(continuing to write something im thankful for each day of November)
I am thankful today, both that I have reached two milestones with my various jobs with folks with special needs and that I am able to see, often directly and immediately, as was the case tonight, some of those improvements.
While a journalist you might be excited to see one or two of your stories run on the front and be praised and well-received and yet the next day you might get stuck with a type of story nobody wanted (newspaper articles about a storm that happened the day before, so old news, was a particular one nobody wanted)... so it was one step forward one step back a lot.
So to use that metaphor Saturday I took two steps forward.
I took an unusual job last spring with a family whose son had a mental illness and was refusing to take medicine or to explain what he was thinking and feeling, all while living in their house.
Last night I was let go but it was a happy ending of a job. Why? During those six or so months I/we accomplished both main goals: He is on regular medicine after a year of no medicines. He is again communicating with his family and is now not only seeing a doctor (something he and the family dreaded after getting medicine after medicine that family and son described as making him look and feel like a zombie).... medicine that is leaving him feeling better, clearly more independent, active and communicating with his family after barely talking to them for a year or more. Yes, they had to hire someone (me) to come to their home to find out what was on the mind of their son... but as unorthodox as it was it worked.
So Saturday he asked his why he is both talking to his doctor (he finally has a doctor they all like, trust and talk with) and with me twice a week, where I try to get a sense of things and keep his parents posted and try to help them do things to help to. I called it my Dr Phil job because a lot of things needed fixing. So, yes, I'd much rather he talk with a professional but when I started he was refusing to talk to anyone....
So both I and his mom think my time with them has been a mission accomplished as I did all that they wanted.
While I received that text - may be the first time I had a job end via text - and was processing it I was at another job, one where I work with a 15-year-old boy with autism who is nonverbal. I recently wrote about him trying to talk to me and I felt awful I couldnt understand him yet was excited he was trying to communicate with me at all as he does not do that for many people.
So last night while his parents took their Saturday night out he sat by me smiling at me longer than for any of my 12ish prior visits. He was waving a bicycle helmet and looking in my eyes a lot (also new and a great step and breaking lots of autism stereotypes) which I learned recently means he wants me to do what his parents stopped doing for safety reasons, namely take him for a ride on a tandem bike.
I let him know we could not do it (not only a safety issue but it was 9 pm) but he seemed happy to just keep me company as he alternated between looking at me and looking around and I wished I could understand his vocalizations. He kept moving closing and smiling more and more.
He did something new I couldn't wait to tell his parents: he moved closer to me and gestured for my hand and I gave it to him and he'd rub his hand against mine in a soft gentle way and he did this, unprompted by me, at least ten times.
This was amazing!
He's never before made physical contact with me in the prior four months of visits except letting me hold his hand briefly as an awkward handshake to say hello and it took two months just to reach that level.
There was more interacting and then he reaches over and started drinking my drink and I deduce i will happily sacrifice some iced tea to see where this is headed, as this can lead to more of a connection and understanding.
So I stand and suggest we move this to the kitchen where his parents left out food for him. Instead, he sat where I had been sitting and we traded places as I for the first time took his usual place on a bed near the chair.
It's a brand new comfortable chair and soon I'm wondering how much of him sitting near me was instead hovering over and waiting for the chair. (It's not about me and him connecting? this is about furniture?!)
Twenty minutes later he was still in that chair and I was longing for it. Perhaps the deal was no bike ride for him then no chair for me.
His parents got home and I explained what happened and learned that while he will sometimes sit in chairs he does usually stay on the beds.
When his parents got home I was so excited to report this progress. I learned what he was doing, looking into the face and playing with his hands, is what he normally does with his dad and maybe his attendant at school and nobody else. I was told to expect him to also start playing with my facial hair.
Anyway the parents were impressed and amused. Oh and he apparently has a story of steal other folks drinks right from under them.
So yes, thankfully, I reached a milestone in connecting with him and maybe we can now consider doing things out in the community... and he tricked me out of a chair and enjoyed my iced tea.
I was thankful for all of that progress,
The whole thing reminds me of a song by Christine Lavin, one of my favorite folk singers. In it Christine has a great time hanging out with a girl who tells Christine "today is the best day of my whole entire life."
Christine is, like I was earlier, expecting the parents to be like, wow, you are a genius! How did you do that?
I'll let the lyrics pick it up from there.
excerpt:"Katy Says Today is the Best Day of my Whole Entire Life
Katy is Three years old
We've been dancing in the living room to her new Tom Paxton record
Katy's got a lot of rhythm when she wiggles, for a little kid, she's got soul
That night when her mom and dad come home
I tell them what she said to me
I figure they'll think I'm some kind of babysitting genius
To make this little girl so darn happy
But they smile and they say "don't take this the wrong way
But Katy said the same thing yesterday
Lately she's been saying that everyday"
You can listen to the song here
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