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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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my 100th post mother’s day mystery

Posted in Uncategorized, Wildwood, tagged , , , , , , on May 5, 2011| 8 Comments »

Today, Jonah brought home some Mother’s Day presents he’d made for me at school (3 different cards/posters) and a pink, stapled package.  Inside the package was a pretty orange geranium (?) in a little ceramic pot- it made me grin.  Thank you, Wildwood.  🙂

Then when I got home to my apartment, M told me a box had come for me from 1-800-flowers. I could tell it wasn’t from him because he was just as curious as I was.   A Mother’s Day gift, I thought with a smile.  Likely from my mom, or my dad – or even Andy, even though he’d already told me that Jonah’s gifts from school were all I was getting for Mother’s Day. 

 

I opened the pretty multi-colored bouquet and arranged the flowers in the vase they came in, and then I found the note:

Dear Momma,

Thank you for all that you do for me.  Thank you for train rides, moneycoin, waterfalls, trips to Grandma’s, peanutbutterrolls and too many other great things you do for me (and with me) to mention!  You are the best momma any kid could ask for and I love you soooo much! All done.

– Love, Jonah Boo


After I stopped crying my happy tears, I tried to figure out who could have sent it.  Who knows my address now?  Who has the sense of humor to put “all done” at the end of the card?  Who did this wonderful thing for me?  Andy says it wasn’t him.  M denies it, as does D, who watches him most.  And neither my mom nor my dad would write that.  My friends?  K or H?  P or Mx?  Maybe.  Martie?  Someone from 4 Winds?  from Wildwood?  Someone from work?  Someone I used to work with? A random reader? Hmmmmmm.

I kind of want to know who did this and I kind of want to believe in the mystery of it – to allow it to be from Jonah – to give it his voice, to have it be like Santa Claus is when you’re a child…or something from an elf, a faerie.  Or from one of my very best friends who’ve died – Gina, or Jennifer-Sanx.  Something impossible, yet true.  It’s all so right up my alley.

In one of my favorite children’s books, poor protagonist Sara Crewe receives gifts and has no idea where they came from.  Every day new gifts appear to help her make it through desperate, lonely days.  She doesn’t wish to force the identity of the giver if that person wishes to keep him/herself a secret, but she yearns to thank her benefactor.  So she gets the idea one day to write the person a letter and leave it for the next time s/he came.  The letter says, in part,

“I want to thank you for being so kind to me – so heavenly kind – and making everything like a fairy story.  I am so grateful to you, and I am so happy…”

Like Sara Crewe, I say thank you.  Somehow I suspect you’re reading this, whoever you are, and I want you to know you have made my day.  Thank you!!!

…and you’re welcome, Jonah.   You’re my precious little son and I’ll always love you, no matter what.

All done.

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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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rewrite

Posted in autism, trains, Uncategorized, tagged , on April 27, 2011| 4 Comments »

“I’m working on my rewrite, that’s right
I’m gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the time I’m spending
Is just for working on my rewrite, that’s right
I’m gonna turn it into cash

I’ll eliminate the pages
Where the father has a breakdown
And he has to leave the family
But he really meant no harm
Gonna substitute a car chase
And a race across the rooftops
When the father saves the children
And he holds them in his arms

And I say help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you!
I’d no idea
That you were there
When I said, help me, help me, help me, help me
Thank you, for listening to my prayer…”

© 2010 Words and Music by Paul Simon

This has been a tough day.  I felt anguished and guilty, helpless…I wanted to leave.

But eventually I dried my stupid tears, took pictures of beautiful things, and kissed my little boy (with his incredibly dirty face and feet) before returning to the basement apartment to watch Match Game on DVR.

At least my new Paul Simon CD came in the mail today;  Paul’s one of my favorites (yes, I do love other bands and artists besides Guster)… I love his new music and was cranking it in the car today.  I tried to put it on when Jonah was in the back of the car but after 3 seconds or so he cried:  Cranberry Guster?  So I changed the CD and we drove to see the train, which never came.

“dir-fee!  dir-fee!” he called over & over until I realized he was saying “dirty feet.”  He’d been running around the yard playing barefoot when I arrived after work.

So to make up for the coherent post I just don’t have it in me to write, here are some pictures:

train comin?

in the background, buddha looks on at the near-blooming tulip & stonepile

magnolias blooming outside our kitchen window at work

dirty feet

i love cushy yellow ball

we’re forever crossing bridges.

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easter ham & humble pie

Posted in autism, behavior, grandma, trains, Uncategorized, tagged , on April 24, 2011| 5 Comments »

I will not remember today as Easter so much as the last day of Jonah’s vacation.  Tomorrow he’ll probably be a hellion at school, but he wasn’t so bad this week, as long as it must have seemed for Andy.  Jonah adores his daddy, after all, and when he’s home on break his routine is filled with no-pressure stuff like car ride and grandma and peanut butter roll.

Besides, Easter doesn’t feel much like Easter this year.  My mom, God bless her, made a big ham dinner last night and separated it all into Tupperware and packages, some for Andy and Jonah and some for M and me.  Today when M and I watched Jonah, we saw the train and stopped at grandma’s to visit and pick up our share of her Easter feast.

There’s no sitting down and eating it, you understand, without thrown food and overturned dishes, splashed drinks and a constant Jonah-vigil not worth attempting anymore.  Jonah showed little interest in the Easter basket grandma filled with bubbles and chocolate, jelly beans and spinning tops, running instead up the stairs, down the stairs, and up again into the spare room where he jumped on the bed screeching.

Then he wanted grandma to go for a ride with us.  When we’d buckled him into his harness, his beloved grandma seated next to him, he decided:  bye bye grandma.  You want to go bye-bye with grandma, or you want grandma to go bye-bye?  We didn’t know.  We never know.  He changes his mind before we can puzzle it out:  Grandma come on car ride, he said.  So we headed off for a tour of Latham and Loudonville but only got maybe 1/2 mile down the road before he pronounced:  all done grandma.  So we turned around, drove back, and dropped my mother off.  I ran inside to get Jonah’s basket and our dinner, and we left.

M and Jonah and I ended up at the Rensselaerville Falls, as usual; it is much warmer now and the snow has melted in all but the most shadowy pockets of the forest.  As usual Jonah ran way ahead of us and only wanted to stay a short while; even he understands it is still too cold to walk down to the water and wade.

This morning my friend texted me a picture of her little 3-year-old boy, seated on the couch with two baskets, a big smile on his face, the message reading:  Happy Easter! 

It’s the kind of thing you’d send to a bunch of people in your address book.  I stared at the picture of her sweet little boy, his huge smile — the Easter Bunny came!   I texted Happy Easter back to her and put the phone down, wondering:  What is it like to raise a neurotypical child?

I’m sure it’s actually harder to dress your kid(s) up, get to church and the family gathering, then come home exhausted with the kid(s) all hopped up on candy.   Hell, I ate half Jonah’s candy myself without him ever knowing or caring, and the only place we had to go was on a car ride to the woods to watch a waterfall…so we had an Earth-Day Easter…

I took a lot of pictures today, as you can see.  I also made some necklaces and put together a care package for someone.  I like to imagine the surprise of getting a box of fun things out of nowhere and for no reason at all. 

Guster has this video I love and play whenever I start to lose my faith in humanity, when I feel my hope waning.  It always makes me feel better.  I want to be a part of things that make people happier, even if it’s just one person at a time.

Anyway, after M and I ate our homemade dinner, I polished off a piece of J.S. Watkins cheesecake my mom had procured, then a healthy slice of humble pie as well.  Ah, all the complaints I spew.  And how small my little life really is.

Easter was delicious.

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4 hours

Posted in autism, behavior, sense of direction, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 17, 2011| 6 Comments »

Saturday, 8:07pm

Today feels like two or three days smashed together – one of those days when by 8pm, the morning feels like it was yesterday or the day before that.  Time is strange.  I slept in til 8:30am or so, a beautiful thing.  I ate a delicious breakfast M made for us.  I went to a hair salon and got my hair cut, highlighted, and colored auburn.  The I met D at the house at 3pm to visit with Jonah, help her watch him, and give Andy a break.

Now I’m home again; it’s 8pm.  And that breakfast seems like three days ago.

I can’t imagine what life is like for Andy.  I’m sure it could be worse, but at times it feels like Jonah is thoroughly and utterly of the highest maintenance there is.  Andy left when D & I got there, and while this is not exactly the order in which our four-hour chunk of time unfolded, it’s pretty close:

We start off with a car ride, and I tell you if it wasn’t so un-green and crazy-expensive to do it,  I swear I’d drive that kid around forever, because strapped in and listening to his favorite Guster album, the one he calls Cranberry Guster, he is mostly just fine.  While it is true he’ll hit the window, kick the console, and throw anything in the backseat at you, he mostly is calm, sucking his thumb, occasionally singing or humming, and generally pretty happy.  Once it is more spring-summery we can take him to the Rensselaerville Falls or wherever else he wants.  The trick, though, is to never be too far from the house so he can change his mind on a dime, request grandma or home, and be within a reasonable distance of said request – preferably on a familiar path so he can direct us this way or that way as well.

I understand it might seem like we spoil Jonah, but at this point we’re just trying to survive.  When the Tasmanian Devil is in your care, you’ve got to mitigate his crazed behavior any which way you can.

After our car ride we go into the house because it is icky outside, windy with cold drizzle.

Brownie meal? he requests.  Okay, boo, mama will make a brownie meal.  Funny thing is he rarely eats the damn brownie.  D follows him around the house while I microwave the meal.

But before I’ve even presented him with the meal, he’s requesting something else: Green leafy?  So we put a plate of salad greens and blue cheese next to his brownie meal and he requests white soda and D pours some because he’s peed on the potty but he’s not sitting down to eat – he’s running from one room to the next, alternately requesting daddy and downstairs and brown car (my car) and bath.

Of course there are small minutes, tiny pockets of time when we engage him with black camwa or a bouncy ball, but mostly it’s near-constant ever-changing activity with a side of trouble brewing.

There are two baths during our stay and very little eaten of his dinner.  There is plenty of agitation and swatting.  D needed to hold him in his room because he lost it and tried to attack both of us.  She’s trained in the holds because she teaches and works with kids like Jonah, thank God, and she’s smart and sharp and unafraid.  Both D and I are constantly on guard, and if Jonah approaches we almost always wince and/or tighten, backing away, expecting him to aggress.

I’m no help while she’s calming him so I go in the kitchen and do what I usually do when something like this happens:  I clean.  I can hear Jonah kicking the floor and I ask D if she’s okay and she answers yes almost cheerfully so I wet-swiffer the kitchen with the force and efficiency of Rosie the Robot.   I go into “let’s clean something” mode because (a) Jonah has usually tipped over chairs, tables, food, and whatever else he can reach to throw, and (b) it makes me feel like I can do something useful and gives me a sense of control in a situation that is completely out of control.

But Jonah’s new weapon comes with its own ammunition:  shit.  At one point when I am putting away the swiffer and D has him on time in his room, he grunts hard until he is purple and then bolts from the room, his hands brown with poop.  He runs down into the far corner of the basement, making brown prints on various parts of the wall on the way, and then bangs on the wall with both palms before running back upstairs to tip over a kitchen chair, break an end table, and return to his room to try and attack us again.

We put him back in the tub; D gets him his green soap while I go through the house cleaning the walls and upending the table and chair.  After calming down and having some more quiet time in his room, he runs back out, requesting brown car and wanna–go-see-train and daddy.

And so on.

The kicker is D tells me Jonah’s much better this weekend than last, when I was at the convention all weekend.

Meanwhile, and I know I invite this because I blog publicly, I’m hearing suggestions from everyone who e-mails me.  Try this.  Take him here.  You have to (fill in the blank).  Sometimes the comments and suggestions are diametrically opposed.  I appreciate this little supportive community following my crazy-ass life more than you know, and I listen and hear you all.  Trust me, we’re looking into everything and doing all we can within the realms of possibility.  We are going to make mistakes and we are going to fuck things up sometimes.  But we are trying hard to make things better for our son and I’m just here to tell the story.

I have to again conclude by telling you that Andy is bearing the lion’s share of all of this with remarkable aplomb.   I am grateful for his fathering and nurturing our boy…for keeping him safe and well fed and as happy as possible…for taking him on endless rides in his little red wagon and in the red car and to grandma’s…for getting him ready for school and on the bus every morning and off it every day…for enduring scratches, bites, kicks, head-butts, sleepless nights, and loneliness.  I tell you I could not do it.  I know this with a certainty that feels like shame.

I love my son with all my heart but I could not do it.

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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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a bird in the hand

Posted in autism, behavior, haircut, Springbrook, Tradewinds, Uncategorized, Wildwood, tagged , , on April 11, 2011| 7 Comments »

Cheryl DeDecker from Springbrook did call us and she basically told us that Jonah would not be able to enter their current program because of the level of his aggression (the kids share rooms and he could hurt his roommate) but that they think he’d be a perfect match for the new residences they are building, where every child has his/her bedroom.  The problem is, the new buildings are evidently earmarked to get NYS kids attending out-of-state programs back into NYS.

She wants to advocate to place Jonah in one of the new buildings under construction right now, and I told her I would help her do so, but there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get him in – and if we did it would be October or November at the very earliest.  I don’t know if we can make it until then.

On Thursday, April 7th, this is (in part) the note Wildwood sent home in his log book:  Jonah had a tough day today.  He’s had 5 aggressions – 3 being of very high intensity.  We had difficulty getting him in and out of the safe room because he wouldn’t stop aggressing.  We had to hold him in the safe room until he was calm enough to leave. 

Next day:  Jonah’s had 6 aggressions today – some more intense than others…

Meanwhile he’s already been accepted at Tradewinds and we liked it there too; they will likely have a spot sooner and their kids all have their own rooms. Andy and I don’t know what to do. We don’t want to risk losing the Tradewinds spot by holding out for Springbrook, which may or may not take him at all.  Not that we know when there will be an opening at Tradewinds, because we don’t…but it’s a bird in the hand.

Andy says he’s doing okay emotionally – my cousin D came and helped him this weekend while I was working at our yearly convention in Saratoga.  They shaved his head because it was getting so long, and I came over Sunday to help for a while; Andy was just getting him out of the car and Jonah was limping awful – so pronounced it brought tears to my eyes, and I must have cried for 4 hours over our whole situation and probably exhaustion from the weekend mixed in.  Jonah’s been limping but it’s getting worse, and there are no pediatric rheumatologists in our area.  We have to figure something out though, because it’s obvious something is really wrong with his leg – every morning he limps now, Andy tells me.  Andy is holding everything together while I fall apart, weeping and worrying.  Paarents of these kids are not supposed to be so weak.   It’s simply not allowed.

And yet I’m the weak one in a sea of strength.

That’s going to have to be part one of two, because I’m out of time to type…I’ll leave you today with some new pictures of Jonah Russell:

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trade offs

Posted in autism, behavior, placement, trains, Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 6, 2011| 6 Comments »

Some of our boy is back, now that we’ve got Jonah taking the original dose of Risperdal again, for fear of attempting yet another med or dosage that’ll throw him all out of whack.  It’s a strange thing to try this and that, feeling like you’re guinea-pigging your child, especially since you used to think you were anti-meds.  Desperation will bring you places you thought you’d never see.

After work I often go the house, and Andy and Jonah and I will take a ride to go see train, which Jonah enjoys again and seems to get excited about, but if a train takes too long to come along or we take a right when he wanted to go left, we pay for it in kicks and thrown shoes, screams and thrashing and incomprehensible demands.   It’s a trade off; we can have some of his personality and smiles back but the aggressions still aren’t mitigated very well.

But ah, the smiles…

They’re sweet, the smiles, and damn it he’s in there, the kid who swims and climbs and pours wood chips down the slide.  It’s great when the cloud of aggression parts and you see him smiling, playing, singing, joyful.  Even just calm, eating or watching train-on-TV.

He’s my precious little boy, and I want to snatch him up and plant kisses all over him, have him open his arms wide and hug me, say I love you, mama —  hold him close, snuggle into him on the couch, sniff deep into his hair and simply absorb the presence of him.

Springbrook hasn’t contacted us yet, so we’re waiting.  From Thursday through Sunday I’ve got a lot to do during long days at our annual spring convention at work, so I’ll be back after that’s all over.  It’s fun but exhausting, and I’m presenting a session this year so I’m a little bit nervous.

Please send Andy some “you can do it” energy, if you will.  My mom will try to help him, or at least feed both he and Jonah, and my cousin D will hopefully help too – but trust me it won’t be an easy weekend for him and I hope Jonah doesn’t give him a hard time.

Once in a while Andy’s got to catch a break, right?

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