Teen Autism

I’ve had several inquiries about how Aidan is doing, and the short answer is this: He is not in pain, but we still don’t have any answers.

In the past four weeks, Aidan has given about nine vials of blood and at least as many stool samples, which is not fun for either of us. He’s had his stomach x-rayed and endured two rectal exams. And today, we went through a lengthy radiological scan.

I’m sure many of you know what it’s like to sit next to your child in a hospital bed, or on a gurney, holding his hand and stroking his head as you tell him to relax and try to hold still while this thing scans him for an hour and that you’re right here and it’s going to be okay. And you read to him and talk to him and periodically reach over to apply pressure to the injection site because he said that makes it feel better. And there’s a huge machine hovering over his little, fragile body, and just as you think, God, I hope that thing is secure, your son says, “Mom?  What if this thing falls on me?” And you tell him, “Honey, if that happened, it would make a creaking noise and start to bend first, and in that instant I would grab you, ‘cause I’m right here, and I would pull you out of the way before it fell on you. I promise you.” Because I am your mom. And it kills me to not know what’s wrong. As I watched on the screen while the diagnostic chemical moved its way through his digestive system, I hoped that it wasn’t doing more harm as we tried to rule out yet another potential cause of his internal bleeding, which has lessened considerably but is still present. A slow bleed, the doctors called it.

They have ruled out E. coli and salmonella and internal hemorrhoids and ulcers. Next month is a visit to the gastroenterologist for a sigmoidoscopy. So not fun. And part of me thinks that Aidan’s limited eating is at least a contributing factor, so I have also set up an appointment with a counselor to address that issue. One way or another, we will figure this out.

And the other part of Double Duty? The Nigel-back-at-regular-school variable? Aside from the initial unsupervised-lunch-time spectacle, things seem to be going well. So far so good, I’m happy to report. At this point, the less damage control needed, the better. At any point, really.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 12:03 am and is filed under Health & Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.