Category Archives: Life in Society

Martin in Paradise

Posted on by findingmykid
14

For the last ten days we’ve been vacationing in Costa Rica. The “we” comprised me, Adrian, Martin, my mother and stepfather, my two older brothers, Adrian’s mother, and Adrian’s brother. Nine people. Nine people together in a house on the beach, off the beaten path.

I had trouble finding organic fruits and vegetables, and I suspect the papaya we ate may have been genetically modified. I used olive oil that was partially refined. The cookware was aluminum. Martin had seafood daily, mercury be damned. He ate way too much rice, probably too much fruit, and even homemade fruit juice. I found some locally made treats with oats, nuts, and raw agave, but I couldn’t get any intel on whether the oats were gluten-free. I gave Martin the treats anyway.

We ran out of several supplements, enzymes, and antimicrobials (poor planning on my part), including mucuna, serrapeptase, MitoSpectra, Nose & Lungs, cumanda, and Boluoke.

We had no set schedule, so Martin never knew what we might throw at him in a day. We didn’t do his vision exercises. His glasses sat abandoned, unworn.

We pushed his limits, sometimes over his protests. We took him zip-lining and horseback riding, made him a passenger on ATV’s and jet skis, insisted on swim lessons.

He had two allergic reactions, one to a horse that left his face bumpy and itchy, and one to an unidentified food irritant (restaurant) that caused a rash to spread from the corners of his mouth down his neck.

In the face of these shortcomings and stress, Martin—soared. Martin’s had trouble sleeping these last couple months. In Costa Rica, he volunteered bedtime by 7:30 pm and slept 10 or 11 hours unbroken. His iPad requests, which at home are a near-constant whine, decreased markedly. On our few prior visits to beaches (I’m not a fan), Martin has refused to let the salt water rise above his knees. After a week in Costa Rica, he bobbed neck-deep as the ocean waves tossed him to and fro. Daily, he refused to leave the beach.

He conversed with his uncles and answered strangers’ questions. He used new expressions.

Overcoming recent food-choice rigidity, he rediscovered tropical fruits and ate mango, pineapple, and papaya with abandon.

Because we were without North American television, Martin could not watch his fixation of late, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He managed without complaint. Instead, he drew pictures.

One afternoon, Martin was at a local bar/café with Adrian, my brother Eddie, and my brother-in-law, Pancho. The establishment was about 300 yards from our house, past a swim pool, an exercise plot, and a several haciendas. I was in the house showering when Martin entered the bathroom and said casually, “Hi, Mommy. I came home alone.” I told him to scram—after all, I was showering—and his statement didn’t quite register until I was toweled and dressed and found a text message from Adrian: “Martin is coming home. Make sure the door is unlocked?” Adrian had indeed authorized Martin to walk home unaccompanied, and Martin had achieved the feat, without getting lost or wandering off.

Just sayin’, I would not have let Martin walk home alone. But Adrian did, and out of the decision came some measure of independence.

I’m not saying that 10 days in Costa Rica brought a miraculously fully recovered Martin. Not by a long shot. He was too distracted to get the full benefit of those swim lessons. The pictures he drew were all of marching bands or orchestras. (He used to draw only pictures of The Beatles. Now he draws only marching bands and orchestras.) He engaged in a lot of oral stimming: “mouth noises,” I call the sucking-and-clucking sound he makes. He showed virtually no interest in the other kids scampering and riding bicycles in the neighborhood. Our last full day in Costa Rica was a bad day; sneezing and maybe teetering on sickness, he requested another round of zip-lining but then melted down and refused to participate. He repeated himself, nervously. He spaced out.

Still, overall, Costa Rica brought us a behaviorally improved Martin. Indisputably.

I don’t know what made the difference. Sea water? Clean air? Reduced EMF’s and cellular radiation? Extended family? Time to be a kid?

We’re on the plane now, headed home to the New York metropolitan area. (You know how I love to airplane-blog.) Martin just told me he wants to watch Mickey’s Clubhouse, when it’s on at home. I find myself questioning whether full and true recovery might require some bolder step, like removal from urban or suburban life.

Would I have that in me? Would Adrian?

What Will We Remember?

Posted on by findingmykid
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Friends visited us recently with their son Robert, who is younger than Martin and less far along the autism recovery journey. Robert kept his mother busy, as she had to pull him repeatedly away from his fixations—trains, colors—to get him to eat or otherwise join the group.

After our guests left, Adrian said, “Robert can be a handful!”

I replied, “Reminds me of Martin a few years ago.”

“No, Martin never had obsessions like that.”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“I remember when we always had to take the Brooklyn Bridge home, and how he liked certain train lines, but he wasn’t so challenging as Robert.”

“Are you talking about our son, Martin?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ve forgotten when I had to buy placemats in different colors so he could practice using something other than yellow without having a meltdown?”

“That’s right. I did forget that.”

“And the panic if he boarded a subway and no yellow seat was available?”

“I guess he did that, yeah.”

“Then there were the times when he and I had to wait for the No. 2 subway, because if a No. 3 came instead, he’d scream with fright, even though he knew it went to exactly the same place.”

“You did used to tell me about that.”

“How about when he couldn’t go to school unless he had that pink stuffed bear from Chicago in his backpack? When he had to approach and open every mailbox we passed on City streets? When he refused to enter the wine bar if ‘our table’ was occupied? When he—”

“Okay, fine. He did have all those obsessions. It’s easy to forget what those days were like.”

This conversation made me reconsider the previous posts “So Far Gone” and “Manifesto.” One day, when someone says, “Maybe Martin never had autism,” will I respond, “Maybe not,” because I too have forgotten? How will we bear witness to recovery as more and more symptoms become so far gone that we forget they ever existed?

I have his earliest developmental neurology reports, the ones that describe a child unresponsive to his own parents, unaware of his own name, echolalic, in the first and third percentile of expressive and receptive language. Those tell the early story.

And I have this blog.

I Want to Lick You

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A provocative title for a blog post, right?

Don’t get too excited. The post isn’t nearly as provocative as the title. It’s about people perceiving Martin as weird.

Especially when Martin is detoxing, or when a treatment has “stirred up” viruses or parasites or metals, &c., he engages in strange behaviors. Last week Martin accompanied me to an AT&T store. While I sat talking with an agent, Martin rolled on a padded bench, threw himself on the floor, and tried to bury his face in my lap. In an instant of distraction, I felt something wet and realized Martin had lifted my shirt and licked my back. Hoping the agent hadn’t noticed, I pulled my shirt down and whispered, “Martin, don’t do that!”

Martin shouted, “I want to lick you!”

When Martin was younger and more impaired, situations like “I want to lick you!” were easier to endure. Back then, I think people recognized that something was going on with Martin, which made odd behaviors understandable. Plus, the smaller the child, the crazier the utterances, right?

Now, Martin is eight years old, and appears maybe a bit older—physically, he favors my six-foot-three-inch brother, Eddie—and responds to questions and speaks in sentences. Relatively few people, I imagine, realize on first acquaintance that something is going on, so now it is all the more unsettling when detox behavior prompts him to broadcast, in public, “I want to lick you!”

Adrian and I are shopping for a new SUV. My darling husband is highfalutin, so we are test-driving luxury models. Monday Martin accompanied us on one such expedition. Monday also was Martin’s worst day in ages; his teacher reported that Martin laughed inappropriately throughout the day and repeatedly disrupted class, his personal trainer said Martin was too distracted to participate in the exercises, and Martin staged a mini-meltdown when told that we’d be going car shopping instead of home to watch television. Still, it didn’t seem like that bad of an idea to take him along.

Until Adrian and I, with a saleswoman by our side, turned around to find Martin, all 65 pounds of him, half-laughing and half-crying, sprawled across the hood of an $85,000 Porsche.

As the Dead tell us, every silver lining has that touch of gray.

Three Drugs, Maximum Dose

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I play in a softball league for local women. We have four teams, comprising mostly moms in their 30s and 40s. It’s fun.

At one practice, a few of us were discussing Martin’s move from a private self-contained, special-education setting into our local school. (I’m so anxious. I raise the topic with anyone who knows anything.) I said that my son—no one on the team knows Martin—has ADHD and language delays.

Someone asked whether we’d considered the district’s own self-contained, special-education classroom for Martin. I said that we’d observed that classroom and liked the teacher but (1) we didn’t see any advantage to moving from one self-contained setting to another, and (2) our district representative wasn’t sure Martin would fit well with the students in the self-contained classroom. I worded the second point carefully, so as not to suggest that the class was behind schedule, or that Martin was “better” than its students, in case any mom present had a child in that classroom.

And indeed, one mom did have a child in the district’s self-contained classroom. She started talking about her son. She said that they’d considered trying to switch him to general education with an aide (that’s what we’re doing for Martin) but felt that the move from a 12-student-or-fewer classroom to a 20-student-or-more classroom would be too much for him to handle.

We have the same concern for Martin, I told her. I’m wondering how this year is going to go.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” she replied. “It wouldn’t work for my son. My son’s ADD is so bad.”

I’ve seen this woman’s son. He comes to watch our practices and games. To me, he looks absolutely typical.

I said, “Academically, attention is our main concern, too. Martin has so much trouble paying attention.”

“Not like my son,” she said. “Seriously, once my son even had an autism diagnosis. Now he’s on absolutely the highest dose of every medication he takes.” She named three pharmaceuticals, none of which I recognized. “For every one, he’s got the highest dose they allow. Based on his body weight, they won’t even let him take more. That’s how much he needs, just to pay attention.”

As she spoke, I grew uncomfortable. First, the way she said “autism diagnosis” conveyed, “You can’t even believe how bad his condition is.” I abhor “autism” being used as a synonym for “territory you don’t want to be anywhere near.” Last year I helped a special-education acquaintance request a neurodevelopmental psychiatric evaluation for her son. When I asked later how it went, she (despite knowing Martin’s then-diagnosis) replied that she hadn’t completed the exam because, after only the first session, the doctor said her son didn’t have autism. “That’s really what I needed to know,” that mother told me. “I mean, thank God, at least he doesn’t have autism.”

Second, as I’ve written before, I can’t say that we will never allow Martin to use a pharmaceutical to address his poor attention span. For example, if we get to middle school and a pharmaceutical can make the difference between fully mainstream and still being pulled from the classroom, maybe we will try the pharmaceutical. (Maybe.) That being said, the thought of an eight-year-old child, like softball mom’s son, taking a variety of drugs to alter his brain chemistry turns my stomach—especially because the family doesn’t seem to be making any attempt to address overall health. Every time I see the boy, he has goldfish crackers or an ice-cream cone or an artificially flavored popsicle or even a soda pop in his hands.

Third, softball mom’s comments were tinged with—I don’t know—pride, or bragging. She sounded like we were trying to outdo each other: My son has so little attention span that he needs three drugs, maximum dose. Can you top that? I suspect that, if we ever compared our children, I could top even three drugs, maximum dose. But who on earth would want to play such a game?

Sitting quietly and typing my blog, I can expound the three reasons her comments disquieted me, and come up with the kind of helpful response I could have given, something like, “I’d really like to hear more about your experience with the self-contained classroom. Can I give you my number so maybe we could grab coffee?” or maybe even, “We’re always looking for new friends. Do you think your son would like to do a play date sometime?”

On the softball field, however, I panicked, confounded as usual, nothing productive to offer. I said only, “Wow, it sounds like you’ve really got your hands full!” and hoped she would change the subject.

For ahen these situations arise, I’ve got to find some middle path that is neither my opening monologue to the biomed revolution nor a throw-away comment to move the conversation along. Regardung my veganism, I’m able to thread the needle; I respond honestly but non-graphically to any questions (no one wants to hear about factory farming at the dinner table) without pushing an agenda. What is the biomed equivalent? How do I gently suggest that a non-pharmaceutical option is available, without affronting or appearing judgmental?

Suggestions welcome.

I Am That Person. I Am That Mom

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Social media. Ah, social media.

I made my first post about my uneasy relationship with social media five years ago, explaining why I blog anonymously. Two years ago, I posted again, bemoaning the lack of civility on-line, even among acquaintances.

I love Facebook, for the connections to old friends and my autism recovery groups. I also recognize the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut on controversial topics: Social media rarely allow for productive and thought-provoking exchange; users prefer to post dumbed-down memes and wait for comments that support their opinion.

What I need to get past, these days, is feeling personally attacked by others’ posts. Take, for example, this sketch that appeared recently on my Facebook wall:

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The implication? That a mother whose child eats only organic, homemade food doesn’t “live[] in the real world.” But I live in the real world. And my child eats only organic, homemade food, except for a few commercial, raw snacks and occasional meals at pre-approved restaurants.

Or how about this post?:

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Indeed! It’s me! I eat seedless (organic!) grapes and complain that GMOs are unnatural! I know the difference between selective breeding and genetic modification. Selective breeding is vertical genetic transmutation within a given species. Genetic modification is transmutation of genes horizontally, across species. Totally different.

I don’t respond. Why waste thoughtfulness?

I’m sure you can imagine how I felt when a friend posted a link to an article purportedly tying a measles outbreak to “anti-vaxx” parents and asked, “Who are these medieval people???”

Me again! Not only as the parent of an immune-compromised child, but also as an attorney, I have concerns about the current vaccination regime. We’ve exempted these potent pharmaceuticals from the usual liability schema, and the safety assessment protocol lends itself to manipulation as vaccine after vaccine after vaccine is pushed onto the recommended schedule. At the same time, legislatures are seeking to move these injections from “recommended” to mandatory, i.e., to restrict even exemptions that are based on valid health concerns. The whole pharma-driven plan invites rising vaccine injury rates, and I hope to witness more Constitutionally based challenges.

 

The list of Facebook zingers is long. I resist the urge to respond, “I’m glad you asked. I am that person.” I resist because I will end up only frustrated, and because fighting those virtual battles can sap energy from the real task at hand, Martin’s recovery.

But as usual, I am conflicted. Many of these types of Facebook “status updates” come from acquaintances who, I think, respect me and/or my professional competence. They come from law school classmates and from co-workers, from the siblings of childhood friends and from distant relatives. If I were to argue almost any valid opinion face-to-face, they would probably take note. I might even sway them.

If I am a person who may have influence over pro-vaccine, organic-bashing lovers of genetic modification, maybe I have a responsibility to speak. Or maybe—if I speak against pro-vaccine, organic-bashing lovers of genetic modification, I will lose whatever influence I have to command.

A conundrum.

A conundrum not limited to Facebook. An older relative, for no apparent reason other than knocking a chip from my shoulder, told me he was getting a Zostavax shot against shingles. I suggested that he might want to weigh the side effects, and that Zostavax is counter-indicated for people who’ve been treated for cancer (as he has). He blew off my concerns (which was likely his intent from the moment he brought up vaccination out of the blue). He said: “I believe in science.”

Science? What did you read before reaching this decision? I can show you the studies I’ve reviewed. I understand your concerns about shingles. On the other hand . . . wait. You haven’t done any research whatsoever? You saw a commercial that said a shot would protect you, so you’re going for it, no more information necessary? Good call.

Waste of breath.

When I started this blog years ago, Martin’s biomed doctor said, approvingly: “We have parents telling everyone they know that recovery is possible, and no one listens. You’re an Ivy-League-educated lawyer who can write, and a stickler for facts. Maybe they’ll listen to you.”

Maybe they won’t.

In my blog, I speak freely, When it comes to social medial, I’m better off trying to find points of agreement. Let’s go back to “Deborah,” who “loses her s**t daily & knows every honest mother does too”:

At least I can admit that I’m an “honest mother.”

Del Sur V: Manifesto

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“Do you know?—maybe it’s possible that he never had autism?”

These words were spoken innocently, by a sympathetic party, and (I suspect) without forethought. It was late evening in South America. Martin was asleep. My mother-in-law and I sat in her kitchen, chatting, I with a glass of white wine, she with her pisco sour. We were discussing Martin and his progress; I mentioned that his official diagnosis had changed from ASD to ADHD with social/pragmatic language delay. My mother-in-law responded, “Do you know?—maybe it’s possible that he never had autism?”

My mother-in-law supports everything we do for Martin, and does her best to accommodate; we arrived from New York to find her fridge stocked with organic produce (still hard to procure in her area) and a cow knuckle and vegetables simmering on her stove, for Martin’s broth. That being said, I’m not sure she fully understands biomed, or our start point and desired endpoint. This is no criticism of my mother-in-law. I’m not convinced that anyone outside the thick of recovering a child understands autism or what healing requires. I’m not even convinced that I understand autism or what healing requires; I’m just a few paces farther down that road than others are.

Still, when my mother-in-law offhandedly suggested that maybe Martin never had autism, I bristled. I bristled because I think I will hear that suggestion a lot, as Martin continues to become more typical. Already I hear hints. A friend who has a mostly nonverbal seven-year-old and does not do biomed remarked recently about how “maturity” is resolving a lot of Martin’s issues. The friend meant no harm; in her mind, biomed doesn’t work, so she needs something else to explain Martin’s emergence from autism. (I didn’t pursue the issue further. I’m cautious, with other autism parents. We’re all doing what we think we can.) And remember the neurodevelopmental psychiatrist’s words? According to her, Martin developed functional language because he was “not destined to be a child with receptive or expressive language problems.” It’s not biomedical interventions. It’s destiny!

I know, from other blogs and on-line communities, that parents who manage to recover their kids from autism face skepticism that their children ever had autism. You may ask, why should they care? The opinion of naysayers doesn’t affect their children’s recovery. Why should I care if another autism parent wants to chalk Martin’s ongoing recovery up to “maturity,” or a doctor implicates destiny over hard work?

Well, I care, we care, everyone should care, because denying biomed has far greater implications than just adhering to ingrained misconceptions about autism.

It is possible to recover from autism. Not to learn to live with autism’s symptoms, which is what behavioral therapies teach, but to eradicate autism by treating the disorder’s underlying medical causes. I know this to be true, because my son is recovering from autism. I’m not deluded. I have the blood work and urinalysis evincing his medical issues. I have the series of neurodevelopmental psychiatric reports describing his detachment, his lack of language, his emotional instability. I witnessed too well his lethargy and physical discomfort. I endured his sleeplessness. I have watched, over five years, as his medical issues alleviated and the autism symptoms improved in tandem.

Every case of autism is different. Yet there are commonalities. The presence of autism points to an immune disorder rooted in the gut, where 70% of the immune system resides. A healthy gut biome has plenty of good bacteria to keep germs and infections at bay. When something depletes the good bacteria—say, antibiotics, or glyphosate—the bad guys start to party. Any further insult, like insufficient vaccine absorption or exposure to environmental toxins, can cause the whole immune system to jump its rails. When you’ve got no properly functioning immune system, you can find yourself with a host of secondary problems, like neuroinflammation, excess propionic acid, a struggling thyroid, glutathione depletion and methylation troubles, opportunistic infections, an inability to secrete heavy metals. And then? Neuron misfires. The endgame that manifests in autism.

Autism rates are on the rise. Stunningly. Think of those graphs that represent worldwide human population: Autism’s growth is similarly exponential, even according to conservative CDC figures. The epidemic is not the result of greater awareness, or expanded diagnoses; if it were, we would expect to see most cases clustered at the mild, almost debatable, end of the spectrum, where the merely “quirky” kids reside. Instead, new autism diagnoses litter the entire spectrum. Non-verbal, acutely affected autism is on the rise just like Asperger’s. Those who deny the rising autism rates are the willful ignoramuses and the irrational optimists. I am out of patience for either.

We don’t know, yet, what “causes” autism, though every day we learn more about factors that may contribute to the development of autism. I mentioned a few above: overuse of antibiotics, unsafe vaccinations, pesticides. Activists speculate about the role of pollution, about electromagnetic fields, about C-section births (or not) and the newborn’s chance to benefit from the vaginal biome. Genetics also play a role, such as the MTHFR mutation or UBE3A mutation.

(Note this: Accepting that genetics play a role in development of autism is not saying that we “can’t do anything about” the autism epidemic. The genetic predisposition to autism has probably been around many generations; only now do new environmental triggers spur the subsequent development of the disorder. Plus, more and more we have to speak not of genetics proper, but of epigenetics, mutations with the capacity to arise or dissipate between generations, or even within a single generation.)

Which brings me to many people’s resistance to accepting the notion of biomed. If we accept that we can reverse autism by resolving the factors that caused it in the first instance—then we admit that something is causing autism. Based on the exploding autism numbers, whatever is causing autism is getting worse. In an over-hygienic world devoted to unlimited consumption, exploitation of animals and the environment, a pill for every ailment, and the temple of convenience, we are doing something wrong. Disastrously wrong. In that regard, progress has stopped. Unless we change course, each successive generation will pay a higher bill for our abandonment of what is natural.

Unfortunately, almost no one seems to want to change course. So people deny that autism is on the rise, or that autism has causes, or that autism can be treated.

This is why I bristle to hear that maybe my son never had autism, or that he’s moving off the autism spectrum because of something other than biomed. It is also why I do not support the “neurodiversity” movement. Don’t get me wrong: I support the goal of inclusion and accommodation for persons living with autism. Did someone insult or exclude your family member with autism? Call me. I will gladly rush over and go Brooklyn on the jerk. But do not hand me acceptance of autism itself as a policy for dealing with skyrocketing autism rates. Do not tell me that autism is “just how some people are” and should not be addressed, because I will respond that schizophrenia and depression—other disorders with medical underpinnings—are also “just how some people are,” and give lie to how misguided neurodiversity is. People with autism should be accepted. Autism itself can, and should, be fought.

We can learn to live with just about anything. City dwellers learn to live with constant light and noise pollution. Our world may be on the verge of learning to live with catastrophic climate change. This ability to adapt does not mean that we should fail to recognize and correct our own mistakes.

My son had autism. My son still has ADHD. One day my son will be neurotypical. Treating his disorder biomedically has made this progress possible.

Full stop.

Del Sur IV: That Doesn’t Sound So Bad

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Adrian’s two sisters, each a mother herself, don’t know about Martin’s autism, because Adrian refuses to tell them. Adrian’s official position is that, given the discrimination that still exists against disabilities and difference in his country of origin (where my in-laws reside), he would rather not see Martin “branded.” (Adrian’s parents and brother, Pancho, know the diagnosis. Adrian is closer to them.) I don’t begrudge Adrian’s choice. Even here in the States, we haven’t been public about Martin’s autism, or former autism.

On the other hand, the ignorance of my sisters-in-law leaves me in an awkward spot when Martin and I visit South America. For years I’ve avoided spending too much time for them, or covered when it came to Martin’s behavior, like I covered on our first day this visit. How many times can I say Martin is tired, jet-lagged, on a different schedule, shy, not feeling his best? Try me.

I decided this year I might be able to do something different. I approached Adrian with the idea of telling one sister—Claudia, who lives in the capital city we were visiting, and whom Adrian likes better—about Martin’s new diagnosis, ADHD. “Autism” strikes fear. “ADHD,” on the other hand, makes people wonder if your kid is taking the same drugs as their kids. Adrian agreed. ADHD doesn’t sound scary like autism sounds scary. We decided that I would share with Claudia “our challenges with ADHD.”

I didn’t really find a good opportunity to talk until our last evening in town, when Martin stayed with my mother-in-law while I went out to dinner with Pancho and Claudia. Then I fumbled, trying to come up with a way to initiate the conversation. An hour into dinner, Claudia said we should come down in July to go skiing during her children’s winter break.

“I wish we could! But Martin goes to school during the summer. Next year maybe we could come—he might change to a new school and have summers off.”

Awkward. Still, my comment moved the conversation in the desired direction. Claudia asked, “Martin is changing to a new school?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Right now he goes to a special school for kids with ADHD. But his attention has been getting better. We are thinking he can go to a regular school, with some extra help.”

If this fazed Claudia, she gave no hint. She said, “And then he would have the summer off? Do you think you could come here for the whole summer? We could do so much skiing!”

“I don’t know about the whole summer. We could probably come for a while,” I said. “It all depends on whether he gets to switch schools. We still have work to do on the attention span and all the issues that have to do with ADHD. We’re not sure he’s totally ready to leave his special school.”

Across from me, Pancho was nodding. He has known about Martin’s issues for years and could see what I was trying to do.

Claudia said, “This will be great. I’ll send you the schedule for my kids’ school vacation, so you’ll know when to come.”

Last try. I said, “I will have to let you know what happens. ADHD is very hard to accommodate properly in school. You can see Martin’s poor attention span.”

Claudia said, “I’ve heard it’s very common in America to change schools. Not here. My children will go to the same school until university, just like we did.”

There went my big talk with Claudia. At least, somewhere in her head is the notion that Martin has special challenges. I suppose that’s enough for now.

Final note: In the first paragraph of this post, I mentioned “the discrimination that still exists against disabilities and difference in [Adrian’s] county of origin.” I don’t know whether the culture of Adrian’s country of origin engenders unusual bias against disability. On my visits there, some 10 times and counting, I haven’t witnessed autism discrimination. But when it comes to Adrian’s own country of origin, I will let his opinion carry the day.

 

Del Sur, Interrumpido: Siempre Alguien Hace Leña del Árbol Caido

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Monday, last week, was abysmal. Something—a supplement, or an allergen, or another environmental factor, or . . . still trying to figure out—was causing Martin to be anxious and contrarian. He argued every statement, contradicted every request, had trouble holding himself together. Mondays I pick him up from school, we go to the natural-foods market, and I take him to personal training. Last Monday we had to break that routine and replace the natural-foods market with visiting the optician to fit Martin’s new glasses. That was bad enough. Then we spent too long at the optician and ended up late for personal training. Oh. My. Huge. Anxiety.

When we pulled into the gym parking lot, Martin was perseverating on our tardiness, demanding to go home, and trying not to cry. I knew I had work to do before we could enter the gym.

Monday also happened to be windy. Very windy. As I began to open my door, a gust blew it into the Volkswagen Beetle next to me. Just a tap—my door’s plastic rim hit the Beetle’s side panel. I withdrew the door and checked the other car for damage. The Beetle had enough nicks and scrapes that I needed a second to confirm where my door made contact. At that spot, I saw no damage.

Just my luck: A woman was sitting in the Beetle’s driver seat, texting or something. She thrust her head through her open sunroof and, glaring at me, contorted her face into a grimace.

I said, “Sorry The wind got hold of my door. Thank goodness it didn’t leave a mark.”

My mind, at that moment, was occupied about 2% with my car door, and about 98% with Martin’s potential meltdown, so I started to exit in order to deal with Martin.

The other woman’s mind, by contrast, seemed 100% occupied by the fact that my door had tapped her Volkswagen. She scowled, and yelled, “You’ve got to be more careful!”

“Yeah, sorry,” I repeated as I walked around my car to retrieve Martin. I helped him down from his seat and walked him to the back of my SUV, where I had enough space to kneel and take his hands in mine while reassuring him. This position, me kneeling in front of Martin, holding his hands and available for a hug if necessary, is our best defense to a meltdown. Martin was alternating among might-cry face, a few tears, and deep belly breaths to gather his composure. After 15 or 20 seconds, we were starting to get the potential meltdown under control. I was able to use one hand to wipe tears from Martin’s quivering cheek.

And then—VW Beetle chick decided she had found an appropriate time to address the non-existent injury to her jalopy. (Pardon my attitude. I believe it justifiable.) She exited the driver seat, walked around to the side panel my door had tapped, which was also close to me and Martin, and commenced a conspicuous inspection. The inspection involved leaning very close to her car, flashing me an angry expression, slurping diet soda, waiting for a response from me, and upon receiving no such response, repeating the entire process. At any other time, the situation would have been laughable. At this moment, as I sit here writing, the situation is laughable. Last Monday, on the other hand, in the midst of Martin’s anxiety, I felt my blood begin to rise. Seriously, lady? Seriously? I am—literally—on my knees in a gym parking lot, imploring my angst-ridden seven-year-old to hold his s*&t together, and you’ve found the perfect time to confront me for accidentally bumping the side panel of your car? I perceived a change inside me. Country-raised, uniformly polite suburban mom spirit was leaving my body. In her stead came chip-on-the-shoulder city girl. I started to stand. I was about to get up in this woman’s face, and not a little bit. I was about to be inches from VW chick’s nose.

And then—Martin’s chest heaved, and tears came. Instantly, I knew that Martin knew that I was on the verge of getting into it with another adult. I returned to my knees, reclaimed his trembling hands, and told him softly not to worry. I smiled. I reassured him that I had texted the personal trainer that we were coming late, so it was no big deal. I said how cool his new glasses looked, and that we were having his favorite lentils for dinner later, and that I might even make rice.

I would rather report that the VW driver realized her timing was off, that she said something like, “I can see you’re busy. Would you mind finding me in the gym after your son calms down?”, and then departed with only a glance at my license plate to ensure honesty.

She didn’t. She started the Beetle inspection routine anew. When she reached the part about slurping diet soda and waiting for a response from me, I raised my left hand to block her from my view. I actually gestured, “Tell it to the hand, because the mama ain’t listening,” and concentrated instead on Martin’s needs. I held my hand aloft, ignored the idiotic car inspection, and comforted my son.

Finally, VW chick aspirated a noise somewhere between grunt and sigh, as if she just couldn’t believe my nerve, and stormed into the gym. Our confrontation skipped climax and proceeded directly to denouement. Here’s the denouement: I was shaken. I was shaken because this woman had been so oblivious to Martin’s plight. I was shaken because I’d let her get to me. I was shaken because, if there is one thing I try to impart to Martin, it’s that his mom is in control, and he’d just witnessed me almost lose control.

When Martin and I were ready to head into the gym, I took another look at the Beatle and noticed fresh flowers in the dashboard vase.

That driver didn’t deserve fresh flowers.

There are two more posts coming in the Del Sur series. I interrupted, again, to report that someone will always kick you when you’re down.

Del Sur III: Someone Has Got Him

Posted on by findingmykid
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My grandmother spent the last 45 years of her life in the United States, and yet some part of her never left Germany. Her kitchen represented Germany circa 1947, eternally enshrined in Southern Florida. She shunned modern appliances and scrubbed the bare counters spotless. An ode to beer, carved in the old German lettering, hung above the table where she sat to smoke, drink strong coffee, and work her crossword puzzles (in German, natch).

Allow me to add that my grandmother was also glamorous, and one of the worst cooks I’ve ever encountered. No dowdy Hausfrau here.

Adrian, my husband, moved to the United States in 1999 and nationalized in 2009, and he too keeps one foot in his country of origin. Throughout each day, WhatsApp messages zip among him and his schoolmates. I stock our pantry (and wine cabinet) with homeland products. He even likes to have his suits sewn by his hometown tailor and shoes made by his preferred cobbler. During my our recent visit to South America, my mother-in-law asked me to drive across the city with her to pick up Adrian’s new loafers and boots.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Martin will be bored, spending that much time in the car.”

“Martin? He doesn’t have to come. He can go to the playground with his cousins.”

The cousins in town that week ranged from 10 to three years old. I asked, “Will someone go with them?”

“Of course,” my mother-in-law said. “Don’t worry about it. Someone’s got him.”

Soon three cousins appeared in the apartment with their mother (my sister-in-law Claudia), gathered Martin, and left. My mother-in-law and I headed to the cobbler, a trip that took more than 90 minutes with traffic. Then my mother-in-law wanted to stop at the supermarket, and we ended up shopping an hour as she showed me the newest organic and gluten-free options. Just as I began to worry about Martin, I received an email from Claudia titled, “There are five!”, with no more explanation than a photo of Martin, his three cousins, and another kid I didn’t recognize, whom evidently the crowd had picked up along the way. Okay. No rush. My mother-in-law and I sauntered home three hours after I’d watched Martin whisked out of the apartment. We found my brother-in-law (the beloved bachelor uncle, Pancho) waiting. Pancho reported that Claudia was summoning him to the park to help her haul five kids home. I went along and found Martin. All was well.

The next day, Pancho (remember the “beloved” reference) sent me to a spa for an aromatherapy massage. When I asked what Martin would do while I was gone, the answer was again, “Don’t worry about it. Someone’s got him.” A couple hours later, relaxed and aromatherapied, I walked to Claudia’s apartment. I found Martin coloring with a cousin and discovered that the “someone” watching the children was Anna, a young German musician. Claudia’s husband is the director of the capital city’s philharmonic orchestra, and musicians from around the world seem to move through their home. I’m never quite sure how these arrangements work. In any event, Martin was fine. Anna assured me there’d been no trouble, and that for a snack Martin had eaten the special bar my mother-in-law sent. Okay.

At home, my childcare is regimented, and paid. Tuesday afternoons, a special-education teacher helps Martin participate in church Kids’ Club, and I have a couple hours free. Wednesdays and Thursdays, when I work in the City, Samara meets Martin at his school bus, makes dinner, handles supplements and any after-school activities, and puts him to bed. All other times, unless by arrangement Adrian or a babysitter is on duty, Martin is my responsibility. Someone has not got him. I’ve got him.

The two instances described above were not the only two when, during our recent South American week, I did something other than supervise my son. I went out for Thai food with Pancho and Claudia; Martin slept, and my mother-in-law was around in case he woke. I shored up a fee agreement for work; Martin played video games at Chuck E. Cheese—yes, that monstrosity has expanded into South America—with my father-in-law and some cousins so distant I’m not sure I could correctly identify their parents. I lingered over brunch with the adults; Martin was somewhere, with someone.

For any parent, residing with no family in the area is challenging. For the parent of a child with autism, who almost by definition requires more attention than a typical child, and in some cases requires unremitting attention, independence from family is downright burdensome.

Then again, how many parents with ASD children cannot even take advantage of whatever support system they do possess? When Martin was a bolter, I could not have allowed a German musician to supervise him and three other children. When Martin lacked proprioceptive awareness, and had no perception of where the jungle gym ended, I could not have sent him to the playground without one-on-one surveillance. When Martin needed physical restraint to sleep, my 67-year-old mother-in-law being in the apartment would not have given me assurance that I could leave. Adrian and I, moreover, enjoy the advantage of both our families supporting our biomed approach; we do not need to worry about well-meaning relatives slipping Martin sugar-filled cupcakes or cotton candy so that he can “be like other kids.”

I have newfound respect for my grandmother’s lingering attachment to Mainz, her ancestral home, and for Adrian’s hybrid North/South American lifestyle. There exists a comfort zone within a known culture and extended family—something they both lost, and something even I lost when, at 17, I left forever the rural Upstate county where I was born. As the number of children with autism skyrockets, I can only imagine our collective Sehnsucht will expand in tandem.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to find a way to grow the “someone’s got him” model here at home, with the resources available. I’m typing this post on a commuter train, on my way home from work. I just texted Samara to check in. Samara replied that she’s making dinner and Martin is “over at his girlfriends’ house,” meaning the twin girls who live across the street. First I panicked: Is Martin being a bother to our neighbors? What if someone feeds him an off-diet snack? Should I ask Samara to stop making dinner and be with Martin? Then I reasoned: The girls have been inviting Martin to their house, and their mother told me how pleased she is that everyone is playing together. Their mother also knows that Martin can’t have gluten, dairy, or soy, and that we avoid refined sugar. Plus, Martin polices his own food these days. Martin is fine playing at our neighbors’ house.

This week we have friends from Germany staying with us, including a ten-year-old boy, Leo, and his aunt, Heike. Sunday evening, 6:00 pm, Leo was bored and asked Heike to take him and Martin to the playground. I hesitated; the playground is a 20-minute walk away, we hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and on school nights Martin usually goes to bed by 7:45 pm. But how often does Martin get a special evening trip to the playground? He dropped his iPad and ran for the door as soon as he heard Spielplatz—playground—the only German word he recognizes. I started to give directions. Martin proclaimed, “I know the way! I will lead them!”, and off they went, Heike on foot, Martin on scooter, Leo on Martin’s bicycle.

I poured myself a glass of wine, and handed a second glass to Adrian, and said dinner would be late.

“Why? Where’s Martin?”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Heike’s got him.”

dekoschilder57

Del Sur, Interrumpido: Día de las Madres

Posted on by findingmykid
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Sorry, so sorry! I have to interrupt my Del Sur vacation posts for a brief musing on Mother’s Day.

The children’s choir sang at our church Sunday, for Mother’s Day, and Martin sang with them. In addition, Martin was selected as one of three children to read a Bible verse, in front of the whole congregation. He was assigned 1 John 4:19: “We love because He first loved us.”

We began attending this church three years ago, after our family moved out of the City. Almost immediately, Martin began participating in the children’s activities, assisted by the unbelievable coincidence (or divine intervention?) of a Sunday school teacher who had recovered her own son from autism. For the first year, I was too nervous to let Martin participate alone, so I trailed him everywhere. I trailed him to the front of the church when the kids gathered around the pastor for children’s time, because he liked to wander to the organ and hit keys, or make himself at home in the choir’s box.

“Maria!” the pastor called one Sunday as I crept toward the chancel during children’s time, ready to check Martin, who was monopolizing the discussion. “Maria, please sit down. Martin is fine.” Of course, the congregation laughed. I was so embarrassed. After services, I asked whether I shouldn’t come quiet Martin when he talked too much. The pastor responded, “When you came here a year ago, Martin was too scared to open his mouth around me. If now he’s talking a little too much, I can handle that.”

I trailed him to Sunday school in the basement, because I didn’t want the volunteer leaders to feel burdened.

“No, you can’t come,” the Sunday school teacher told me one day. “Go back to your seat. I will send one of the older kids to get you if Martin has any trouble.” When I tried to sneak down and peek through the door, she caught me and shooed me back upstairs.

I trailed him to Tuesday afternoon kids’ club, or sent an assistant along, to make sure he could participate fully and the other children were kind. The kids’ club can be overwhelming; in fact, only this month have I allowed Martin to attend alone—which means Martin is now fully, independently participating in church.

Which brings us to this Sunday.

Adrian and I sat together, five or six rows from the front. Adrian doesn’t usually attend church, but Saturday evening at dinner, Martin had grabbed Adrian’s hand and asked so sweetly, “Daddy, will you not go to the gym tomorrow morning and come to the church to watch me instead?” During the opening hymns and readings, Martin sat with us, clutching the note card with 1 John 4:19.

When the children proceeded to the chancel to sing, Martin led the pack. Their first song, “Praise Him in the Morning,” involved hand gestures for morning, sun, serve, and so forth, and Martin more or less kept up. Then they sang the first verse of “The B-I-B-L-E,” stopping to allow the three children with Bible verses to read. Martin was third. He jumped and flapped his hands for just an instant while he waited, kind of a microburst of nervous excitement. When his turn came, with minimal prompting from a 10-year-old girl, Martin stepped to the microphone and said, “‘We love because He first loved us.’ First John, chapter four, verse 19.” He accentuated the –teen of 19 too much; other than that, the performance was stellar. Finally the children sang another verse of “The B-I-B-L-E” (all the verses are pretty much the same) and a concluding number before receiving their applause and scampering down the aisle to Sunday school.

Adrian recorded the whole performance on his iPhone. I watched from my seat, no concern that I would need to get to the chancel and assist or intervene. Even a year ago, I would have been on the edge of my seat with trepidation, ready to spring to action in case of disruption. This weekend, Adrian and I could have been any two parents proud of their kid.

During coffee hour, an older man I’ve smiled at but don’t recall ever speaking with approached me and said, “Your son did so well today. Even in the time I’ve known him, he’s grown so much.”

It’s going to take a lot to beat this Mother’s Day.