Autism doesn’t have one definition, but is different for each person. It affects each individual differently. The people who don’t know what it’s like sometimes expect it to be easy. Think again. Walking through Walmart, Lane (my autistic brother) may have a fit or what we call a meltdown. The women passing by grow a look, thinking something like how misbehaved this child is. Pulling and kicking, crying and screaming on the floor. Or how his mother hadn’t taught him this was not okay. A flushed look would come over mom’s face. But this does not bother her, she carry’s on not letting the faces and the comments make her feel ashamed for she knows that she shouldn’t feel this way. For she knows the whole story, and their only coming to conclusions. When I heard the story I wished I could’ve been there to stand up for him.

This is what makes my life different from other 10 year-olds’ lives:
*Lane takes 6 medicines and 9 supplements each day!
*Lane has a very important diet he has to avoid-Wheat, dairy and casein
* When we go out to eat, the only restaurant available because of his allergies is Chick-Fil-A. And he can only have fries there. We don’t go out to eat much because we have to pack his meals.  Lane’s diet is extremely hard to work with. We have to cook 2 meals every day. One meal for the three of us and one meal for Lane, every breakfast, lunch and dinner.  You see how difficult we feel food is in our family, but what about Lane? I personally think his food tastes like dirt, but if he feels the same way, he has no other choice. We had a week long experiment. Lane had our non-casein free bread. It took him 90 days to recover from behavior issues and rashes.
*Listening to songs in the car, Lane will pick his favorite songs off the CD. Favorite type of music consists of Rock n’ Roll and Hard Rock. It’s hard listening to the same songs over and over again, but I think of him before me. I can listen to my music any day I want.
*Lane has school work in the summer.  To me simple math sheets, but to him, hard work.  Some might not understand his struggle in school but we are blessed that many people in his life do understand.  Lane has many friends at school.  He has been awarded many honorable bragging rights of many certificates and awards.  All for the caring person that Lane is.  You see, all is not bad.
Many stop and think how we must feel and I’m thankful but what about Lane?  He has the autism.  I think he is grateful to be him. 
Autism is something with no found cause yet. My goal is to help prevent autism.  Prevention for the “yet to come” and a cure for the “already diagnosed”.  The puzzle of autism is not yet solved but I plan to find the last piece.  The last piece will complete the puzzle and autism will be history, important history that I was lucky enough to witness.

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