Lisa Arbeau Interview – Transcription
Total recording length: 00:31:45
Valerie Arbeau:
Hey, I'm so glad that you're here. Lisa Arbeau is my guest today and she will be sharing with us her journey as a mom of an autistic son who overcame his fear of the water. Hello and welcome to Special Needs Mom's Circle of Strength. I am so glad that you stopped by today and it's always a joy to have you listen in and join our circle. I can't wait for you to meet my very, very special guest today. Lisa Arbeau is the proud mother to a son with autism and a daughter with ADHD. She is passionate about helping them reach their full potential as they live their best lives. Lisa lives with her children, her husband, and their retired service dog Earl on the East Coast of Canada. Lisa is a dental hygienist extraordinaire who is loved by her patients for the gentle way that she does her work. And Lisa is also an accomplished pianist, winning many, many awards when she was in her younger years. So welcome Lisa. So glad to have you here.
Lisa Arbeau:
Aw, thank you so much and I'm thrilled to be here.
Valerie Arbeau:
You are very, very welcome and I just need to let our audience know that Lisa and I have been sisters through marriage for almost 27 years. Her husband Kelly, which is the next brother up from my husband, will be celebrating their 27th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks.
Lisa Arbeau:
Exciting times.
Valerie Arbeau:
Right, I think we deserve badges for being married to these men for as long as we have. I've got 32 years coming up in June.
Lisa Arbeau:
Hats off to us.
Valerie Arbeau:
Absolutely. But I do have to say that we are very blessed as all husbands, I'm sure, give their wives some grief somewhere along the line. But no, seriously though, we have been blessed. We have been very blessed.
Lisa Arbeau:
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.
Valerie Arbeau:
All right. So Lisa, I usually ask all my guests this question. What is 1 unique thing about you that you'd like to share with our audience?
Lisa Arbeau:
Well, I feel that the most unique thing about myself is that I'm a mom of two miracles. Landon, who is 18, with autism, also a Special Olympian hopeful and yes, and our daughter Alayna, who's 15 with ADHD and accomplished marksmanship Cadet Air Cadet, Flight Corporal. Yeah, and immensely proud of both.
Valerie Arbeau:
Awesome. I love that, Lisa. Thank you. Yes, my niece and nephew. So you can make the connection. All right. So, Lisa, tell us a little bit about your special needs mom journey.
Lisa Arbeau:
The journey began 8 years after my husband, and I were married. We felt we should wait that long just to get, you know, more established financially. After that many years had passed, we were thrilled to embrace parenthood and it started out, you know, quite exciting and uneventful at first until I went for a routine blood test, the one that is given to rule out if there are any birth defects. It came back that I tested positive for Trisomy 18, which is a very, very severe chromosome disorder, and a lot of those that are diagnosed don't even make it to term. Hearing that of course, it was devastating. Our doctor said if we wanted to know with certainty, we should undergo the amniocentesis. And so we did because we wanted to know what we were up against. In the meantime, our family physician said, you know, if it's true that your child does have trisomy 18, you could always try again, almost insinuating or hinting that we should have an abortion and we were dead set against that. We said no way, like no matter what the diagnosis, we're going to have this child. Thankfully, but the test after the amniocentesis was done, the test came back that it was a false positive, which we were beyond thrilled and just so relieved and so thankful that you know, we didn't act upon, you know, the doctor's suggestion, otherwise we wouldn't have our beautiful miracle Landon today. The pregnancy continued and I was healthy and went to full term. When it came time for labor it started out what we thought was typical but then part way through the doctor stated that our son was posterior, and they tried to turn him and unfortunately it was very difficult. The oxygen levels were dropping, so they said either emergency C-section or forceps. And of course I was dead set against forceps touching his delicate head, you know. So we opted for the emergency C-section. That was at first quite traumatic and, but we came through OK. However, afterward our son Landon had a very difficult time latching, which was disappointing because I did want to nurse him, but it just was not happening. And when we got him home, he seemed, you know, very emotionless. He wasn't your typical baby. Like a lot of babies, you know, they're vocal about getting their needs met. But not Landon. Like, he was almost too good to be true. In fact, I'd have to go check on him quite often just to see if he was OK and made it through the night because he wouldn't cry in the night to be fed. Time kept going on and we noticed that he wasn't really giving us much in the way of expression or even eye contact. He wouldn't follow your finger if you were to go horizontal, vertical. He just had a kind of a blank look. His milestones were quite delayed, like as far as when he rolled over, when he could sit up, when he could start walking, it was all far behind his peers. As the months went by, we kept, you know, our close watch on his development. It's so hard because you have no other childhood compared to just his peers, like some friends, children, you know, we started to watch some programs on children and their development and in particular autism. And the more we would watch these programs, our checklist started to grow as far as possible signs. That was so concerning to us. And we wondered, like, you know, could it have been a traumatic birth experience, or could it be genetics? Like we really didn't know time had passed and he was probably about the age of two when we really thought, OK, we need to seek some professional advice. So we went to a family doctor and expressed our concerns about the delays and especially in particular the speech. He was barely able to say even simple words like Dada and Mama, and he was too. Already the doctor said to us all he needs is a little brother or sister. I was quite shocked. I was quite taken back by that, and I said no, no, I think he needs more than a little brother or sister. I was insistent that we see someone, and he sent us to hearing and speech. When they tried to provide an assessment, they were unsuccessful. Like he was so, so uncooperative. He just couldn't sit still. He wouldn't answer any of their questions, not give them eye contact, and ran around the room. Like, I mean, just very disruptive. The next thing I know, they're handing us a pamphlet on autism. Even before they handed that to me, we weren't shocked because we had been watching programs and the checklist kept growing. But deep down, I mean, we didn't want to believe it like any parent, you know, we just wanted to kind of pretend that maybe he's just a little delayed, you know, because every child is so different. After that visit with hearing and speech, they referred us to see a psychiatrist, the autism team, and have him assessed further. At the age of three, he did receive the official diagnosis of autism. It was a sunny day. We were sitting in the parking lot of the hospital in shock. We could have been wrong. But at the same time, we kind of were preparing for it. And it was at that point that we knew we had two decisions to make, like we could just let it break us or we could accept and get help. And that's exactly what we did. We thought we would be proactive and get as much help, as much information about autism that we could too be of support to Landon. And so right then and there we jumped on board to get early intervention into our home, and they were fabulous. They came to the home every day for quite a few months, and they made quite a difference. And then the autism team told us that there was a program called EIBI in our province of Nova Scotia. It stands for Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention, and it was based on the ABA, you know, applied behavioral analysis type of therapy that was previously provided for those with autism.
But the EIBI was just a little more intensive and it included something called pivotal response treatment, which basically they used PECS like the picture exchange communication system, and it would provide positive behavioral support, breakdown tasks into smaller steps and give them rewards. And it was intended for those aged 4 and under. So they said because our province was so behind and so lacking in funds, basically anyone who was fortunate enough to get that therapy, it was kind of like a lottery for your family to qualify. And so that was heartbreaking. We thought, oh my goodness, to think that it was based on luck, you know, as to whether your child received this therapy. And so we just prayed about it. And fortunately our name was drawn. And yeah, we were, we were so, so incredibly blessed. We honestly felt like we won the lottery. Better than the lottery. And yes, and so because our name was drawn, we were entitled to six months of full-time therapy within our home. And it was composed of quite a few members like a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, and so forth and clinical psychologist. And then we came home. And it was amazing because timing wise, I was on maternity leave with our second child, second Miracle Alayna. So I was able to be present for the whole duration of that therapy. And yeah, it was amazing, and it was just so rewarding to see him go from not being able to say Mama or Dada, you know, to complete sentence structure. It was just incredible. And so we felt extremely, extremely blessed, and thankful that we had acted, you know, at his young age, because the cut off for that therapy was up till school age.
Valerie Arbeau:
So it sounds like, Lisa, that intensive intervention was extremely helpful. And I love the fact that you were able to be there because I do feel that when there's any type of intervention, parents need to be involved because they're going to be the ones that are carrying this on long after the therapists have all left to do other things and live their lives. So it's just been so beautiful to watch Landon develop and grow over the years because I'm his aunt, even though we weren't living in the same province much of the time. But just being able to be in touch with, you know, how he's progressing and what he's doing. And I just want to just jump for a minute too, you mentioned earlier, he's Special Olympics. So do you want to tell our audience what he's doing, cause it's kind of like, wow, here's a kid that's gone from being delayed, not speaking to now he's, you know, and a Special Olympian. So tell us about that.
Lisa Arbeau:
OK, well here comes the bragging mom moment.
Valerie Arbeau:
We've got to take every moment we get, girlfriend.
Lisa Arbeau:
Well, initially, believe it or not, Landon was terrified of water. And even to step foot into the shallow end of the pool, you know, would bring tears to his eyes. And so, of course, we, you know, felt for him. And we thought, you know, every child needs to learn the critical skill of learning how to swim. And so we thought, what are we going to do? And that's when we came across poster advertising, special Olympic swimming. And so we thought, oh, my goodness, I'm sure they're very, very experienced. We're dealing with those with anxiety around the water. And I'll give it a try. And so we did. And they had some amazing, amazing volunteers that were excellent competitive swimmers that gave up their time and a wonderful coach who herself has a son with special needs who went on to become a world class Olympian with swimming. And so with her heading the program and all these incredible volunteers, they helped Landon not just overcome his fear but excel at swimming. And it became his life passion. He lived for swimming, and there are so many studies that I've come across that say it's such therapy for them. Like when they're underwater, they're away from all the stimulation. It just takes them to another place. It takes all that stress away for that time. And not just that. I mean they're learning all kinds of social skills with their teammates, you know, and getting the physical activity to burn off all that excess energy. Because with autism, it's quite common for them to have incredible amounts of energy, kind of like almost ADHD like energy. And so he needed something to help burn that off. And so, yes, he went on to win goals at pretty much every meet. And then he went on to become the fastest special Olympic swimmer in all of Nova Scotia, and he made it to the Canada Games 2 summers ago in Ontario.
Valerie Arbeau:
Awesome. Way to go, Landon.
Lisa Arbeau:
And he was the only one from Nova Scotia to make it to the finals and all the swimming events. That really motivated him to continue to work towards future Canada games and then eventually the worlds. And because of his passion for swimming, he wanted to challenge himself even further by joining a competitive generic swim team. And so they wholeheartedly accepted him, which was wonderful. But I had my fears like, I wondered, OK, would he be able to keep up or would they outpace him, you know? And slowly but surely, he caught up. And not only did he catch up, but he also held his own. And he's coming out ahead with winning medals as well. So I am beyond proud of this boy.
Valerie Arbeau:
And I just love the fact, Lisa, that you've been able to connect him with something that he can excel at because all children need to have that experience of being good at something. And so it's just amazing that, you know, you've been able to connect him with swimming, even though there was such a fear. But God bless those volunteers that worked with him and helped him, as you say, overcome that fear, Not just overcome it, but excel at swimming. So amazing, Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that heartwarming story. Yeah, I'm a proud aunt. So Lisa, I just want you to tell me what personal achievement or a moment of growth that you can attribute to your experiences of raising a child with special needs.
Lisa Arbeau:
Well, I feel that having Landon in our lives has taught us so much about patience and empathy, kindness, gentleness, and understanding for others. And because I was able to tap into what Beijing tick or what things could cause him to become stressed, it helped me translate that into my profession of dental hygiene. Because we have a lot of clients with anxiety and stress and special needs. And so because of that, the gift of having landed in our lives, I was able to reach and still am able to reach so many special needs patients and help them to make what would be a traumatizing experience at the dentist a pleasant and bearable one. And so I find that once moms know I have a son on the spectrum, they automatically tell everyone. And soon everyone's coming to our dental clinic, and they ask for Lisa, because they know that I've walked the walk and I get it. And so if I hadn't had Landon, I would not have had that gift to reach these beautiful children that deserve the oral health care that all people deserve, you know?
Valerie Arbeau:
That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that, Lisa. Lisa, what's one of the biggest challenges that you faced as a parent of a child with special needs and how have you overcome that barrier or that challenge well?
Lisa Arbeau:
I have to say one of the biggest challenges was initially when he was diagnosed, I almost set out on a pathway to try to fix him. And I'll never forget a neurologist that we had on board with us. He gave this wonderful word of advice. He said, you know, there's going to be so many parents with special needs children that are desperate, desperate for answers, for solutions, for cures, but there's so many out there that will take advantage and they'll make a fortune off your misfortune. So don't go chasing after you know everything that you hear, all these promises, all these quick fixes. And so that saved me, that spared me from trying a lot of different so-called cures for autism and instead of changing my focus I'll tell you something that changed my focus even more like to get away from that whole I must fix him kind of mode of thinking was Temple Grandin. She is incredible. She is world renowned for her innovations in working with animals. Basically she was born with autism, for those that don't know and back in the day and age when most were institutionalized. But her mother refused. She went against the grain and raised her the best she could, and it turns out that Temple Grandin had a gift for empathy with animals. And because she could sense their fear. She went on to devise a most humane way for animals to be slaughtered so that they weren't fearful before they passed, because she had such a love for them and empathy. And so now, to this day, agricultural businesses from all over the world are using her, her methods and adapting them to help make it more humane for these animals. And so I had the privilege of getting to meet her in person. She came to Truro, NS, to the agricultural College to give a talk. And I got to meet her, get her book, and get my picture with her. And I'll never forget her words of advice. She said, you know, rather than trying to fix your son, she said focus on his gifts, because there are going to be so many gifts. And when you do that, his world and your world will change forever. And I took that piece of advice, and that's what I've done ever since.
Valerie Arbeau:
Yeah.
Lisa Arbeau:
And look low and behold, our Special Olympian hopeful.
Valerie Arbeau:
Who is touching many lives, many lives. Wow. Wow. Bringing tears to my eyes. Lisa, a special place in my heart. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. So Lisa, before we close, I have got a couple more questions for you. What's your go to self-care activity?
Lisa Arbeau:
My go to is walking in nature and we are so blessed to live close to beautiful trails that connect to lakes, various lakes. So from my doorstep to the lake is a total of 20 minutes. That is well doable. And so I have no excuse not to do that every day. And so that's my main goal is just to be in nature. Another go to is spending time with one of my soul sisters that lives here locally. She and I connect on so many levels and whenever we've had a rough time, we just get together over some cheesecake coffee, you name it, and we just vent, we share, we laugh, we cry, and it's like the best therapy ever. So yeah, I have well gone TOS up my sleeve. That works well.
Valerie Arbeau:
Awesome, awesome. And I love that you brought that out, Lisa, because we all go through moments of frustration. We all go through moments of overwhelm. And so that's one of the things that I like to encourage my coaching clients. You need to find something for an outlet. And I'm with you. Love nature, love water.
And so I'm fortunate that I live just a couple of doors down to a pathway that goes down to a couple of rivers and there's like 3 parks that are around these rivers. And so it's just been wonderful for me as for you just to get out in nature and just allow that stress. And I've always said, and another thing that I tell my clients and I've been saying this for the last few episodes, to get rid of the emotion, you got to get into motion, you have to move to shift that emotion. Because when I’m frustrated and angry and upset, that's what I do. I put on my running shoes, out the door, I go.
Lisa Arbeau:
Absolutely.
Valerie Arbeau:
Yes. So Lisa, where can our audience go to find out more about you?
Lisa Arbeau:
Well, I don't have a huge social media presence, but they can just look me up on Facebook, send me a private message, and I'd be more than happy to respond. Give any tips that I've learned along the way. Reach out at any time.
Valerie Arbeau:
Love that, thank you so much, and I will drop Lisa's links in the show notes, so check that out. So before we end, Lisa, let's have you say a few words of encouragement from you to our audience. Words that can inspire, words that can support. What do you have to share?
Lisa Arbeau:
Well, I know it's so cliche to hear that the phrase takes one day at a time, but there is so much truth in that sometimes we can be tempted to look too far into the future and wonder, OK, where is my child going to be at some point? Are they going to be independent? We worry so much about the future that we forget about the present time. We have enough on our plate at present. So I think just focusing on the day now is going to take a load off of one's heart and stress. Another thing too, is I think just to be so kind to yourself, give yourself race, you know, you might have to just let go of some of the high standards. And, you know, no, I know I'm always urging you to do that. I'm like, you know, who cares if not everything's dusted or everything's ironed, you know? And you, you say, yes, I'm trying, I'm trying. But I bet you if I were to walk into your home, I could still eat off your floors. Now that's not letting go. But if you walk into my house, you can see that I follow that advice.
Valerie Arbeau:
I am a work in progress. Oh my goodness.
Lisa Arbeau:
And finally, I know this has been touched on so much, but I can't say enough about the importance of self-care. If moms of typically developing children get overwhelmed, think of how much more we have on our plates.
And I know when I talk amongst all my girlfriends, the common denominator is that mom is in the middle of everything. Everyone expects so much from mom, mom for this, mom for that and being everything to everyone. But we just must realize that we can’t, and we can't continue to give from an empty glass. Well, my glass sometimes even has a leak in it. We can't do that anymore. And so I decided, yes, if something's having to suffer for me to get myself care, I'm going to do it. I'm going to leave that mess. I'm going to, it's going to be there waiting for me anyway. I'm going to go for that walk instead. Or it could be as simple as, you know, the rain's coming down. I'm going to sit in my car with tea and listen to that rain come down or you know, just get that massage that I've always needed. Or go to the spa with my girlfriend. I even cut back on my working hours for more self-care, and I know not everyone's able to do that. But sometimes if you add up what it will do for your mental health it is so worth the sacrifice. But I have a friend who also has a daughter with special needs, and she was working full time and was just on the point of burnout and I suggested it to her. I said even if you can't cut down to the part time hours, what if you took every other Tuesday off or every other Friday off? It's just something to look forward to, to get you through. And she did that and she says I don't even miss the money. It didn't make that big of a difference, but it's doing a world good for my mental health, so like that.
Valerie Arbeau:
Yeah, I can certainly relate to that. I remember years ago working full time, and one of my colleagues was working .8. So that's four days a week. And I remember her saying many years ago, the difference between working five days a week to four days a week was a matter of a couple of 100 bucks. Yeah. So for your mental health, as you say, when you weigh that up, give me four days a week. Thank you very much. And for those that drink coffee, you can have a few less coffees, you can have a few less doughnuts, whatever it takes. Anyway, Lisa, I just want to say thank you so much. It's been a joy to be able to chat with you and to hear you’re the inner parts of your story. And I was learning some things too as you were chatting. So thank you so much for sharing. And I too am so proud of my nephew and my niece. So thank you so much for doing an awesome job raising them. They are beautiful people. You've done amazing, you and Kelly.
Lisa Arbeau:
Oh, thank you so kindly. And I could say the same of you and your beautiful girls. Proud of you.
Valerie Arbeau:
Thank you! So, audience. Remember, live with intention, Embrace the journey. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Special Needs, Mom's Circle of Strength. We hope today's story has touched your heart, opened your mind, and reminded you that even in the face of challenges, there is always light to be found. By opting to follow this podcast, you remain connected to the power of strength and unity, the potential of love to overcome challenges, and the beauty of a community that understands. If you as a special needs mom are looking for connection with other moms and an opportunity to gain some and to share your insight, then check the show notes for the link to join the Special Needs Moms Circle of Strength Facebook community. Love to see you there. And if you're enjoying this podcast, there are two things you can do. One, share with others, and two, leave a rating and a review until we meet again. Continue to draw from the circle of strength that surrounds you. Find courage in the stories we share and know that you are never alone on this journey.
