Well, I should rephrase that. It was a good week, overshadowed by one bad hour. A really really bad hour.
We went swimming a couple times this week. YAY! We're still working on finding ear plugs that'll actually stay in Owen's ears (he needs to wear them when swimming, but not when bathing or playing in the sprinkler in the back yard). It's been hot and humid here lately.... it's too early for this kind of weather!
Owen's been making some great progress. He ate a tootsie roll last night!!! Not only is it a new food, but it's a texture that he typically gags on and won't eat. He's also letting me floss his teeth! Just 2 years ago he wouldn't even let me put a toothbrush in his mouth. Now he lets me brush his teeth (still stuck on the same toothpaste though) AND floss them everyday! In fact, he was begging me to floss them before bed last night. LOL!
His echolalia is out of control lately. He just walks around reciting movies. Some of them are movies he hasn't seen in months! If you try to talk to him he just looks right through you while reciting his movie.
Wednesday we went to kroger after swimming (kroger is right next to the gym). Owen was in a good mood while we were swimming so we had no reason to believe we wouldn't make it through a shopping trip fine.
But we didn't. Not at all. He had one of the biggest "autism moments" I've seen in quite awhile. There are some days I really question whether he has autism. There are some days I can convince myself that he doesn't, that he's a typical 4 year old boy. And then days like this hit and it just shakes me to the core.
Poor Jason. He had never seen anything like this before. He has seen some "autism moments" with Owen (lots of them over the past year) but absolutely nothing like this. 2 days later we're still trying to understand what the heck happened in the store. All I know is that it started because he wanted an orange. I said okay, let's go get some. But he wanted 1 organic orange. That was it. No reasoning with him at all. I'm sorry, but I'm not made of money. I'm not going to pay as much for 1 organic orange as I can for a freaking bag full of oranges! After finally convincing him to get a bag of oranges it all started again when he wanted yellow, unripe oranges instead of orange oranges. And then it went to me not letting him go to the salad bar and eat hand fulls of cheese (I offered to buy him cheese but that wasn't what he wanted). And then he wanted a loaf of bread but he squeezed it so hard it broke in half. We couldn't put it back so we were going to buy it. But he flipped because the bread was in 2 pieces, and we just can't have that. And this was all in the first 10 minutes of us being there. I ended up putting him in the cart because he wouldn't even walk anymore he was so upset and out of control. I put him in the cart and just gave him big bear hugs (deep pressure) while he screamed and cried. Of course, you can imagine the looks and comments we were getting from people. And, on that topic, WHY do people think it's okay to make nasty comments about kids RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM??? Seriously. The kid has feelings too. Asking "what's wrong with him" is just plain dumb. I felt like knocking the old man over and asking "what's wrong with you? Didn't your mother teach you any manners??". But I didn't. I restrained myself ;) After about 1o minutes of screaming he finally fell asleep on my shoulder. But we didn't quite make it through the store before he woke again and flipped out because he saw the broken loaf of bread again. Jason ended up taking him outside while I paid as quickly as I could. When I got out there I saw some woman talking to them. It turned out she was telling Jason what a good job we were doing and that she knows it's not easy to deal with an autistic child. She went on to say that she has an 18 year old on the spectrum.
You know when other parents of autistic kids can point you out in a crowd and diagnosis you, it's not a good day!
The saddest part was when we got home. Jason went to take him out of the car and put him down. Owen just collapsed. He didn't even want to walk, he just wanted Jason to hold onto him while he rested. He was so exhausted he couldn't even walk into the house. So Jason carried him in and held him on the couch for a little while.
Yesterday Owen was just "off". He didn't want to interact with others at all. I kept him with me at work yesterday for most of it (working in rooms that I can keep him with me in) and he just sat there, not interacting much at all. When we took them outside he sat under one of the play structures just staring at the ground. Such a sad sight to see when all the other kids are running around laughing and screaming in delight as they climb, slide, etc :(
He's been displaying more of his autism symptoms more and more lately. Shaking his head violently (while running and with his eyes closed, which terrifies me!). Laying on the floor hitting his head on it over and over again. Lots of echolalia. Eye contact has gone down again (not that he's ever had good eye contact).
We are looking into taking him to Cincinnati Children's Hospital. I know I said this last developmental ped would be the last one. But, again, this one didn't even evaluate him. All I want is a good, thorough evaluation. Why is that so hard? Is that really asking for too much? It drives me INSANE that every dr we've taken him to hasn't done a good evaluation on him. But I've heard nothing but praise about CCH. I called and left a message so hopefully they call me back with a date.
