I realize today that it has been four months since I last posted.  During that time, I could (and probably should) have written about asking people at church to redirect their thrift store clothing donations to us to try to keep up with Anthony ripping his clothes apart.  We were extremely grateful for the overwhelming response, and thought we would be set for quite some time.  Unfortunately, Anthony has picked up the ripping pace again after a lull, so supplies are thinning out much more quickly than we were hoping.

I also could (and probably should) have written about Anthony's new obsession with taking his dishes to the sink and trying to wash them.  That doesn't sound like a bad thing, but when he doesn't understand the concept and gets upset on being prevented from playing in the water for half an hour, it's not so great.  To make matters more interesting, we have also determined that we will need to put the knives away instead of letting them dry with other dishes on the counter; it's a good thing he didn't recognize their potential use as weapons when he grabbed one. 

And, I won't deny that it was likely something approaching laziness that kept me from writing about Anthony getting suspended from school for violence, my obtaining permission to work from home for a couple of days to stay with him, and then him getting another brief suspension the next week.  My wife met with his teachers to emphasize that telling Anthony, "No!" is effectively a provocation to attack.  When necessary, we do yell his name to get his attention, but then we do everything we can to push/pull/drag him away from whatever situation we deem undesirable rather than saying, "No!".  

But, after all my shirking, I really felt I had to write today.

My wife called me about an hour before I was scheduled to leave work, asking if I could leave right then.  After some discussion, I closed down my work and explained the problem to my manager, who offered to have others finish my few remaining tasks.  I didn't think that would be necessary, but I reconsidered later as I was driving.  In the interim, the policeman who had been called to the scene had gotten my number and called me directly to ask if I was coming to get Anthony.  I told him my wife had briefed me and that I was on my way.  The officer told me a medical unit had been called as well to attend to Anthony because of the contusions he was inflicting upon himself by banging his head on loose gravel.  I told him the last thing I wanted was more medical expenses with Anthony, and that, based on experience, I was certain he would not need medical attention.  I called my wife--who was closer--to try to get her there quickly to prevent anyone from working on him.  

Thankfully, when I arrived, the policeman was gone and there was no sign of a medical unit.  My wife was speaking with Anthony's school principal and staff from Anthony's service provider.  Anthony was already seated in his customary third-row seat of our sport-utility vehicle, the one we consider necessary to prevent him from reaching over and attacking the driver.  My wife traded keys with me so she could go to pick up our younger son and go to a scheduled parent-teacher conference.  

Anthony's assigned staff member (I'll call him "Kevin" to make things easier) told me that, as he was driving Anthony to the service provider after school, he had his hand on the gear shifter in his car when Anthony put his hand on top.  Kevin lifted his hand off, and Anthony tried to start pinching his hand, then punched him.  Not with a great deal of force, to be sure, but certainly with enough to be a cause for concern.  He then started banging his head against the window.  Kevin pulled to the side of the road in a rural residential area and got Anthony out of the car.  Someone driving by saw the commotion of Anthony attacking and Kevin trying to subdue him, rolled down his window, and called out, "I'm going to call the police!" Kevin said, "Why??", and the passer-by said, "Because you guys are fighting!"  Kevin tried to explain the situation, but a police officer showed up shortly thereafter nonetheless.  

According to Anthony's principal, the officer has been to Anthony's school and is familiar with special-needs kids.  However, because Anthony was unruly and looking as though he would end up in traffic as he tried to attack Kevin and the officer, the officer handcuffed Anthony and forced him to the ground.  It was some time after this that he called to tell me Anthony was banging his head into the gravel leading to a driveway.  Thankfully, my wife got there before I did.  It turns out that police backup had been requested; my wife tells me there were five or six officers there by that time. However, there was no medical unit. Hooray for that! 

So, when I got there, Anthony had already calmed down, had been released from his handcuffs, and was sitting quietly in our vehicle.  I spoke at length with his principal and service provider staff, discussing why he might have gotten upset--I am fairly certain Anthony wanted to move the gear shifter as he did in a previous instance--and other aspects of his behavior and care.  The service provider staff reaffirmed their commitment to doing whatever necessary to work with him (for which I am extremely grateful), and we said our goodbyes.  

And then I, with Anthony, went to pick up my daughter, half an hour late.  

I rarely, if ever, post again so soon, but I thought today warranted it.

I got home from work as usual about half an hour before Anthony was scheduled to return from school.  No one else was home due to outside time commitments.  I was really tired and knew that I wouldn't get the chance to rest later, so I lay down with the anticipation that I would be getting up within 20 minutes at the sound of Anthony's approaching bus.

Instead, I had barely started to relax when I heard the bus, fully fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.  I hurried to the door to assure the driver that I was here so that he wouldn't honk the horn; I can't imagine the neighbors care for that.  Instead of waving at me, however, he motioned for me to come out to the bus instead of letting Anthony off to come in on his own as usual.  Now it was making sense, I thought; Anthony must be upset so they detoured to bring him home first.

Since I didn't have my shoes on, I closed the door briefly to put on them on, but, alas, I was too slow--the driver honked his horn thinking (I imagined) that I hadn't gotten the message.

I got out to the bus and, as I climbed on, said, "Anthony's not doing well today, I guess?" But the driver surprised me by motioning to Anthony and responding, "He's ripping off his pants!"  He and the bus aide had not seen Anthony do that, I surmised, so while they were consternated over him exposing most of his underwear, I simply said, "Yeah, he's doing that a lot these days."  I got him off the bus and hoped that no neighbors were watching, but, if they were, I imagine they would understand.

I keep planning to schedule a trip to the thrift shop, and my wife had actually intended to buy him a couple of things as well recently but forgot while addressing the rest of her shopping list.  We'll just have to bump it up the priority list a couple of spots; I doubt there are any nudist colonies nearby.

Anthony is getting even worse with ripping fabric.  A couple of days ago, he ripped apart two pairs of shorts.  Today, he came home from school having ripped the shirt he had worn to school, plus an additional one in his backpack as a replacement, and his undershirt.  And, to seal the horror... he got off the bus wearing a sweatshirt supporting my alma mater's bitter rival (cue "Psycho" theme music).  Well, beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

And we could well end up beggars at the rate we're going.  As I have written in the past, we frequent a thrift shop for much of Anthony's clothing because of his relative indifference to what he wears, combined with his propensity to stain or damage things quickly.  But even then, if we're looking at $20, $30, or more every month, that will certainly start to add up.  Even more than the money involved, though--since ultimately we can divert from other expenditures to cover if that becomes necessary--is the added stress of having to replace clothing constantly.  We face the real possibility, for instance, of Anthony temporarily being without pants to wear if he keeps ripping things and the last remaining articles are in the wash.  The thrift stores we go to are not particularly close, and trips to them require planning to fit in with already very busy schedules.  And while closer big box discount stores may be on the inexpensive end for a new clothing item or two, they will often be twice or more the cost of what we would pay secondhand.

We're in one of those stretches with Anthony that seriously challenge us with regard to coming up with solutions or sufficient patience.  But maybe we need to think "outside the box".  Instead of always worrying about clothes for Anthony, perhaps there is a nudist colony that would take him off our hands....

"Dad, have you seen the spray paint I was using?" I knew my daughter was working on a project for her group date to a school dance that night.  "No, I haven't.  I guess you've asked Mom?" In many households, Mom can find anything, and my wife is no exception, but in our household Mom also has an amusing/maddening compulsion to immediately put away anything that is not where she deems it should be.

But Mom, who was out running errands, denied being the culprit in this instance.

I knew I had seen the spray paint in question, and thought I knew *where* I had seen it, so my thoughts then turned to Anthony.  What would Anthony do if he saw that can? First, if it had a label he could possibly remove, that would be gone.  And then....

I opened the trash can.  Nothing.  I rummaged down further, and there it was: a label-less metal can, easily avoiding detection by a scan of the contents at the top.

My daughter, who was by this time approaching a state of despair due to time constraints before her friends arrived, had Mom on the phone discussing the matter.  I, feeling highly satisfied with my sleuthing abilities, proudly produced the can and handed it to her while she was yet on her phone.  And then it came, through gritted teeth: "I. Hate. Anthony!"  I tried to get her to lighten up and joked that we just have to try to mimic his thought processes.

But while our daughter doesn't always "hate" Anthony, the rest of us understand her sentiment.  Later in the evening, I heard my wife exclaim, "Nooooo!" It turned out that Anthony had ripped the tag off an article of her cherished exercise clothing, ruining it.  And between those incidents, Anthony ended up with wet pants when my wife arrived with him at our younger son's soccer game, despite having taken him to the bathroom before the game--I'm guessing he didn't go--and making him wear a diaper.  I am resigned to thinking we're at the point where we would be surprised if Anthony did not cause us problems like these regularly.

My wife took Anthony to see a neurologist today as recommended by the doctor at the emergency room last week.  She called worriedly to ask if I could somehow leave work--I ended up finishing at home--to join her at the doctor's office because Anthony was showing signs of getting violent.  Thankfully, we didn't have an incident there.

The doctor told us, somewhat differently from what we heard at the emergency room, that the chance of having a second seizure is in fact 50% within the next six months for people in general, and higher than that for those with autism.  If Anthony makes it past six months without one, the likelihood for another episode goes down significantly.  We were grateful to have clarification about that, as well as information about what to do in general if it happens again.  We will also be getting an emergency nasal spray prescription that can stop a seizure if it goes excessively long--we learned that a seizure that lasts five minutes, for instance, is just as likely to continue for ten, and clearly intervention would then be in order if possible.

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As I have mentioned before, we are at a loss about what to do with Anthony wetting himself.  He has completely regressed to not even considering going to the bathroom on his own before doing so.  Maddeningly, he will come out to us or go into the bathroom immediately *after* he has done it, and it is apparent that he knows we won't be happy with him.  We don't know what to think.  It's almost as though the blessing we felt of him suddenly learning to go on his own at five years of age--after nothing we tried worked--has just as suddenly been revoked.

This impacts us not only in time lost due to dealing with him once, twice, and even thrice a day with the washing, changing, cleaning, et cetera, but there is an additional challenge for us, and part of it is almost amusing: we have to scramble to find pants or shorts for him to wear because things are constantly being soiled and waiting to be washed, and I realized today that the stack of plastic bags we get from stores for our garbage has been depleted because we keep using them for Anthony's wet clothes.  We will have to stop being ecologically friendly and ask for more plastic rather than paper bags for the time being, I guess.

I had been thinking I needed to follow up on the last post--we ultimately do have to find another service provider--as well as write about Anthony continuing to defy all attempts to stop his urinating problems, but today we experienced something new: he had a seizure.

As today was a holiday, I was off work.  And as fate would have it, I did not sleep well last night, so I had not yet gone outside to work in the garden as I had planned.  My wife and younger son were out, so only my daughter was with me when Anthony began making a commotion in his bedroom indicating something was seriously wrong.  My daughter's own initial reaction was that she was hearing an earthquake, but she quickly realized it was only in Anthony's room.  I rushed in to find him convulsing on the floor with a heavier chair on top of him, and called my daughter in to help me get the chair off him.  In the same small area, he has a table where he sits to work on puzzles; we moved that away as well and tried to sit him up as he was beginning to turn blue.  I realized the gravity of the situation, and both my daughter and I had brief thoughts that the unthinkable might be happening before our eyes.  Thankfully, I did manage to get him up and breathing again.  But Anthony is heavy, and trying to lift a limp body of that size is not an easy task.

My daughter ran to the computer to search on what to do when someone is having a seizure, and told me to turn him on his side and cushion his head.  We did that, but he was on the floor and it didn't look very comfortable, in addition to the fact that he was also lying on scattered puzzle pieces, so I tried to lift him without success to get him on his bed.  My daughter said a person who has just had a seizure will also be very groggy, and that was indeed the case with Anthony, but we did manage to get him to climb onto his bed, after which he rested nicely for about three hours.

Later, after some discussion and considering advice from others, my wife and I took Anthony to an urgent care section of the hospital, where they determined it would be best to have him go to the emergency room to run some tests.  The doctor said the results showed nothing out of the ordinary and, more importantly, told us that of those who ever experience a seizure in their lifetimes, 80% will never experience another.

On a personal note, hearing that figure was a tremendous relief to me.  For a few hours today, I was revisiting the struggles I had years ago to separate lack of control with regard to Anthony's condition from other areas, including professional, of my life.  I am grateful to likely not have yet more stress to combat.

We learned at the hospital, by the way, that Anthony weighs 215 pounds.  We now have a renewed determination to get him to lose weight, just in case this ever happens again.

We received a call from Anthony's community support provider on Friday saying Anthony had gotten violent, and asking us to come get him rather than them bringing him home as they normally would.  We are of course never particularly surprised to get such calls, and I went to pick him up without giving much thought to it.  I had not heard the details and casually told the waiting male staff that Anthony probably needed to have a bowel movement; I would take him home and have him sit on the toilet.

The full story was rather more serious than that. It turns out that he tried to rip a tag off another boy's shirt--yes, we are still dealing with that, along with the urinating problems--and a female staffer tried to stop him.  Anthony got upset and slammed his head into hers, sending her to the hospital with a concussion.  We were asked to keep Anthony home Saturday and Monday while the staff re-evaluates how (or whether) they want to proceed with him.

Anthony is in some ways more difficult to deal with than many other autistic individuals.  Because he is pretty easy-going much of the time, he can lull his handlers into a false sense of security around him.  We are always quite specific about the dangers associated with him: he doesn't get violent often, but when he does, he will do anything he can to hurt his handler if he thinks he can get away with it.  The special needs school that he separately goes to, for instance, has a male staffer that they immediately call when Anthony gets upset.  But we understand that if a staffer sees Anthony for an extended period without a violent episode, he or she might default to thinking Anthony does not require as much diligence as do others.  And then something like this can happen.

Since violence with Anthony ultimately is a matter of when rather than if, we would prefer that he have an episode soon after entering a new environment to let people see that we weren't kidding about him.  Sadly, we don't have control over that. Perhaps we need to consistently reiterate what Anthony is capable of doing until they see it for themselves.

We are going through one of the more difficult stretches we have had with Anthony.  Along with his self-wetting not abating regardless of how diligent we are in having him go to the toilet in a timely manner, his oft-noted obsession with peeling and ripping things has been taken to a more destructive level: he now wants to rip tags off fabric.  That fabric might be towels, or it might be clothing, and depending on how he rips the tags off--as his only concern is doing it rather than taking into consideration the status of the article afterward--we have had several items of clothing ruined in the process, some of them of reasonable worth.

I think the combination of these two problems reasonably qualifies for "at wits' end" status for us.  Anthony wetting himself and whatever surface he is on can happen at any time like it did late last night when we were already very tired and past bedtime, or it can be during the period after taking him to the bathroom after a meal and before he has eaten or drunk anything else like today.  Because of his limited comprehension of speech, trying to talk to him and explain what we need from him is about as effective as saying the same things to a pet, although I do try.

With regard to the tag-ripping, if he gets his hand on an object, it's too late.  Amazingly, he *does* understand when we raise our voices and tell him to stop, but it doesn't matter; so strong is his desire to do it.  We have to be constantly vigilant about keeping him away from closets or laundry or any place else he might find something to rip, and that is just not always feasible.  Short of locking up all clothing and other fabric at all times, finding him ripping yet more items is very likely an eventuality.

Yet even with the negative aspects of these things, there is often a bit of lightheartedness.  My wife asked which of us were going to grate the cheese for our homemade pizza today.  My daughter jawed with me to try to get me to do it instead of her.  I was quite ready to make her a deal: I would happily make the admittedly-considerable effort to grate a lot of cheese, if she would clean up the sofa cushion Anthony had wet.  Surprisingly, she didn't take me up on my offer....

Anthony has suddenly started regressing with regard to using the toilet when he needs to.  Whereas the occasional problems with him wetting himself in the past could largely be attributed to change of routine, for the last month or so he has defied explanation in choosing to wet himself rather than going to the bathroom when he needs to.  We had a period wherein he wet himself every day for several in a row, and two or three times in some instances.  I thought he was getting better, but yesterday was yet again another day when he did it twice despite us feeling like we were reasonably on top of things with regard to sending him to the bathroom. We're not certain what to make of it.  The only other thing we have noticed is that he has twice gotten up out of bed at night and wanted to sit on the toilet.  Once when I thought he had sat there long enough, I got him up and sent him back to bed, but he wasn't happy.  The other time (last night), I allowed him to stay as long as he wanted, but he didn't appear to do anything before he was fine to go back to bed.

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I have mentioned that we have a rabbit.  For our rabbit's litter, we shred cardboard, newspaper, paper bags and the like.  Out of convenience, we keep the shredder in Anthony's bedroom and have a stash of shreddables piled up there.

Anthony has noticed us taking toilet paper cores and shredding them, and lately he has decided it was something he wanted to try.  I have watched to make sure he isn't getting his fingers into the machine, although the design makes that nearly impossible.

Unfortunately, Anthony is so interested in shredding that he will do whatever necessary to get to the toilet paper core.  If that means unrolling half a roll of toilet paper, so be it.  If it means pulling the core out of a cheaply-made roll--we have vowed never to buy that brand again!--he will do it.  To make matters far worse, toilet paper off the roll must, in Anthony's mind, be in the toilet.  So, yes, we have had entire rolls of toilet paper in the toilet.  Obviously, a full roll will not flush.  What is worse than that is the ones he has had to unravel and put in the toilet.  Those have taken more attempts than I want to count to unplug the toilet.

Anthony likes music.  In fact, we are finding that his interests may be very similar to those of our music-loving daughter, two years his junior.  When our daughter has been listening to Taylor Swift in her bedroom, for instance, Anthony has shown up more than once at her open door to listen--I guess there's no accounting for taste!  We have also noticed that, when we are playing music in general, Anthony makes a lot of noise at a fairly constant pitch, unlike the random noises he makes at other times.  An acquaintance at church recently also heard him doing this and commented to us that it appears he is trying to sing; that is the conclusion we have come to ourselves.

Another similarity we have found between Anthony and his sister involves eating habits.  Anthony will often leave any meat in a dish until the end of his meal, and won't eat it unless we urge him to do so.  Our daughter would also refuse to eat most meat if we let her.  Relatively speaking, we don't eat a great deal of meat anyway, and are moving toward even less, but what we do eat is almost always chicken or something else on the lighter side, and it is there as a balanced part of the meal.  So, for the time being, they are required to eat it.

Speaking of eating dishes with a minimum of meat, my wife made Pad Thai the other day.  When I dished some up for myself, I doused it with a little lime juice from a plastic bottle.  I then asked Anthony if he also wanted any Pad Thai--he had been eating another dish--and he immediately got up and brought his plate to me.  After I dished it up for him and handed him the plate, he made a shaking gesture toward the bottle of lime juice.  He apparently had seen me shake some lime juice out for my meal, and wanted the same for himself.