Mental preparation is key

It’s like a bomb exploded yesterday. Out of nowhere, all hell broke loose. Just a simple sentence from the doctor, “Please lift your butt”  because my son sat had been sitting on her stethoscope had my son scurrying out of the clinic screaming to the surprise of other patients there. And as he was sitting on the chair outside, crying and whining, he blurted out, “Somebody help me” out of the echolalic words he has gotten from TV shows. A foreigner couple was sitting beside him and there was a look of dismay on the man’s face. I wanted to say, “What are you looking at? He has autism you asshole, so stop judging me.” What can I say, my son’s recollection that a doctor injected him with a sedative for a dental procedure seemed to be fresh for him and this time his strong memory of things had been a scourge.

There was a skirmish when we got inside the office again. The doctor wanted to check his ear and he refused. I felt devastated inside. He has acquired that irrational fear of doctors again, remembering when he was three years old and he refused to go inside his pedia clinic after being hospitalized and coerced to be inserted with an IV. All the breakthroughs I had with him seemed to pale after today. I had gotten him inside an airplane for the first time, had him watch  4 full-length films and have soccer lessons this year and now, we have this incident.

It’s not like it’s his first time in the doctor’s office. He has been here before and the only thing different now was I had not prepared him mentally. To say things like. “We’re going to the doctor today, he’s going to look at your mouth, your ears and listen to your chest” and recreating that scene at home. I was unprepared for this unfortunate incident. I didn’t know that he had a traumatic memory hidden from months before.

And the bad part was, I panicked.  I forgot to retreat because it is given that when incident like this erupts no amount of cajoling, threatening, stomping can make him go back if his mind is fixed already. He got my stubbornness well. More than that, I will lose each time I will force him physically becauseI’m afraid to hurt him and I’ll give in to his struggles eventually. 

The war is clearly on the mental side with him. He has to be assured that it’s okay, he won’t be hurt. I should have retreated and regrouped and came back to the clinic another day because to have him screaming, gnashing, crying inside the clinic like he was being tortured was deeply embarrassing. I know I should be gotten used to it but it hasn’t. You just got to grow a thicker skin, a harder armor outside your heart to protect yourself from the stings caused by stares that arrive without warning.

This is another lesson yet again. Not to be complacent because I am dealing with a complicated, special person. And to my credit, even this eruption happened, it doesn't diminish the fact that there had been significant progress in terms of having him ride a plane for the first time, watch movies, play soccer and sit through haircut days with the barber. I have to say this so I won’t feel sorry for myself. I can’t afford that, not now, not ever, somebody is relying me to get up and try again. Again, this is not a setback but a lesson, something I will encounter again.  Next time, I will be ready. J