A Small Matter of Thanks-Giving

My boy cooked a hot dog last night.

I was on the phone with a good friend from high school and my boy was playing Nintendo (Doom 64 is the best game ever). Living with a child with full-blown autism can cause one to hone the innate “radar” a parent has, and so as I talked I kept half an ear on the noises from the next room. (By one of those strange and diabolic quirks that fate spins on our lives, she too has an autistic child, which places the prevalence rate for her class and my own at about 1:70; I can’t speak of previous or subsequent classes as I have long since moved away and have lost touch with nearly all of the people I knew then.)

So I was talking to my friend, discussing an incident her boy experienced at his school (he had an incident of “eloping”). I was listening to her when I got the tickle “check on the boy” in the back of my head. When she paused to take a breath I excused myself for the moment and stepped to the doorway of his bedroom, but it was empty. I called his name, and then listened (when looking for my boy you listen for the chatter, the verbal stimming that he exhibits for much of his waking hours). I heard him coming from the opposite direction, from the kitchen.

As I approached the kitchen he emerged from the doorway, a plate in hand with a hotdog cut up on it next to a puddle of ketchup. I let him pass on his way back to his bedroom and darted ahead into the kitchen to see if any bad things occurred. All was well, so I went back to the bedroom and looked at his plate before returning to my phone call.

Here is what must have transpired… He went to the kitchen, got a hot dog and the bottle of ketchup out of the frig, and closed the frig including giving the bottom of the door a tap with his foot to make it seal properly (a cousin helping me move it got too eager and dropped it from the back of the truck and now the door has to be assisted to seal). He placed the hot dog on a plate in the mic and then hit number “1” which is programmed for one minute. Then he retrieved the hot dog, cut it into chunks with his fork, put ketchup on the plate for dipping and headed back to his game.

My boy made his own hot dog.

He is eleven now. He is fully disabled and I am not sure he will ever be anything else. When he was very little people thought he was just bad and we got lots of suggestions on how to cure that. When he was diagnosed we were told he was very retarded and were counseled to start looking for a home. When he was in school they dumped him in a room with lots of older (verbal) kids and spent his days stimming in the back. My boy is autistic, full-blown, nonverbal (well he talks more than a little now, but his most recent diagnosis doesn’t know that.).

We decided not to accept our earlier advisors and instead started networking with other parents and professionals online. After some consideration we had him tested for metals and then treated for the high lead he had. Each round of chelation brought definable progress, and coupled with the long hours my wife spent working with him homeschooling we have seen gradual improvement in his cognition, communication and behavior, if it is a bit choppy.

After I got done talking to my friend I got up to check, and he was headed back towards the kitchen. I followed and watched as he got another hot dog out. I allowed him to put it in the mic, cook it and take it out. This time I handed him a bun to put it on, and coached him on how much ketchup to use (he did put entirely too much on his plate the first time; of course, if that is the worst thing he does today we will be blessed). After he again ran to his bedroom I made a couple for myself and then went to the computer to write this up.

Sometimes progress can’t be codified in a way to make it apparent on standardized instruments. Some may never learn to properly read or do basic math or organize a response to a query and spew out an answer. Sometimes progress can be a simple as carrying your share from the car to the house without a fuss, or accepting the transition when the Nintendo needs to cool down or you have to leave in the middle of Fairly Oddparents to pick up your sister.

Or being able to cook your own hot dog.