Just to Start

"We're looking at $800 today, just to do x-rays, start an I.V. and do some blood tests to see where we're at. That's just to start."

That's what the vet said. It was two days after our house fire and I had spent most of the night awake calling emergency vets and praying our big dog would make it through the night. The emergency vets didn't want to see him because they didn't have an oxygen tent to fit him and they were sure he needed oxygen. His nasal passages were swollen and his throat was inflamed. He was seriously dehydrated. I looked at him, staggering in front of me, his eyes pleading for help.

I choked back tears as I asked the vet "is he going to live?" "I hope so" he said. Um...that's not a good answer for $800. I knew that was only the starting fee. I thought about it for a brief moment and said "yeah...whatever...do what you need to... my kids have lost everything. We are NOT losing this dog."

We have no idea how long the dogs had been trapped in the burning house, but when the Big Guy tentatively opened the front door, the smoke had almost reached the floor. He tried to enter the house to reach the dogs but it was impossible. We know from the fire report that it was just over 12 minutes from the initial 9-1-1 call to the point the fire was reported as knocked down.  Sometime close to knocked down, the big dog was rescued. 

He was rescued a little later than our yellow lab. The firemen couldn't carry him out in his kennel the way they did the lab because is kennel is enormous. They were probably reluctant to open the kennel and really...who could blame them? They did open the door and he couldn't walk down the stairs. Two firemen carried out our disoriented 125 lb. Jai. According to the report, he received oxygen and I've heard that a family member put wet blankets on him to help cool him down. 

Both dogs received emergency care the night of the fire- steroid injections, oxygen, and a good mouth cleaning. There I was 2 days later with Jai, desperately in need of more care. The vet was right. What he needed that day was just a start. He required long-term antibiotics for pneumonia and medications for all sorts of tummy troubles. Then there were antibiotics for a skin infection. Then pneumonia. Then skin. And so on. 

His immune system is shot. His lungs are damaged. His fur falls out in patches from time to time. He periodically drains our bank account with surprise vet bills. 

But he is here, with us. And for that, we are thankful. He is lovingly known at the groomer and the vet as the fire rescue. 

We love him to pieces. Even if he did just set us back another $267. I wonder if we could sell that beautiful fur to recoup some cash? He doesn't seem to be hanging onto it. It's just yucking up the rug and plugging the vacuum cleaner. Great Pyrenees knitting yarn anyone? 

Pina Coladas and Q-Tips

WARNING: I'm about to overshare.

WARNING: It will be gross.

Still here?

I knew we could be friends.

This very day, I experienced perhaps the nastiest and most bizarre thing I've ever experienced in 18 years of motherhood. And I've experienced some good ones. Like the time I had to pinch one of Tuna's nostrils and hold my hand over her mouth while I blew in the other nostril and shot a slimy, bloody corn kernel out onto my cheek. I was pregnant. I almost vomited. Or the time I had to dig through poo for a week waiting on The Boy to pass a nickel. I don't know why I bothered because he knew when it passed and he dug it out himself. That was fabulous.

Where was I going with that?

Oh yes. Nasty thing. Bizarre. I remember now.

So tonight, I removed a fecal impaction from a guinea pig.

Yes, indeed I did. It was horrific. There was squealing and squirming and Q-Tips involved. (Hey, there's another use for Q-Tips.) Not from the piggie, mind you; from me. No, the pig was fine. He was laid back like he was stretched out in a lawn chair on the beach, toes in the sand, enjoying a pina colada.

I was traumatized. I feel violated. I've seen things I never needed to see. And smelled them. Touched them.

I think I might get sick.

What did this have to do with motherhood, you ask? Well, I wouldn't DO such things if I weren't a mother. Would. Not. But when a sweet child brings you the too-skinny piggie with a tummy ache, you make it better. Because that's what moms do. We sift poo. We remove corn from noses. We clean bums.

I did not get a copy of the job description when I applied for this gig.

I need a pina colada.    

The Prong

"Do you know what this goes to, Ma'am?"

The private fire investigator hired by the insurance company was asking me this question, and he was totally serious. 

The man had sifted through the kitchen cabinet you see above and fished out 4 little pieces of metal; prongs from the electrical cords for a crock pot and cell phone chargers. The cords themselves were melted, or as the insurance company would put it, burned out of sight.  

  

He explained that newer items have solid, cut prongs in the cords and older ones often have the metal folded over. Did I know which one of the prongs he was holding in his hand went to my crock pot? 

I shot him a look that said "are you out of your ever-lovin' mind?" It was a look that said "are you crazy?" and "for reals?" I shot my husband a look that said indeed the fool was crazy and I walked away. 

I needed this guy to do his job, but I was not emotionally prepared to deal with these kind of questions. The insurance company was not willing to start paying until the cause of the fire was determined. Fair enough. The fire chief had already narrowed the cause down to either the crock pot itself, or the outlet it was plugged into, but the insurance company wanted a lot more detail. 

This guy actually reconstructed the whole fire for us which was quite interesting. He explained that the cord had shorted out on the crock pot. He showed us the exact spot on the cord where the sparking would have occurred. The sparking melted the cord, burned for a bit as the fire traveled the overheating wiring into the wall and ceiling, and eventually ignited a bottle of olive oil sitting next to the stove. From there, the fire went up and out in a large triangle, catching the ceiling and consuming the kitchen. Heat and flame began to push out from the kitchen to the family room and dining room and the heat in the house grew intense, melting plastics in every room in the house. 

His work was intriguing, but still...the question seemed ridiculous. Who could actually identify their crock pot or cell phone charger by that little metal prong? I was wearing my $1 flip-flops, too-large donated jeans and my new black t-shirt for the third day in a row and I was operating on very little sleep. I was standing in the soot-covered ruins of my home, grieving the loss of years of memories. And this man wanted me to identify from memory a tiny metal prong. I had zero patience. 

He was not deterred at all. 

He started sifting through this wet pile of insulation and charred drywall on the front lawn and he pulled out a piece of blackened fabric. Only about 6 inches of this thing, whatever it was, remained and no pattern or color was visible. 

"Do you know what this is?" he asked. I will not repeat here what I said to him. 

He asked where our kitchen towel was when the fire started. Again, I shot this man a look that conveyed powerful emotions. I was contemplating taking a long walk, but those $1 flip-flops kept me from fleeing. 

I explained that we have five kids. Five. Cooking and chores are a group effort in our home. The dinner hour is chaos. I hadn't been home for a few hours prior to the fire, but if I had to imagine what our kitchen looked like in those hours, it would look something like this: One child was lazily doodling a dish brush on some dirty dishes. One child was cleaning the kitchen cabinets, sweeping crumbs right into the floor. One child was collecting recycling, taking a swing at a sister as they passed by. One child was probably hiding in the bathroom hoping not to be noticed until chore time had passed. One child was playing under the table petting a dog. The Big Guy was likely checking the chicken in the crock pot, yelling at two kids to stop touching each other, asking one to go find rice, and calling another by the wrong name. That would be a totally normal evening in our home. 

The towel might have been on the island. It might have been on the counter. It might have been laced through the cabinet or refrigerator handle. It might have been in the floor. It might have been a tutu for one of the dogs. Who knows? Who cares? It didn't start the fire. It didn't put the fire out. I could not comprehend how it was relevant.

I have never been so blatantly rude to a human being as I was to that man at that moment. To this day, I am embarrassed but unapologetic. It had only been a few days, but the fire had already changed me. I had a new found sense of what was important in life, and this stupid piece of metal was not it. 

And yet...it's been 21 months since the fire and I am still holding onto that little piece of metal. I keep it in a little box on my desk. I'm not entirely sure why. It seems to symbolize some very intense feelings that I can't quite resolve. It still triggers feelings of anger and emptiness. It seems to epitomize the disbelief that overwhelmed me in those early days and weeks. I can't seem to let it go. 

Maybe I should hang it from my keychain or something. 

Sharing Our Story on BlogHer!

You may have read this post I wrote about my son and how he has embraced his autism. Well, now you can read it here because it is syndicated on BlogHer!

I'm so excited that I can share our story with others. There were definitely days that our story did not read the way it does today. There were days we didn't know if the ending would be a happy one. And it was during those days that I searched for others with similar stories to share because I needed to grasp the possibility of a happy ending. The stories seemed too few and far between because it is challenging to share difficult moments of a teenager's life.

I'm touched that my son allowed me to share his story and honored to have it syndicated on BlogHer.

Be sure to drop by there and join the conversation!  

A Tale of a Tail

Warning: This post contains graphic content.

Still here?

Don't say I didn't tell you.

The Boy went bike riding with his girlfriend yesterday on a local trail. He returned with a tale to tell that only one of our herd could possibly tell. These things don't really happen in normal families, do they?

I'm so disturbed by this.

According to The Boy, an unreasonably bold squirrel charged onto the path and began to play a serious game of chicken.

He swerved, but couldn't miss the little critter. He bounced and rolled several feet into the woods and the squirrel...

Well, his tale (tail?) was not such a happy one.

Yes, that is what you think it is. A piece of tail. 

At least The Boy had his girlfriend to comfort him. That poor squirrel had to nurse his wounds all by himself.  

I'm just so incredibly thankful that he didn't bring the tail home. 

Embracing Autism

Once upon a time...

...into the world, a bouncing, baby boy arrived. He was a chunk of cute at 9 lbs. 12 oz. His Apgar scores were perfect. He was the perfect picture of a healthy baby.

And then...

...then the developmental milestones began to lag. We hoped day by day that our bouncing baby boy would bounce up on his knees and learn to crawl, but it was not to be. Instead, he drug his little body along the carpet by one elbow. It was a unique method of movement, but not out of the range of normal according to our Parents As Teachers educator.

We waited anxiously to play pat-a-cake and interactive games but The Boy was not interested.  That was not quite out of the range of normal, according to the pediatrician.

Our precious boy could eat! Oh, could he eat. He could put away some Gerber. In fact, I've never seen so many Gerber baby food jars. I don't think we went through that many baby food jars with all of our other four kids combined. He just would not transition to table food. That should have been a red flag, but it was not really out of the range of normal.

He was a regular little Houdini. There was not a child-proofing device created that he couldn't untangle before your eyes faster than you could get it installed.

We had reached a point where other little ones were learning to talk, but not The Boy. He grunted. He pointed. He uttered two-word chunks of sound like "too-too nain" for choo-choo train. But talk, he did not. This, was a little outside the range of normal. At age three, The Boy entered a preschool for children with special needs and we worked with the school district to develop what would be an ongoing and constantly evolving IEP. The first support for the IEP was speech and language.

The Boy on the preschool playground

In kindergarten, The Boy was sure he was a Super Boy. He had good logic for this. Super Boys, you see, were going to come to the earth when all of the people became extinct. The Boy had accidentally arrived early. The people would become extinct just as the dinosaurs had before them and then all of the other Super Boys would join him and he wouldn't be alone. The Boy's teachers did not feel this was at all within the range of normal. Looking back, what The Boy was trying to tell us in his own way, was that he didn't fit in here with all of these neurotypical humans. He knew that he was different.

One teacher told us The Boy was retarded and recommended the school district administer an IQ test and evaluate him for special services. He stunned the person who administered the exam and she reported that he likely had a genius-level IQ, if only he'd been willing to cooperate with the test. She had asked him to spell his name, which he did. An hour later she asked him to recite the alphabet, which he did, minus all of the letters in his name. When she inquired about the missing letters he replied "I already told you the other letters in my name." The poor woman couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she assured us this child was 'different' but not retarded. Well...we knew that all along. 

Second grade rolled around and The Boy could talk just like any other second grader but he had struggled to learn to read so the IEP evolved from supports for speech and language to supports for reading. Less than a year later he was reading well beyond grade level. 

By fourth grade his state-wide math scores were phenomenal and his reading scores were pretty impressive too, but he had not picked up many of the typical skills that boys his age had long-since mastered. He was a walking encyclopedia of dinosaur facts, but he didn't ride a bike or tie his own shoes. He couldn't stand to get wet and would often stuff toilet paper under his clothing if he got a drop of water on himself. 

Life with The Boy was different. 

It was about this time that a psychiatrist put a name on different. The Boy, he said, had Asperger's Syndrome. It fit and we were excited. We finally had a definition of different.  There was an explanation for being just at the edge of within the normal range. And, it explained why The Boy felt like he was on the wrong planet. It is a feeling shared by many who are on the Autism spectrum. 

Then this thing happened. Puberty. Suddenly, we went from different to we're never going to survive the teen years!

Middle school brought its own nightmares. The easy routine of elementary school was gone forever and there were multiple class periods and teachers to adjust to. There were crowds of kids in the halls, The smells, sights, and sounds were overwhelming. And the whole mess mixed with the hormones of puberty made for a volatile combination. 

Many people with autism stim (short for self-stimulatory behavior) when they are overwhelmed. This leads to the typical pacing and hand-flapping often associated with autism. More rarely, some people with autism tend toward violent meltdowns. The Boy was of this flavor. When he is overwhelmed (when the sensory stimulation of the day has been too much) he enters a sort of fight-flight-or-freeze stage. This is not to say he doesn't stim. Trust me, we see (and hear) our fair share of stimming. 

Too often, the stress of a long day at school would push The Boy into a fight-flight-or-freeze moment. The teen years were filled with running away, threats of violence, and increasingly violent behavior at home. As a family, we engaged in many, many long hours of therapy and in-home case management to learn to reduce the triggers that would lead to a violent meltdown and to help The Boy learn to consciously choose to freeze (or step away) instead of fight or flee. 

We were on a first-name basis with our county's emergency personnel. They knew our home and situation well. Sometimes just a visit from an officer was enough to restore calm. Other times there were transports to the hospital. Some times we resorted to respite care outside the home for short periods of time. The in-home therapist was like part of the family, spending two to three nights a week at times in our home. The self-soothing behaviors that seemed to come so easily for some required a lot of practice for The Boy. 

Somewhere along the way The Boy had moved into high school and it was there that he really found his footing. The IEP had evolved to include supports for organizational skills and support blocks for each core class because school work was to happen at school and home time was for home stuff. Hence, no homework at home. All homework had to be completed at school during support blocks. The rigid thinking of autism was rearing its ugly head. 

In high school The Boy found his people- his Super Boys (and girls). He realized there were lots of people on the spectrum and he not only embraced his autism, he became a champion for it. He joined Anime Club, Environmental Club, the Gay-Straight Alliance, Computer Club, and Quidditch. He served on the Teen Advisory Board at the local library. He volunteered with the local animal shelter from time to time. He attended every school dance and served on the yearbook staff. This boy, who by the very definition of autism would have a  qualitative impairment in social interaction, was so social we could hardly keep up with his schedule. 

It was late in his high school years that a more formal evaluation changed his diagnosis to Autsim. The Boy has had to work really hard to learn to live with autism in a world that is predominantly neurotypical. He feels deeply the daily stress of living in a world that is too busy, too loud, too smelly, and too rooted in social skills that have no importance to him at all. Some days, this world is just too much, but he greets every day with new energy. He offers such profound insight to this world we live in. He finds beauty in nature,  creativity in art, and the best of human nature in the people around him. He is really quite amazing. 

So...

It's easy to understand why my heart is bursting with pride this week. 

Once upon a time there was a little boy who was diagnosed with autism. 

And he grew into an amazing young man. 

And he graduated. 

He closed one chapter of his life and he opened a new one. 

His autism is not cured. It is not conquered. And it will not cease to present new challenges as he enters college. 

He has EMBRACED his autism. 

And I could not be more proud of him. 

*Posted with permission from The Boy

It's All Coming Together!

Kapop. The sound I've heard for two days is KAPOP. 

Kapop. Kapop. Kapop. Kapop. It is the sound of a nail gun  and it is sweet music. It means the baseboards are being installed!

The Big Guy has been working like crazy to finish up the interior of the house this week. 

We have shelves in the linen closet! (Do not make fun of my sheet-folding skills. They are clean. They are folded. What more do you want?) 

The Big Guy even built this awesome little storage rack in the pantry to hold all of our stoneware. Now I don't have to hold my breath every time the kids try to get the rectangle stone off the bottom of the stack. 

I even got in on the action and created my first handmade item for our new-old home. The Big Guy salvaged an old pine board from a pallet that had been laying around post-construction and I painted our last name across it. I am so very proud of myself because I have no artistic talent whats-so-ever. Thankfully, I had excellent instructions to follow courtesy of Miss Mustard Seed. She has a fabulous tutorial on her site. You should go check it out and create your own antique-style signs because that is totally my thing now and I think everyone should join me in my new obsession