Nathan's Colonoscopy

What an amazing response I had to my blog post yesterday, both on and offline. It's really incredible and heartening to see that so many people out there are willing to show support like that, and makes it feel like yet another positive that can come out of this. Thank you all!!

This morning, I woke up to Helen, my elderly cat, having barfed like Regan from “The Exorcist” all over the bathroom. Steve and I agree that we have never seen that much vomit come out of a cat. It was of such a volume, that Steve said he thought it came from me. Black hairballs and kibbles? Really?

As I cleaned that up, Steve was having a bit of meltdown over his continued pain with his diverticulitis. This poor man is in such agony and yet lost all of his sick time in his initial hospitalization. I can't imagine having to work a demanding job dealing with feeling like that. He’s facing potential surgery, including being on disability with only 50% pay. It’s a big stress for both of us, and though we're handling it pretty well, there are those moments when you crash into the wall.

In the back of my mind I’m thinking, “dying cat, feels like he’s dying husband, and autistic child? Oh life, I know that it could be worse, but still, this is a bit much in one day, isn’t it?”

Then I opened my email, and found out one of my plays had been selected for another festival. They said they chose 8 plays out of 540. They were extremely complimentary and even though it’s in Sioux Falls, SD, offered to put me up and provide meals if I could fly there, which I won’t be doing, but still, the whole thing gets me a little abuzz with excitement.

The yin and the yang.

So, I’m thinking to myself, this is a great parallel to dealing with the challenges that we’ve had and will likely continue to have with Nathan, which led us to seeking a diagnosis in the first place. Label or not, he has not been what I would call an “easy” child. He has given me lots of moments of projectile cat vomit and diverticulitis recurrences. However, he has also given me many, many more moments of “your play has been selected!” So I know if I can stick out the times when it all seems like a little bit too much, they will be much further and fewer between then the moments of pure joy provided by my incredibly complex, intelligent and funny little 5-year-old.

I wanted to share my favorite line of the week from Nathan. He was fresh out of the bath and naked, jumping around on the bed. He fell to his belly, and Joey went over to him and started taking a great interest in his rear-end, in an innocent, curious, but nonetheless inappropriate 3-year-old little brother way.

As I turned to see the goings on, before I could even intervene, Nathan yelled to me, “mom! Joey’s giving me a colonoscopy!”

These types of quips floor me, and make me so curious about these complex brains of ours. Is it because Nathan might have challenges in one area that he might be advanced in other ways? I’m not trying to make claims that he’s a genius or anything. (Whose son isn’t a genius, anyway, right? I am a mom!) But I would dare say that there are certain concepts and vocabulary words that he picks up that may be a little above the average 5-year-old’s capabilities.

And then, I try and get him to do letters and numbers. Just simple letters and numbers.

“Nathan, this is A, B, C and D. See them? A, B, C and D. Now what’s this letter?” I say, pointing to the A.

“Um…ummm…D? C? F?”

It’s so hard for me to be patient in these moments. I want to say, “are you really serious? It’s A. I’ve shown you A’s for years now. I just told you twice. You’ve got to be messing with me right now!”

Then, at night, I tell him a complex story, one of my fractured fairy tales with Star Wars characters, Nathan and Joey put into the various roles of the classics, and he’ll repeat the entire thing almost word-for-word. I know, different parts of the brain control different things, and different kids learn in different ways. I guess trying to tap into ways that I can get him going on these simpler concepts is what I have ahead of me in my quest to learn more about this big, crazy spectrum.

Meanwhile, I have been questioned by a couple people about whether or not we'll tell him, and how. There are very valid concerns about labels, and how one might have self-fulfilling limitations if told that they ARE something which is actually so vague. Will he use it as an excuse to underachieve, or think of himself as unworthy of achieving, etc?

Well, my gut as a mom is to treat it the same way I intend to treat the big sex talk, or how I would treat it if one of my kid's was adopted. Let them ask questions when they're ready, and answer them in ways that are age appropriate, but without making a big deal out of it.

To test the waters, and because he was in the room when the doctor gave the initial diagnosis, I planted the seed over lunch.

ME: "Nathan, did you understand the things mommy and Dr. Rock were talking about yesterday?"

NATHAN: "Kind of. What WERE you talking about?"

ME: "Well, everyone's brain works differently, and through doing the test they did, they figured out that your brain works a certain way, which might make you really strong in some areas, and maybe need some special help learning in other areas."

NATHAN: "Asberger's?"


At this point I'm a little surprised that he knows that word, but then I remember that I was watching an episode of Degrassi quite a while back,(yes, I know I'm more than twice the age of the demographic for that show, but I grew up watching Degrassi Jr. High. Call it a guilty pleasure!) and this kid, Conner, was tapping his pencil incessantly, and then a girl asked him to stop and he flipped out and it turned out he had Asberger's. Nathan ended up very interested in Conner at the time, so apparently he filed that away.


ME: "No. Actually, they thought you might have Asberger's, but it turns out it's something called PDD-NOS."

NATHAN: "What is that?"

ME: "Just that your brain learns differently than a lot of kids, and so it's good that we found out so they can make sure they work with you the right way in school."

NATHAN: (After a short pause) Maybe I should stop smelling gas.


I'm confused, until I realize he's talking about how when we go to get gas, he always unbuckles himself from his booster seat and hops out and sticks his nose right up to the gas tank to try to get a good whiff, because he, like me and my mother before me, loves the delectable aroma of gasoline.


ME: "You should stop smelling gas?"

NATHAN: "Well, it causes brain damage, right?"


So, I explained that gasoline did not cause this, though he should probably only sniff the tank on special occasions, just in case. And I tell him that this diagnosis is really not that big of a deal, and by that time, he was more than ready to take his last bite of tomato soup, put his Darth Vader costume back on, and get on with his day.