist just to generate paperwork to send to other irrelevant state created organisations. It took them four years to send me a carte-vitale which ended up with my name and my date of birth wrong despite then requesting around ten copies of my birth certificate over that time.

On the plus side the baguettes are nice!

I wish you and your daughter the best.