Some of you may have seen a recent article about a Dog Rescue who has a policy of not letting families adopt if there is a family member who has autism. It caused a media firestorm and there was a lot of bad press. I won’t name the rescue; but you can always look it up if you’re curious. The backstory is that this particular rescue has had two violent incidents with families with kids on the spectrum. After those, they implemented a policy to not allow families with autism members to adopt from their rescue.

When my sweet Christos Arthur was diagnosed with autism, I went kind of numb. Even though the doctors had told us they were testing him, I didn’t really do much research. I wanted to be sure before I dipped my toe in that water. Fast forward to the day we got the results, Jim and I came home and sat in silence in the living room trying to figure out what that meant for Christos and for our family.

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month and as most of you know, my best friend/GF Alison Salinas lost her life to the disease. To pay tribute to Ali and her unique ability to make my world brighter, I thought I’d share our story; what made her an incredible friend, and how she came to be my GF.