Just A Slight Favor, If You Don't Mind

I hope Andrew, Fred, and Heather, will excuse me for what I'm about to do, because I didn't ask for their permission, but this is for my niece, and I'll do anything for my niece.

My niece Hannah is autistic. She's lucky. She's got a mild form of autisim, and is highly functioning. She's eight. She's in mainstream second grade. She's very outgoing. She makes good grades. She has lots of friends. But at about age three, she suddenly lost the ability to speak, she wouldn't eat, and she was terrified of children her age. My sister-in-law tells the story here. My brother and sister-in-law, Hannah, and her brother and sister, were lucky in that Hannah was diagnosed pretty quickly, and they were able to get her the proper care and treatment that she needs. And since she's got a very mild form, you wouldn't even know she was autistic.

But they're lucky. There are lots of children with autisim. And many of these children don't get the proper treatment because doctors don't spot it, or the insurance companies won't pay for the treatment because they don't consider it to be a medical problem, or the child has a severe case. It's a cliche, and most aren't that bad, but the Dustin Hoffman "Rainman" character is not far off for lots of autistic kids. The TV show Parenthood is doing a good job of having a child with a mild autism and having the family adjust after they get the diagnosis.

Now for the reason I'm writing. My brother and sister-in-law live in Austin. And they're getting together people to take place in a charity walk in October. I'm not asking for people to drive out to Austin and walk. You can if you want, and I'm sure that there'll be one in Houston. But if you don't mind, if you can spare it, go to their site and donate a few bucks to the charity so that people who aren't as lucky as they are can get the treatment they need for their kids, and maybe, just maybe, some kind of cure can be found.

Sorry for the interruption from our normal programming. And take out your anger on me, not Andrew, Heather, and Fred, because I didn't tell them I was going to do this.