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Archive for the ‘placement’ Category

the necessary path

Posted in Anderson School, autism, behavior, doctor, placement, The Anderson School for Autism, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 14, 2011| 4 Comments »

“I been talkin’ to Jesus, but he’s not talkin’ to me…”  ~Guster

Wednesday morning I met Andy and Jonah at the Retina Care Center at 7:30am for Jonah’s eye exam.  The last couple times Andy tried to drive him, they never even made it to the building because Jonah was violent, so we hadn’t been there for a while.  And even though we always ask for the first appointment of the day and it is the crack of dawn, there are always about 9 other patients waiting; I don’t think Jonah’s ever been the first patient actually seen by the doctor.

The staff knows Jonah falls apart quickly – they’ve certainly seen it many times before.  And when I say “falls apart,” I mean falls the fuck apart, aggressing so that Andy has to get him out – biting, scratching, kicking and thrashing – and screaming so piercingly, frighteningly loud you could sell the sound as a special-effects scream for a horror movie.

But Jonah did well this time.  He only needed to be re-directed about 40 times during the course of our 15-20 minute wait.  He begged repeatedly for “ride brown car-ah,” dumped the container of glaucoma brochures, nestled his little face against his daddy’s, asking for hug?, yelling MEOW, walking over toward the exam room and back to mama, announcing boobie!, flopping and flailing on the carpet at least twice.  All this on medication to calm him.

(My friend K just e-mailed to tell me it looks like Thing from The Addams Family is crawling on Jonah’s head, and I laughed my head off.  It totally does.  Creepy!)

It’s funny how you go from being embarrassed by your child’s behavior to not really giving a damn if people think you’re bad parents or your kid is an unruly retard.  It took me a good while to get to the place where you don’t give a damn.  It feels better here.

When they finally gave Jonah his eye exam, though, I was impressed at his cooperation to deal with the dilating drops, more waiting in another waiting room, sitting in a strange chair in a small exam room in the near-dark, holding the black plastic thingee over one eye, reciting his letters.  (How do they get this information from non-verbal patients?)  He tolerated the different slides of  smaller and smaller letters – with both eyes, even.  The doc told me later that his eyes were about 20/25.  After she examined his eyes in another exam room (with fancier equipment he also tolerated admirably), Andy and Jonah went bye bye doctor and I stayed behind to talk with her.

She’s kind, sharp and smart; she was the one who operated on Jonah’s left eye.  I trust her.  I made an appointment for October and left, holding the card in my hand, thinking the next time we bring him, it will be after picking him up where he’ll be living, an hour and a half away, at the Anderson School for Autism.  Halfway down the hallway stairs I stopped walking and turned the card over and over in my hand.  “…where he’ll be living, at the Anderson School for Autism…”

I revisited the thought from a place of detachment, kind of the way you do when you first hear about the death of someone close. There isn’t a right way to react to all that has happened during this past year.  I’ve gone into a mode where I’ve ceased to be surprised by anything at all, where every part of me knows that anything can happen, at any time, to anyone.  Everything comes at us so quickly now, and there is a sense of unshakable urgency.

Yesterday after work Andy and I took Jonah for a car ride, and on the way home there was a beautiful rainbow.  (Whenever I see a rainbow, I stop whatever it is I’m doing to take a picture – even if it means running out into the parking lot at work and getting all wet to do it).   I pulled the car over and took as many pictures as I could before I started to feel like that double-rainbow dude on Tosh.O.


I need to continue to notice things, be grateful for things, believe things.
There is no other way right now.  This is my necessary path.

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god’s nod & anderson’s answer

Posted in Anderson School, autism, behavior, doctor, placement, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 26, 2011| 3 Comments »

I was happy to hear on Saturday morning that Governor Cuomo signed the same-sex marriage bill into law.   2011 is ashamedly late for this to be happening, but at least it finally is here.  Equality and inclusion.  As one comedian said, “Gay people should have the right to be miserable, too.”

So in the afternoon, D came to help me watch Jonah for a while, and we rode him around,  meandering all over God’s creation – past ominous black cloud masses, through driving rain as amazing & short-lived as the taste of Fruit Stripe gum,  finally stopping at one of the Albany Airport’s car turn-offs where you can watch the planes take off and land.  There we saw a huge rainbow in the sky –  D took this pic with her phone and e-mailed it to me; of course it looked so much prettier and vibrant in person…

A rainbow the very first day of same-sex marriage equality in New York State!  God’s nod, I said.  D liked that and posted it on facebook.

Of course we stayed just a little too long for Jonah’s liking and so he started unbuckling all of his harness fasteners, the sound a now-familiar harbinger to his freak outs – this one ending with D and Jonah on the grass outside the car.  Safe hands and body was our mantra, D handling Jonah in the calm, seemingly unfazed manner only one with the expertise of working with these kids can pull off…me standing back, arms folded nervously, not sure what to do – a disempowered, frightened mom.   I got it together quickly enough and was grateful it was D who was with me.  She doesn’t call me on my mental state or make me feel bad about its weakness.   She’s supportive and silent, and so we all just move on down the road.  Sometimes she is my sister and sometimes she is my savior.

I should be used to Jonah’s attacking, but whether it is M or Andy or D in the car with me, when Jonah flips out I go unwillingly to a place inside my head that feels like a little girl place – scared out of my mind, horrified at my child intending to do me and others harm.  I go right into verge-of-tears helpless-mom mode.

Meanwhile Andy walks around with wrists (on both sides) slashed with scratches, making him look like he’d recently, half-halfheartedly, continually attempted suicide with a weak grasp on a plastic knife.

Then:

Daddy?  Huck?  Jonah will say, meekly and sweet, followed once with both skinny little arms wrapping around Andy’s neck, gently and loving -& minutes later those same skinny little arms shooting out to grab/bend/throw daddy’s glasses with one hand and scratch blindly with the other.  That kind of pendulum-swing can mess with a person’s head after a while.  If I feel like I’ve lost it, what must Andy feel?

Then, at times Jonah is pensive, listening, almost Buddha-like in his own little zen way.

When D and I were driving Jonah home after leaving the airport, once in a while he’d sing little snatches of Cake, or Guster, or Paul Simon songs, in tune and perfect rhythm — and D and I would look at each other and say awwww.  He is first a child-demon and next an engaging angel.

By Monday or Tuesday we should know Anderson’s answer. Andy and I are leaving at 6am Tuesday morning to take Jonah to Children’s Hospital in Boston, where he’ll see a pediatric rheumatologist.  I don’t know how in hell we’re going to make it to Boston and back safely, let alone out of the car and into the hospital itself.

As Brett on Match Game would say: Good gravy.   As I would say: shit.

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death is for everyone

Posted in Anderson School, autism, placement, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 22, 2011| 5 Comments »

Jonah calls my father “Pa.”  My dad called his grandfather pa, so it’s a tradition passed on.

For Father’s Day, my dad and I went to 9am Mass at the church I used to work for, then out to breakfast and to place silk flowers on his dad’s, his grandfather’s, my grandfather’s, and some other family member’s graves.  My dad wants to tell me their stories, share the history of the Wink family.  I’d like to compile it all into a book with pictures and anecdotes and all the tales he’d love to tell – if only to have it all in writing, to pass down to the younger generations.

I know it freaks him out to see his name and birth date next to his mother’s, but he said he didn’t want her to be alone, and his dad is buried in a different place:

I put small red flowers on my other grandfather’s grave, because they reminded me of how I always called him “poppy:”

I’m not a big ‘cemetery frequenter’ but they are good for reminding me to remember, to keep people alive in my memory.

The next day my dad e-mailed me to tell me what a good Father’s Day he’d had, and how much it meant to him.  It meant a lot to me, too – but my day wasn’t over yet.  M did not get to have his children with him for Father’s Day, so he helped me watch Jonah to give Andy a few hours’ break.  We mostly drove him around.  He was pretty good for us, we saw a train or two, let him direct our path – and request different music:  clapping song?  he asks, meaning Cake’s album, Comfort Eagle, 

  • although he’ll listen to the whole CD, what he really means by clapping song is song #2, a song called Meanwhile Rick James which, without printing up the lyrics, appears to be a song about chicks doing lines of coke in the bathroom at a party while Rick James “takes her nude, and there’s nothing I can do.”   It’s not Sesame Street we’re jamming out to, but all Jonah knows is it has lots of these clapping sounds throughout, and he loves that.

Then we go to see red barn in Guilderland, go up up up to Berne, all around Thatcher Park and Warner Lake, and finally go home, back to daddy and take bath.

It has been another difficult few days since then, mentally, for me.  The fact that in less than a week I will know if and when he will be accepted into the Anderson Center for Autism, the fact that if they can take him it will likely be very soon, and the question marks of how the direct care staff, at any facility, will treat him.  I fully intend to somehow augment their undoubtedly meager salaries, because they do the really hard stuff – they get kicked, beat, hit, scratched, puked on.  They clean shit off the walls.  There isn’t much of a break from it.  I am so grateful for dedicated people who work in this capacity with these disabled individuals.  If I were rich I would donate a few million dollars and demand that it be allocated to staff salaries.

I lost it so ridiculously this morning about the impending surrender of our son, and a whole lot more I don’t want to write about – intense anger directed at me by more than one person, a surreal feeling of floating above this whole situation, the terror of the very real possibility of my inability to come out the other side…that it was very hard to “keep it together” at work.

I bounce back every time, though.  Seeing the graves reminded me to embrace the good, even if I have to draw it from my past for a while – my sweet, cuddle-boo…

…for soon enough it will all be gone — for all of us — all the fear, the worry, the joy and pain, all of it gone.

Unlike Trix, death is for everyone!

– – –

“Live in the now!’  ~Garth, Wayne’s World

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no fun day for you!

Posted in Anderson School, autism, behavior, placement, tagged , , on June 14, 2011| 3 Comments »

Today’s the day the Anderson Center for Autism is coming to Wildwood to evaluate and observe Jonah.  In a few days or so we should know (a) whether they’ll take him and (b) when they’ll take him.  Then, maybe, we’ll have three residential schools from which to choose. 

Today is also “fun day” at Wildwood, but Andy has to pick him up as soon as the Anderson people leave because Jonah’s not allowed to participate in the fun day activites; he’s too violent.

While I understand their decision, it upsets me that my little boo can’t enjoy whatever the other kids get to participate in…plus it makes Andy’s unpredictable day with Jonah that much longer.  The irony is that Jonah had a very good day yesterday at school, with barely an aggression to speak of.

No fun day for you!

The blessing is that Jonah likely won’t care.  A car ride, a bath, grandma, and some peanut butter roll will, perhaps, suit him just fine.  I hope.

But it makes me sad all the same.

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our days in the whale

Posted in autism, behavior, doctor, placement, Springbrook, The Center for Discovery, Tradewinds, Uncategorized, Wildwood, tagged , , , on June 4, 2011| 3 Comments »

This is the part of the story where Jonah falls overboard and is swallowed by the whale.

There isn’t much to say except that it has gotten worse, and worse again, and worse some more – today sucked blah blah blah and I’m so sad blah blah blah.  I don’t know how anyone can stand to read this blog anymore at all.

Jonah’s almost guaranteed to attempt to seriously hurt his father, me, anyone around him – not once, but several times a day, wreaking a path of destruction behind him – lampshades crumbled, Andy’s now duct-taped fan knocked over, eyeglasses scratched, coffeemaker smashed & broken, dinner swept off the table to spray-bomb the kitchen in one swipe:

`

On the pictured occasion Andy had called me for help.  “I can’t leave him for two seconds,” he told me.

So I came over and cleaned the kitchen (after taking this picture).  I picked up the obviously just-delivered rice, chicken, sauces, and dumplings, wet-swiffered the floor, and vacuumed the landing rug/steps… my heart pounding, my mind processing the scene, adding all these details to the new normal, a new ramped-up constancy of Jonah’s violent aggressing.

After I had cleaned, we sat together on Jonah’s floor for a few minutes while Jonah sat on his bed, having been banished there after the kitchen scene.  I asked Andy if he wanted me to go get him more food.  “No,” he replied flatly. “I ate.”  (which I knew was likely a lie).

“They’ll help him at whatever place he goes to,” I told Andy quietly.  “He’s going to get better.”

“You think so?” he asked wearily.  “I think he’s just broken,” he mumbled, lowering his head into his scratched-up hands, running his scratched-up hands through his rumpled hair.  Andy sits with his head in his hands a lot.   I’m usually in tears.

During some car rides the three of us have taken since then, Jonah’s managed to escape his harness in seconds, throwing himself up into the front seat to grab a handful of hair, scratching, hitting, and kicking whatever body part of ours he can reach.  Luckily we are usually already pulled over waiting for train, or I have been able to pull over quickly so Andy (or M, when he and I are the ones driving him) can climb in the back and hold down a fiercely struggling Jonah who is head-butting hard, kicking hard, hitting hard.  Scratching to wound, to make you bleed.  No holds barred.  No empathy.

It is more frightening than anything I’ve ever encountered because I have no idea how to fix it, how to help him, how to pull us all up and out of this.  No wonder I watch Match Game and bead necklaces when I am not watching Jonah.  I need mindless 70s television, ritualistic bead-stringing, care-package construction, and Guster-blasting.  Andy is writing, which is good.  At least there is a fantastical creative outlet for him too, though I’m sure he squeezes it in in two-minute intervals if Jonah is home.

At school there are days when Jonah aggresses and then, as encore, smears his poop on the safe room wall – and he often aggresses 9-10 a day (each of which consists of an episode of a dozen or so of clustered individual attacks, they tell us).

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating that we are really, really grateful for Wildwood, whose teachers, social workers, and other staff have continued without fail to support our family and somehow manage Jonah day after day, week after month.  I am grateful for Andy, who is somehow handling this thing.  The title of my blog may be normal is a dryer setting, but our dryer’s in serious fucking disrepair. 

We want Jonah to get the help he needs, and as soon as possible.  Later this month we’re taking him to Child’s Hospital in Boston (somehow), and we’re going to once again ask his psychiatrist for a new med to try.  The psychiatrist is retiring this month, so maybe we’ll get a new one who’s fresh out of school and fired up to help us.  If not, I’m going doctor-shopping.

I’m refocusing my thoughts and actions in an unusual but positive way, because it’s all I can do to keep it together.  But most of time I’m tired and bitchy.  I haven’t felt much like writing, or talking to anyone, or going anywhere, or doing anything at all.

I guess these are our days inside the whale.

“Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy table.”
~ Jonah 2:4

That sounds to me like I know I’m completely in the dark, but I’m going to hope anyway.

“Love and blessings
Simple kindness
Fell like rain on thirsty land
Fields and gardens
Long abandoned
Came to life in dust and sand”

~Paul Simon, Love & Blessings from So Beautiful or So What

Okay, then.   Hope anyway.

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empty red wagon

Posted in autism, behavior, grandma, placement, swimming, trains, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 30, 2011| 2 Comments »

This all starts Thursday night and I suppose could make up a very long entry.  I don’t know what’s going to happen yet in the writing of it, but the living of it has stretched out miles in every direction.

This is Jack, M’s 90lb. 2 year-old dog (American Bulldog + maybe some mutt) named after Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood dog:

Jack loves to pose, statue straight, like in this picture.  He’s a sweetheart of a dog, curious and full of life, trying to jump up for a chance to lick you.  But he’s also all-muscle strong, and when I took him for a walk Thursday evening and he saw a squirrel, he launched himself forward full-speed; I held tight to his leash and was dragged up and off my feet like a fish on a line, landing with a hard smash on the side of my head, complete with skinned, bloody knees and a stunned shock that left me just lying there.  Jack came running back to lick my face, and I managed to get us both inside so I could lay down to rest.

As the night went on, I just tossed around in bed, my head hurting more and more.  I got up twice to throw up.  By morning there was no question of trying to get to work and by 10am I couldn’t take the pain and puking anymore.  M came and brought me to the ER where I was given an IV-cocktail of anti-nausea meds,  morphine, and whatever they mean when they say “liquids.”   The morphine was magic, whisking the pain away like a cool liquid eraser.  A few hours later they released me with bandaged knees, a negative CAT scan, a prescription for Loritab, a bill for $100, and instructions telling me I had a concussion and should rest for the next couple days.  I didn’t need convincing.  Woozy and weak, I gladly climbed back into bed.

But I knew this would be a long and difficult weekend for Andy, what with Jonah once again aggressing so much that it’s an abnormality when he’s not hitting the window in the car, Houdini-ing himself out of whatever harness he’s in, knocking over the lamp, the fan, the end table, toys, a glass – whatever is in his path – and running at you to kick, bite, scratch, and swat.

His preferred method of getting me is by reaching out lightning-fast (usually when I am putting him in his car seat) to grab my face in one hand, his fingers splayed like a starfish, each nail digging into my skin and scratching hard unless/until I can get away.  Let’s just say my reflexes are growing faster.

I felt well enough by mid-Sunday afternoon to watch Jonah some.  About an hour before I’d arranged to pick him up, Andy called me.  “Can you help me?” he asked, Jonah wailing and screaming in the background.

“Just go get his wagon from the park,”  he told me when I asked what I could do.  So I drove to the house, parked in the driveway, and walked up the street until I got to the little park behind the school.  And there, on the grass next to a green fire hydrant, was the little red metal wagon my mom had gotten him for his first birthday.  I stood for a moment and just stared at it, picturing Jonah flipping out, imagining how Andy managed to get him home, and wondering how many neighbors are witnessing exactly what kind of freakish folk we are.

If I’d had my camera on me I would’ve taken a picture of the empty red wagon.  It felt strange to take its black handle in my hand and drag it back onto the pavement, along to the corner, and down the hill of the street to the driveway with no passenger, a racket of rattling and banging announcing further craziness abounds! – a metaphor for everything I am, and do, and feel lately.

How were the visits yesterday and today with Jonah, M, and me?  I think if you read my blog much, you know.  It was difficult.  Our options are limited.  But we did go to grandma’s twice and he did have some good times too, like here on the slip-and-slide she’d laid out on the lawn…

…but even when happy he asks to go on to the next thing – car ride?  swim pool?  daddy?  train? swim pool?   I’d give a lot to have a pool, our own pool, where we wouldn’t be yelled at if he jumped or ran, where there were no other little kids for him to hurt, where he could swim his little heart out.  But there is no such magic pool.  My friend H even invited us to her pool, but she has a 3-year old so that wouldn’t work.  And we’ve been told that, because of his behaviors, he can’t attend the normal summer camp program; for the first time he has to stay back at school with other kids who, for one reason or another, can’t go to camp.  And guess what they have up at the beautiful Altamont camp?  A big huge pool.  SIGH.

M and I try to devise different things to do with Jonah – an empty park to take him to, a new car ride route, a walk in the woods, the SUNY fountains maybe?  We don’t know.  After 3 and a half hours or so, I am gladly bringing him home to daddy.

Once again I pause to wonder at Andy’s mental and physical fortitude; his courage, determination, and patience.

He is stronger than I – always has been – and I am grateful he is the one caring for our precious, out-of-control, enigmatic puzzle of a son.  Please God get us placement for him somewhere soon – even as it rips at me – I feel like we’re losing him and they can bring him back.  I’m counting on it.

I’ll be not-unhappy to go back to work tomorrow, skinned knees and all.

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something fishy

Posted in Anderson School, autism, behavior, doctor, placement, Springbrook, The Center for Discovery, Tradewinds, Uncategorized, Wildwood, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2011| 6 Comments »

About 3 or 4 weeks ago I decided to order some Fish Oil chewables for Jonah (100mg a day).  I’d read some articles like this one saying most people don’t eat enough omega-3 fatty oils anyway, and there may be some basis to the theory that the Fish Oil supplements may alleviate symptoms of autism: (from http://autism.healingthresholds.com/)

Some scientists have proposed that autism, dyslexia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyspraxia are a related group of neurodevelopmental disorders that are caused by problems in the metabolism of EFAs (3, 12, 13). The idea is that, for unknown reasons, the brains and bodies of individuals with autism and related disorders have problems converting the EFAs from foods into the forms that are necessary for many biochemical reactions (7). In addition, omega-3 fatty acids seem to be lower in individuals with autism than in others (9, 14).

Both of the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA have been found to affect many aspects brain function (1, 3). Specifically, changing the amount of DHA and EPA in the diet alters the amounts of certain critical genes in the brain, at least in rats (15). In addition, one study found that giving animals a diet with a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 EFAs of about 1:4 improved experimental measures of cognition in the animals (1). Finally, mood and behavior problems in humans have been linked to a lack of omega-3 EFAs in the diet.

So I figured 100mg a day is innocuous enough (esp. since the kids in the studies cited were given 1-3 grams a day) and may even help his growing brain a little, and so he’s been chewing one daily along with the Risperdal ever since.

Then, on Monday and Tuesday, miracle of miracles, Jonah had zero aggressions at school.  This hasn’t happened in months – maybe a year.  I’ve lost count.  Of course I hear the words of doc Reider echoing in my head:

“Correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation,” and I know intellectually that 100mg of Fish Oil chewables for 3 weeks has not caused this two-day no-aggression anomaly, but the mother in me couldn’t help but hope, just a little, that I’d hit on something.

Then, on Wednesday, I went to Jonah’s CSE meeting at Wildwood.  I always hear stories from autism moms online whose CSE meeting experiences play out like horror stories, where parents feel ganged up on and must advocate, fight, hell, even hire an attorney to be present – to ensure their child gets the appropriate supports and services.

Maybe our experience was not like this because Jonah is undoubtedly autistic – it isn’t as if he is on any kind of borderline between autism and neurotypical (NT) – and now he is so obviously in need of residential educational placement.  Maybe we’re lucky to have such an enlightened team of teachers and special education school district administrators.  For whatever the reason, I don’t dread the meetings and have never come out of one feeling like Jonah wasn’t given every possible support, service, and consideration.

One thing I learned is we need to keep Jonah on the waiting lists of all the schools, so I called both Anderson and Tradewinds and asked them to put him back on their lists.  I guess I was wrong about the fact that you can’t keep your child on all the lists.

The thing is, November is a long way off, with 3 weeks of time at the end of August and beginning of September between the summer program and school starting up again.  Tradewinds or Anderson could have a spot before that 3-week hell descends upon Andy and me (especially Andy), and since we liked all 3 schools, we decided to take the first spot that has an opening.

I think.

Once again, my time line is gone.  Shit, I didn’t like having it, anyway.

At any rate, the folks from The Anderson School are thankfully willing to come and observe/evaluate Jonah in his school environment, and it’s going to happen on June 14th which is, among other things,

  • Boy George‘s birthday
  • my Aunt P’s birthday (I call her Tree-Shee)
  • Flag Day
  • and the day I found out I was pregnant with Jonah

Not that any of that necessarily means anything, but I still like that it’s happening on June 14th.  And so far as my Fish Oil theory is concerned, Jonah did only have one aggression both yesterday and today, but they were each “very high intensity” according to the dreaded log book, meaning they are aggressions requiring two or three staff members to remove him from the classroom and into the “safe room.”

The residential schools don’t have safe rooms.  They have the staff and capability to handle whatever is happening right then and there, ostensibly.  I don’t know.  One even toilet trains the kids immediately.  It’s all done with ABA, something I was never really on board with, but now of course I question my original stance.  All the residential schools we’ve toured use it.  It works.  All the kids looked happy, the staff dedicated and engaged.  I’m not looking for Jonah to be Einstein or Temple Grandin;  I just want him to be happy, as independent as possible, and able to learn and grow.

My problem with ABA was formulated in 2006, when Jonah was 4.   I think it was born from the hope/assumption that Jonah was going to end up higher functioning by now than he turned out to be (and certainly not aggressive at all).   I thought, if taught through ABA, he’d just be a robot…trained to act, speak, and look normal.  It seemed horrifying to me.  Something Orwellian.  But I had the confidence of a woman whose child, though autistic, was at the very least not a danger to himself or others.  He’d had every modern advantage a child with autism can get.

After all, doc Reider had noticed something was up with Jonah when he was just 6 or 8 weeks old:  our boy was staring at lights, not faces.   (In our infinite ignorance, Andy and I had already nicknamed him “Moth Boy.”)

So we stayed on top of the situation, got him early intervention before he was 19 months old, and enrolled in Wildwood School full-time just before his third birthday.  We thought we were doing the right thing.  If we had got on board with full-time ABA all along, would he be better than he is today?  I don’t know.  Who knows anything when it comes to autism?

If you’ve met one kid with autism, you’ve met one kid with autism.

It’s a puzzle inside a mystery inside an enigma inside a matrix of love, pain, frustration, guilt, helplessness and anger; amazement and joy.  You take wrong turns and make mistakes.  You come to question everything.

Autism is the agnosticism of impairments;

you have to be okay with “I don’t know.”

And so we sally forth.  Andy’s sick with something…the flu?  Walking pneumonia?  He managed to work today.  And I’m tired.  Lots of meetings today, a ton to do at work.

Time for Match Game.

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please & thank you

Posted in autism, placement, Springbrook, Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 15, 2011| 5 Comments »

My only remaining prayers are please and thank you.

I don’t know what else to pray.  I don’t know what else to say.  I want to stay in a place of gratitude.  Jonah was a good boy for M and me when we took him today; he enjoyed car ride in the rain, and we took a few very cool grey-skied foggy droplet pictures:

a dozen or so goslings with their mom and dad…

we’re not sure why the rooster crossed the road

the woods were like dream visions.

We even risked the wrath of Jonah to turn around and zoom in on the great blue heron.  You don’t see those every day.

The truth is I’m just trying to keep it together.  I’m phone-shy and out-in-public shy.  I don’t much want to talk to anyone, even people I love.  I like silence, and listening to Guster and my new Paul Simon CD.  At work I listen to classical music all day.  I eat sporadically and my sleep is full of dreams.  I’m reading, but slowly, a chapter at a time.  Practically the only thing I can stand to watch on TV is Match Game, with Charles Nelson Riley’s campy 70’s antics.

Oh, and I write some, and make endless bead necklaces.  I used to complain I have ‘no countdown’ with Jonah and the residential schools; I hated that I didn’t know when Jonah would have to go away.   Well now I know, and now I complain about that.  Can I stop fucking complaining?

May, June, July, August, September, October, November…

This time next year I will be, in a lot of ways, no longer playing a mother-role.   It’s not like some of the other families, who turn a great deal more attention to their other kids.  There are no other kids.  I am relieved and aggrieved by this, just as everything I feel or say or think or do feels paradoxical these days.

I will not be bathing my son, helping him put on his shoes & coat, holding him, riding him to see train or red barn or grandma.  Andy will not be putting him on or off the bus, giving him wagon rides, making sure he eats healthily enough, has his teeth brushed, and is kissed goodnight.

Jonah will not be bruising, kicking, scratching, hitting, biting us, or grabbing & mangling our glasses and faces anymore.  He will be in others’ care.  Experts’ care.  He will learn and grow and get better.

I guess I will probably see my son once a week for a few hours.  Will he know I am his mama?

Will he know I will always be his mama?

It’s as much of a mind-trip as it is the only thing left to do.  It’s time to try to begin to attempt to absorb it all.  I don’t want to.  I don’t want to.  I can’t.  I have to.  I’d rather they take him next week, or never.  It’s too long to wait.  It’s not long enough.  Please don’t take him.  Please take him.

Please, please love him.

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ostrich mom & forest boy

Posted in Anderson School, autism, behavior, doctor, placement, Springbrook, Tradewinds, trains, Uncategorized, Wildwood, tagged , , , , , , , on April 30, 2011| 2 Comments »

Sometimes it amazes me how much happens in our lives between blog posts.  On Friday morning, one of the specialists from Wildwood School called me at work and she asked for the status of Jonah’s admission into Springbrook and Tradewinds.  It’s not great news.  Tradewinds (in Utica) has accepted him but they’re full and we have to wait indefinitely for a spot for Jonah.  Springbrook may or may not take Jonah, depending on whether they can squeeze him in among the kids they’re bringing back to NY from out of state.

Then she told me the functional behavioral assessments aren’t working – that almost always they can determine the cause/antecedent for a child’s behaviors – at which time they can then implement a plan, which almost always works, at least to some degree.  But with Jonah, the functional assessments come out different every time.  Avoidance, say, or attention-seeking.  And oftentimes, nothing at all.  Even during preferred activities he will sometimes aggress, lightning-quick and without any warning whatsoever.

She told me Jonah’s quality of education is now practically gone; they’re just managing him at this point.  I realized suddenly that, in a sense, I’ve been an ostrich mom, hanging on to the ‘promised placement’ I used to fear and now long for, burying my head in the sand until I can entrust Jonah to the hands of other people – professionals…experts…specialists who will help our boo get better…people who will unburden me from everything I don’t feel like I can take anymore.  With that realization came some sort of a second wind…an epiphany that no one will help us the way we’ll help ourselves, though Wildwood sure is trying.  They are kind and encouraging, diplomatic and sensitive.

They’re helping me look into other options – other residential places they’ve seen and are very happy with…the Anderson Center, they say, in Staatsburg NY, near Kingston, though we once scheduled a tour there and canceled it, back when I thought I could be picky about schools and we wanted something closer.  Wildwood also suggested ruling out physical causes for his aggression – something we’d suspected but weren’t sure if we should pursue because of the trauma all the doctors and travel and tests would cause for Jonah.  Was it worth it, we wondered, when the so-much-more likely cause was simply a severe symptom of autism?  Now it looks like something else really is going on – physically, or neurologically, or God-knows-what.   I know it’s time to do more.

So I approached my boss all a-wreck, explained the situation briefly, and asked if I could take an hour or two to make some phone calls, please.   She was very understanding and said of course.   I went back upstairs, closed my office door, cried, cursed, swallowed half an extra dose of klonopin, and breathed in and out, in and out, in and out…slowly getting my shit together.

First I left a message at The Anderson School to schedule a tour…then I called a parent or two, for advice and guidance.  I left a message with a doctor here in Albany who (one parent told me) can run a full round of blood and genetic tests.  I called Boston Children’s Hospital to make an appointment.  I called Jonah’s pediatrician to order a sedative so I can get him there.  I called a homeopath.  I went online and ordered fish oil chewables.  I researched PANDA and gluten/casein diets – the former I’d never ever heard of, the latter was something we’d always dismissed for Jonah, since it never seemed he had any stomach issues, really, and we didn’t think there was much more than anecdotal evidence to support trying it.  Also, since Jonah’s recently been clinically diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, I called the Arthritis Foundation as well, told my story, and was promised they’d get back to me soon.

Now momma-ostrich is awake and determined, shaking off the sand.  We’re gonna figure some shit out no matter what I have to do.

That was Friday.

Today M and I picked up Jonah to give Andy a break.  It was a beautiful springtime day in the 60s with sunshine, high pulled-cotton clouds, and that wonderful new-season-scent that pervades everything.   We went to the woods behind Russell Road park and Jonah practically skipped down the path, smiling and happy.

He loves the woods, is gleeful in the forest.   He was so good for us.

We let him slide in the dirt and toss handfuls of pebbles, hug birch trunks and throw twigs around.  (He was unable to hurt anyone, even if he’d wanted to, though he was as far from aggressing as I’ve seen him in a while).  Unencumbered by rules and regulations, alive and free to do as he pleased, he scampered – digging in the leaves and earth, running down the path ahead of us, laughing… again my sweet, fun, awesome little boy.

When he’d had enough of this particular forest, he requested train, donut, and waterfall, all his favorites and all within reason and reach.  After a speeding train and a third of a donut, which he politely handed back to us:  no donut – we drove on to the falls.  For the first time this year we walked down to the water, though he didn’t ask to go in.  Again he cavorted, explored, told me bye bye – and as I walked 10 feet or so away, he stood watching and listening to the falls, at home in his little zen-place.

In the midst of the storm of our lives, it was a pretty good hurricane eye.

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how to make god laugh

Posted in autism, behavior, doctor, placement, Springbrook, Tradewinds, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 13, 2011| 6 Comments »

Please forgive me if I don’t answer every comment individually; the truth is I have two jobs now, a full-time gig and an assortment of writing gigs to complete when I get home from visiting with Jonah.  It doesn’t leave a lot of time to write back to all of you, though I want to.  But I hear you all and value and embrace everything you say to me.  And I thank you for reading…for not judging…for standing behind me and holding me up like supports to a shaky building.

Thank you.

My annual work convention went smoothly, exhausting as it always is, and I met lots of great people there.

Jonah and Andy managed well, considering Jonah’s aggressions at school on Thursday and Friday.  My cousin D was there to help, like an heroine/saint.  And Jonah did well yesterday – only one aggression at school – so when I got out of work, Andy and I gave him a ride to the train (something he’s been requesting a lot again lately, as well as peanut butter roll from Stewart’s) and we talked about the whole Springbrook vs. Tradewinds problem.

I think we’re both on board with the bird in the hand, with sending him to Tradewinds, rather than risk losing any placement at all if Springbrook can’t get him in their program.  But we still like Springbrook too and are hoping they’ll advocate for us.  I don’t think this is a pressing decision because neither place has an opening now – I may call Tradewinds today to see if they know how soon Jonah might be able to get in.

We’re both just so tired.  Especially Andy, I’m sure, though he seems stoic, brave, and resigned.  Now that spring is here Jonah asks for parks we can’t take him to for fear he’ll attack another child.  The waterfall is a possibility but it’s 40 minutes away and there’s no guarantee the snow isn’t gone yet.  And his left leg is bad.  He limps markedly every morning and after we give him a wagon ride, another thing he loves lately.  I called his pediatrician on Monday, e-mailed him on Tuesday, and have yet to hear anything.  You can’t tell me they can’t give him an MRI/x-ray/blood test right here in Albany without having to drive to Boston – a near impossibility considering his aggressions.  WTF.  I’m going to call back today.

Maybe he’s aggressing more because he’s in pain.  He can’t tell us when something hurts – he seems to consider everything about his life and his environment as something he must bear, and he does so with aplomb, except for when he is violent, of course.  Is it his only voice, the screaming and the scratching, the biting and the kicking?

My poor little boo.  Andy and I both think the placement will help all of this.  They have doctors and psychiatrists there, professionals and people who are trained to work 24/7 with these children.  We’re now reconciled not only to the inevitability of placement but to its necessity as well.  And we’re banking on its helping our son, bringing out the best in him – the smiles, his ability to learn and grow and be as independent as possible – to allow him to reach his fullest potential, even at the cost of “giving him up.”  If you’d told me 10 years ago that this would be my life, I would not have believed you.

But as they say, if you want to make God laugh, just tell him/her your plans.

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