Brains, Boots, and Blood
A Tactical Deployment, an Anti-Drug PSA, and a Masterclass in Co-Regulation.
🎙️ Episode 1: Brains, Boots, and Blood
🎙️Prefer to listen? Hit play above to hear the full story, or read along below!
Good morning! I LOVE THAT SONG!! Anyway, hello, I’m Abby. By day, I’m a special education teacher managing an autistic support classroom, helping students navigate sensory circuits, behavior plans, and the complex language of IEPs. But every other minute of the day... I’m a mom to teenage boys on opposite ends of the spectrum, a wife to a Marine Corps veteran, and a daughter caring for an 86-year-old mother. I don’t have to tell any of you that it is a lot.
But whether I’m wearing my 'Teacher Hat' or my 'Mom Hat,' one thing is certain: our life is rarely what we planned, but it is always better with a healthy dollop of perspective.
It is so nice to meet you, pull up a chair. If you've got a cup of coffee which you've probably had to microwave three times already today - grab it, sit down, and let's just chat. Because we are in this together, and you don't have to navigate the messy parts alone. Welcome to Life with a Dollop of Autism.
☕️ It is very early
and I am on my next cup of coffee already. I am looking at the calendar and see that It’s late June, nearly July. The school year is over, the summer routine—or lack of it—is setting in, and today we AREN’T talking about the classroom. Today, we are talking about a mission. A mission involving my son Benny, a pair of boots, an army of preparation, for a major medical blood draw that required absolute, unforgiving military precision. Let’s get into it.
💉 The Story: The Blood Draw Operation
If you have a neurotypical child, a trip to the lab for a blood draw is an inconvenience. You drive over, you wait in a sterile room, they pinch a needle, you give them a sticker, and you go get ice cream.
If you are raising a child with autism who has intense medical needs and severe sensory processing challenges, a major blood draw isn't an errand, something to check off your to-do list, or a minor inconvenience on an otherwise normal day. It’s a tactical deployment that requires days of preparation and exacting tactical skill in the execution.
Recently, Benny needed a significant panel of bloodwork done. Benny is 17 and he has Pica, which is basically a condition where the brain's cravings misfire. Instead of wanting snacks, they get an overwhelming urge to eat things that are definitely not food, like dirt, paper, or chalk. In Benny’s case, he eats things like string and plastic. This has been a lifelong battle for Benny, and we have reached the point where his gut is so messed up that other things may be happening that we can’t see. Benny is non-verbal and profoundly autistic. When he is in pain, like with severe and chronic constipation from eating dog toys or duct tape, it takes what could be simple medical issues to a level of emergency on a dime. That is where we are now. We have to dig deeper and find out what’s happening inside his gut, because Benny’s brain and his voice are inaccessible to us.
For a kid who experiences the world with heightened sensory vulnerability, a medical lab is a nightmare landscape: fluorescent lights, unpredictable sounds, the smell of antiseptic, and the absolute terrors of physical restraint and needles. We knew that if we didn't plan this down to the second, the trauma of the experience could set us back months.
So I sat down with my husband Joe—drawing on his Marine Corps background—we mapped out the operation. We needed brains, we needed boots, and we needed blood. And let me tell you, the logistics started hours before we ever hit the ignition button in the car.
First, the Brains. The mental preparation started days in advance. We used a strict visual schedule, walking through the sequence of events over and over. But the brain prep also meant managing Benny’s baseline anxiety chemically. We had one pill and one shot to get it right.
Because the lab opened at 7:00 AM, and we live half an hour away, our tactical timeline started at the crack of dawn. It is 6:00 AM - early. We give Benny the medication, and after a little while, the pill starts to kick in. He is sitting there starting to look a tiny bit loopy, just drifting into that calm, medicated zone.
My other son, Leo, is 15. He walks into the room, stops, and looks at his brother. Leo looks at me and asks, 'What is wrong with Benny?'
I explained, 'Well, he took his medicine for the lab, and it makes you feel really calm, but it might make you feel a little weird at first.'
Without missing a beat, Leo walks right up to his brother, looks him dead in the eyes, and with the most absolute, classic, deadpan delivery, says: 'Benny. Just say no to drugs.'
Then he just turns around and walks away without another glance.
You have to find the funny in these moments, because if you don't laugh, you will cry. Leo’s little anti-drug PSA was exactly what we needed to cut the morning tension before we transitioned into the physical prep — which involved minimizing the actual sensory pain of the needle. 15 minutes after the pill, it's 6:15 am and I have not had enough coffee for this - I applied a thick layer of the numbing cream people use to get tattoos. I put it in the bends of his elbows and on the backs of his hands, because who knew where they would be able to find a vein. I had to wrap it in Press and Seal plastic wrap so it would stay and do its thing, But if you know autistic kids, you know that gooey, cold cream sitting on their skin is its own sensory trigger. He’d want to wipe it off, scratch it, or hyper-focus on it. So, enter the tubular bandages. We slid those elastic tube sleeves right up his arms to lock the cream in place, creating a literal barrier so he couldn't see it, touch it, or mess with it. It became a sensory sleeve, a piece of armor.
Next, the Boots. Grounding is everything. When Benny is anxious, his body needs maximum proprioceptive input to feel safe in space. We laced up his heavy, structured boots snug—giving his feet that deep pressure sensation that says you are anchored, you are here. We packed his sensory toolkit like a tactical rucksack: noise-canceling headphones, high-intensity fidgets, and his preferred heavy blanket.
Then came the execution. We timed the drive to arrive exactly four minutes before the doors opened to minimize waiting room anxiety. Joe took point on physical grounding, anchoring Benny with deep-pressure holds that provided safety, not restraint. I explained the situation to the receptionist down to the last detail. I asked for the most experienced, calm, and brave phlebotomist they could find. Because Benny is a warrior with superhuman strength when he is dysregulated. I knew this could potentially turn into hand-to-hand combat, and I made sure we were all prepared for the worst. Then I took point on the cognitive distraction, tracking the visual schedule in real-time and making sure that Benny knew we were calm, focused, and all about him.
When the needle went in, he couldn't even feel the physical pinch thanks to the cream, and his mind was anchored. It wasn't a meltdown. It was a masterclass in co-regulation. Benny’s boots were planted hard on the floor, Joe was his rock, and my voice was his steady track. The lab techs were incredible, working swiftly because we had pre-briefed them on exactly what we needed.
We got the blood—7 tubes. We walked out. And as we got back to the car, Benny looked down at his boots, looked at us, and took a deep, regulated breath. We didn't just survive it; we conquered it because we respected his brain enough to build a scaffolding of absolute predictability around it. We won the day!
📝 It’s time for the IEP Translator, where we take the heavy academic jargon of special education and translate it into real-world, kitchen-table terms.
Today’s phrase is: Task Analysis and Antecedent Strategy. In an IEP meeting, a team might say, 'We recommend utilizing a task analysis paired with antecedent strategies to mitigate transitions.' It sounds like they are planning a space launch.
Here is what that actually means for you at home this summer:
Task Analysis just means breaking a big, terrifying task into tiny, bite-sized, sequential steps. For Benny’s blood draw, the task wasn't 'going to the doctor.' The task was broken down into six micro-steps: putting on the boots, sitting in his preferred space in the car, holding the heavy blanket, counting to ten during the pinch, and so on.
An Antecedent Strategy is simply changing the environment before the behavior happens to help your child succeed. For us, that meant tight boots for deep pressure, a weighted blanket, and arriving exactly before the appointment to skip the waiting room trigger.
You don’t need a Master’s degree to use these. This summer, if you are trying to take your child to a crowded 4th of July parade, a busy grocery store, or even just transitioning from screen time to dinnertime, use a Task Analysis. Break the afternoon into three clear steps, and use Antecedent Strategies—like packing the noise-canceling headphones ahead of time. Control what you can control before the chaos begins."
🏆 Every episode, we close out with a Kitchen Table Win. Because in our world, we don't wait for the giant milestones to celebrate. We celebrate the micro-victories right at the kitchen table.
This week’s win belongs to our entire family unit. We missed the official end-of-the-school-year celebrations, and our planned summer vacation got completely derailed by medical schedules and real-life. It would have been so easy to look at the calendar turning to July and feel like we were failing or falling behind.
But our Kitchen Table Win was sitting down together after that lab appointment, watching Benny eat his lunch in absolute peace, completely regulated. The win wasn't a beach vacation; the win was the quiet victory of execution, safety, and trust.
If your summer plans have already gone off the rails, if you're looking at July feeling overwhelmed because the routine is gone—look for your micro-win today. Did your child try one new food? Did they transition away from a tablet without a meltdown? Did you take five deep breaths in the hallway when things got loud? That counts. Write it down, put it on a sticky note, and own it.
Thank you for joining me for Episode 1 of Life with a Dollop of Autism. If this episode spoke to you, share it with a parent who is currently drafting their own tactical plan for the week. Until next time, keep your boots grounded and your perspective high. I'm Abby, and I'll talk to you soon.
