Living in a small town has its advantages and disadvantages. We live in a quiet little lake town. The people are friendly and the community as a whole is so welcoming. The apartment building we live in has the perfect location for us. It is tucked away in an area that most people wouldn’t even think to look. I’ve always considered this to add an extra level of privacy and safety. The other families that live here are wonderful and everyone watches out for each other and each others kids. It’s truly been a blessing to be able to live here and I would be happy to stay for many years.

The disadvantage to living here is that our special needs resources aren’t always close by. Different types of therapy is one thing that has been particularly difficult. When my son was younger, I had to drive about 45 minutes away most days so he could attend ABA therapy sessions at an autism center. As he aged out of that system, he was still in need of behavioral services. This also was about 45 minutes away.

This unfortunately got to be too much for my son to handle. His days at school are long for him and he needs a lot of time to decompress afterwards. A full day of school, followed by a 45 minute drive, a 45 minute appointment and then another 45 minute drive was just too stressful. I pulled him out of therapy with the phone number of someone who might be closer to us and could help him.

As life moved on and one change after the other occurred, therapy was set aside. The timing wasn’t right to get started but my son was doing well. I didn’t feel that getting started was urgent, so I held off.

We’ve come to a point where the timing is better and there are a few things that Dylan could really benefit from working on. I called the phone number to get set up with the therapist that I was told could help us, but he is no longer available. When I told the woman that I was looking for someone who could work with a young autistic patient in a location that was closer to us, she didn’t even have an idea as to who we could be referred to. She’s only familiar with people who are 45 minutes away from us.

The only advice I was given was to speak with the Dr. we used to see, hoping that he may have some insights. Even when we do find someone, we will most likely have to drive 20 to 30 minutes to get there.

Overall, the help and resources are out there. They just aren’t in our area. This causes a lot of extra work, time and money to obtain them. There have been times that I had considered relocating so that we could be closer, but that would mean we would need to move to a busy city. In my heart, I just don’t feel like that would be the right place for us. We are doing well in this quiet little town and I’m happy to take the good with the bad. I know my son would agree too!