Saturday, March 12, 2011

How I Sometimes HATE Autism......

The reason for no blog posts has been rather simple. We were in the middle of a monstrocity. It seemed to come out of nowhere. One day Nick was doing great! Actually the whole months of Jan-Feb were pretty awesome. Nick was getting high scores in therapy and mastering programs left and right. We were taken completely off guard. Around the first of March is when hell broke loose.

We all went to Michael's skating practice on a Wednesday evening. Nick usually enjoys this. It ended in a total meltdown. I mean screaming, hitting, head butting...you name it. Nick came unglued. So much so that I had to spend the rest of time in the car with him. That was out of character for Nick. I wish I could say that it was all over after that and no other meltdowns; but that was just the beginning. Thursday-Friday we saw him get violent even towards his tutors. How can a normally sweet and gentle child just turn like this?! We were trying to come up with explanations....a kid in his class does this and Nick is imitating, his medicine is not working and needs to be increased, he is tired and getting too frustrated, etc. We went to go skating one evening last week. It started in the car-Nick was hitting poor Michael for no reason, kicking the back of the seat, screaming, hitting Mike even. What the HELL was happening to our little boy???!!! We had not even left our street yet before Mike told me to turn around and go back. Mike and Nick got out of the car and Mike told me to take Michael and just drive away for a little while. He wanted the shock value of us driving away without them. It worked. We came back and about 45 min later we were at the skating rink enjoying ourselves. The next day we increased his risperidone by half a pill. We had been down this meltdown road before, and were not going to deal with that. He was hurting himself now by this point. Clawing at his face, banging his head, and digging his toes into his feet. He was violent towards us and his tutors-poor Stephanie often had to take cover during their sessions; which were getting cut short. His great scores during Jan-Feb took a serious nose dive.

Tuesday he added a new one to his repertoir. Spitting. Stephanie came out of the room and said that Nick had been spitting on himself. Well, there is a kid in his class who I have seen spit on the teacher and aides in the class. Great. Nick is picking up other autistic kids' behaviors. As if we need that. That evening as I went to put him to bed I noticed that he sounded a little stuffy. He also felt a little warm. Are you kidding me Autism??!!! You mean to tell me we went through all this HELL for a friggin' cold??!! That my kid now has two bruises on his forhead and scrapes on his feet, that my oldest has been hit repeatedly by his brother more times in the last week than I care to remember, that his tutors have been smacked and had toys hurled at them, and that we have two new dents in our bathroom wall for a F'ING COLD??!!

We gave him cold medicine and have kept him home since Wed. I am glad to say that so far, his meltdowns over the past couple weeks have diminished the last couple of days. Today, instead of coming up and hitting me, he has chatted with me. I HATE autism for making Nick go through that hell. That is not something a kid should have to go through for a damn cold.