"Anthony has evolved."

Our younger son had just come up the stairs, and surprised us with this curious statement. When we naturally pressed him for more information, he said that he had had Anthony walking on the treadmill as we often do, but this time Anthony suddenly stepped off it while it was moving, removed his shoes, and pointed to the power switch. No amount of coaxing would get him back on.

Those who have read this blog for some time will probably understand the noteworthiness of that. I have pointed out previously--probably more than once--that his level of cognition is such that he doesn't even understand when we tell him to turn off a light or retrieve for us a particular piece of dinnerware; it's all a guessing game to him.

And, while we have also seen that he does have the ability to learn to do some things that help him achieve his objectives (such as rewinding a videotape or inserting a DVD into the machine; some children's movies have an autoplay feature), we are also endlessly grateful that he hasn't identified simple tactics to counter our efforts to subdue him when he is violently intent on hurting us.

As always, though, this sort of incident ultimately remains nothing more than a novelty to us. Perhaps there will come a time when there is a breakthrough and this materially changes our lives, but we know better than to get our hopes up.

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I realized after reviewing my previous post about Anthony cutting his head that I should have followed with an update.

We waited longer than the specified time to have his head heal before returning to get the staples removed. Nevertheless, he promptly pulled the skin apart again after returning home. Of course, the wound was no longer as deep as it had been, but staples were no longer an option. So, we went back to get it stitched up; so much for the efforts to not leave a scar.

Then, when my wife and I were on the plane across the country to begin our long-awaited trip overseas, we received word from our daughter that Anthony had caused the stitched area to start bleeding. We seriously considered returning home in case Anthony had to be taken to the hospital yet again--could our daughter do it without us? Would we need to give her power of attorney? If so, could we find some form online, sign it digitally, and get it back to her to take him to the hospital? But we were able to contact our service coordinator, who advised that that would not be necessary.

We instructed our daughter to watch to see if he bloodied the area more overnight, as he might be attempting to remove the stitches. We hoped that doing so would cause him too much pain, and that he would cease his efforts. Thankfully, he did stop and we heard nothing further regarding the issue for the remainder of our trip.

After returning home, I again chose to wait some time before taking him back to the doctor. When we finally went, we discovered that he had indeed pulled out one of the four stitches that first night, but that was the extent of it. I have been concerned that he might eventually scratch through the scar, but to this point he seems to have accepted it as just a new part of his scalp.