Heartbroken

To watch your child get so upset over something very minor is just heartbreaking!  I sit here heartbroken as I don't know how to help my child when he gets to the "out of control" point of his Autism.  I hate Autism!  I hate Autism!  I HATE AUTISM!!!!!! 

Some days it is so hard! 

We have often described to Caleb's doctors and other people that sometimes it appears that a switch is flipped inside of Caleb when he has one of his episodes.  Until people experience they don't really understand what we're talking about.  Caleb's teacher finally understood after the first big blow up at school and the resource officers had to called to help.  We talked about it later and she said it wasn't that she didn't believe me when I had explained it to her, she just didn't truly get it until she saw it happen.

Caleb has spent today and the last two days at The Arc of Sedgwick County's Spring Break Break. It's a program for kids with developmental disabilities to go while school is out and they have various activities in the community.  Tuesday they went bowling - Caleb's absolute favorite thing to do.  Yesterday they went to the movie and out to lunch.  Today they went swimming.  Tomorrow they are going to the zoo.  Caleb would have gone on Monday, but he had a dentist appointment.  He really surprised me and did very well, even allowing the hygienist to use the power tooth brush to clean his teeth.  (I just never know some days!)  I have been given nothing but good reports this week from the staff at the program.

I should have known when we got in the car and I asked Caleb how swimming went and he was fine and said he had fun.  Then immediately the switch was flipped and he was immediately angry and said, "I hate them.  They wouldn't let me go in the deep water.  I hate them."  Now, mind you, this is a child that HATES water.  It is like World War III trying to get him to take a bath!!!!

Caleb went on to surprise me by eating what I cooked - now he didn't eat a lot, but he didn't have his normal dinner of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and waffles, which has been all that he would eat lately.  Emily, Caleb's worker, arrived tonight and he was in his room.  Tonight was Bible study night, so Emily was going to stay home with Caleb while the rest of us went to church.  Caleb started not listening.  He crawled under the high chair and refused to come out.  I started talking to Emily about Caleb's practice times Special Olympics Track, which starts next Thursday.  Since Emily starts work at 6 on Thursdays, she can meet us at the practice and then I would have time to make it to church for small group and Emily can bring Caleb home after practice.

Caleb and Cassidy started talking about track and Caleb started trying to race in the house.  We tried to get him to stop and he refused.  I'm not really sure what happened next, but Caleb started banging the wall under the kitchen bar with his hand.  I tried to stop him and he got away from me.  He move down to the wall with the ledge along our stairs to the basement and started hitting that wall.  I pulled him over to the couch and restrained him.  It took 45 minutes for him to calm down and agree to go get a bath.  He was extremely itchy and I knew at that time I needed to get the chlorine off of him.

I sent Tony and Cassidy to church and stayed home in case things escalated again.  Right now he's calm and downstairs with Emily watching cartoons.

I HATE AUTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to end this on a happy note, little guy has finally started pulling himself up to a stand.  Today at physical therapy he actually took a couple of cruising steps!  His therapist is thrilled with how he is doing.  I also learned yesterday that there is a tentative Best Interest Staffing date scheduled for April 7th - as long as they get the journal entry for the court!  At that time, if things go the way we expect it to go, we should then be able to start moving through the adoption process for him!