Teen Autism

First and foremost, thank you all so much for your thoughts, your prayers, and your love. Aidan’s surgery yesterday was successful, and he is already recovering remarkably well. I feel truly blessed to be a part of such a caring community of people. Aidan was in good hands yesterday, and even though I was relieved to see him after surgery, I knew that he would be all right.

Nigel, it would seem, was not as confident. I made it a point for him to not go to school yesterday so that he would be at the hospital with us for a few different reasons. One, I knew that he would be anxious all day long knowing that his brother was in surgery, and if I had him go to school, his behavior would have reflected that. In the past, he has not done well at school when Aidan was just home with an illness. Nigel would not have done well at school if I had sent him. Two, I wanted Nigel (and Aidan) to know that when family members go to have surgery, their family members go with them. We have to be there for each other. Lastly, I wanted him to experience being in a hospital for several hours and know what that’s like and learn to handle it.

We got to the hospital at 7 AM to check Aidan in, and his surgery began at 8:15. Shortly before that, his dad (who drove 700 miles to be here for the surgery) and I took turns leaning over Aidan to kiss him and tell him that we love him and we’d see him soon. Then Nigel walked up and leaned over Aidan, who immediately put up an arm to fend off any potential brother kisses. I think Nigel expected that. He held his position and just said, “Hang in there.” And that was when I wanted to cry. Because Nigel somehow figured out a way to let his brother know that he cared without alienating him. I put my arm around him and led him out to the waiting area and told him that he’d said the perfect thing to his brother.

To distract Nigel during the surgery, we went down to the hospital cafeteria to get some breakfast. Nigel had corn flakes and a bowl of watermelon chunks, and I had a somewhat rubbery omelette. We went back to the waiting area and Nigel watched a movie on his portable DVD player until we were paged that the surgery was finished. At that point we went back to Aidan’s room to talk with the surgeon, who assured us that everything had gone well and showed us photos of what had been removed. Twenty minutes later, Aidan was wheeled in, not only conscious but talking with the nurses as they were coming down the hall. It felt so good to see his sweet face. I kissed his forehead and he said, “Mom, could you kiss my lips?” Then he showed us his four incisions and told Nigel about the anesthetic. After a few minutes we all sat down and resumed reading/TV watching while Aidan dozed.

Nigel, however, was transfixed on the machine that read Aidan’s vitals. He would not take his eyes off of it and updated me on its status every minute or so. “It looks like he’s having a really crazy dream,” “What do those letters stand for?”, “It dropped below 90,” and even “Mom! It looked like he almost flat-lined for a second!” At the time, it seemed like Nigel was just entertained by the mechanical device. But last night, I started to wonder if he was truly concerned, if he really feared for his brother’s welfare. He kept his vigil the entire time Aidan was hooked up to the machines, as if he thought that Aidan was in critical condition. Even hours after we came home and Aidan was obviously fine, Nigel complained of a stomachache and had worked himself into such an anxious state that he threw up.

In recent years, Nigel has shown an increasing empathetic nature. Whether it’s for a nervous friend or a cat that was accidentally stepped on, he shows empathy. And so does he and so does she. And many others, I’m sure, collectively refuting the old “ASD people don’t show empathy” myth. Not only do they show it, they feel it so intensely that they become upset over it. So yes, there is definitely empathy. There is compassion and support. There is an older brother looking out for his younger brother. And there is love.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Emotions. 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.