Jan Turbes

Hello friends,

We found out last week that our dear friend Jan Turbes was diagnosed with breast cancer and is beginning her fight with that dreadful disease.

Most of you don't know the story of us and our destiny meeting Jan for the first time in either late 1996 or early 1997.  When Kian and Niall were born in 1990 we didn't really start to notice that they were really different until they were around 2 and even more so by the time they were 3 while were living in Newport News, VA.  As time progressed and the the twins started pre-school we started to get alarming messages from their teachers that essentially telegraphed that they were ADHD but the Developmental Pediatrician I was working with that time read the reports and looked the twins over and disagreed with them but had no answers in 1994.  In 1995, Kian and Niall's kindergarten teacher asked Cassie if she'd taken illegal drugs while she was pregnant..........*

But then in 1996, Cassie took a job with Gateway Computers in North Sioux City, South Dakota, and we ended up living in Sioux City, Iowa, which bordered North Sioux City, and the twins were enrolled at Hunt Elementary School which is a small neighborhood school in our neighborhood.  Within a week of arriving there the Principal, Cathy Tillow, took me aside in the hallway and said, Sid, I think your sons are Autistic, can I call the Autism Team in to observe them?".  I was stunned but told her yes please do that.  Later on that school year Jan Turbes introduced us to our sons or at least who they really were which was a revelation to our family.  After that happened with the reading materials Jan and her team gave us about Asperger's Syndrome, I self-diagnosed myself as I'm very much like the twins especially Niall, and pretty much diagnosed my father (he never believed it) too who has since passed on.  So my wife Cassie was stuck with 3 of us all at once.

Through Jan's constant interaction with the school, teachers, Kian and Niall's classmates the twins went from basically treading water in school to being Honor Students for the first time at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Sioux City.  Although we helped in any way we could it was Jan who orchestrated everything and all of this after we were told by the twins' instructors in Virginia that "we can't do anything with them....".

We moved back to Virginia in 2001 after Cassie took a new job with then Framatome that's now Areva and due to Jan and her teams' hard work on Kian and Niall's IEPs they were able to continue as Honor Students all the way through Middle and High School and learned in doing this that they could succeed which in anybody's book is PRICELESS.

Needless to say that meeting Jan Turbes was a watershed event for our entire family that changed literally everything for us in amazing ways that still manifest themselves in the little things that we usually take for granted but that folks with Asperger's Syndrome have problems with.

Every one of us and for that matter everyone else where she lives or who come into contact with her is the better for it and to us Jan Turbes is one of the rare individuals who always leaves the planet in better shape than it was before she showed up.

Jan and her family will be a part of our family forever.  To say that we all love her is an understatement and we'll do whatever is necessary to help her fight this battle she's in now.  There are already plans afoot to bring Jan to Paris this summer and there will be more information about that as everything evolves.  If you pray please keep Jan in your prayers and if you play music, send some out into the universe for our dear friend.

WE LOVE YOU JAN AND WE'VE GOT YOUR 6 ON THIS.

Love to all everywhere.............*

sid