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Now Reading: I'm So Proud of My Autistic Son, My Wife & Myself!

I'm So Proud of My Autistic Son, My Wife & Myself!

The king & the iPad at the Doctor’s office on Wednesday…

I am so proud of all of us!  We’ve had what could have been a rough couple of days earlier this week, but we all handled things so much better than we used to years back, early on in our autism journey.

And for that all three of us deserve a huge pat on the back if I do say so myself…  🙂

It all started when the king had a mysterious limp on Sunday night.

If you’ve been reading my page or my blog for a while you’ll remember that every once in a while the King has a mysterious limp. He’s had it probably eight or nine times over the course of his life. And the most recent time we put them in a boot and he loved it and The limp went away.

Then on Sunday night I noticed it again and Monday after school he was dragging his foot like Quasimodo.

However all those other times it was on his right side and this time it was on his left.

Anyway, why is he limping? What have we discovered?

We will get to that later…. But that’s not what this blog post is about anyway.

This blog post is about how proud I am of the king, wifey, and myself.

We’ve all handled this so much better than we would have in the past.

Again he was limping pretty badly Monday afternoon/evening. So we kept him home from school on Tuesday with the hope of getting into see his orthopedist. However, we couldn’t get into see him until Wednesday at 3 PM.

Meanwhile, yes the king is limping badly but besides that he’s is happy-go-lucky bouncing around self.

Wifey almost considered taking him to school in the afternoon but decided to keep him home on Tuesday for the full day.

Tuesday night the king wakes up around midnight full of energy, and still limping around.  At this point, we still don’t know if it’s his foot, his knee, his hip that’s causing him to limp.  And all the other times when he had the limp on the right side we were never entirely certain either.

But Tuesday night…my son took my hand, and put it on his left foot, the arch of his left foot to be exact.    For the first time ever, he was telling me where it hurt!  That is HUUUUGGGEEEE!!!   So proud of him!   And his left arch definitely felt warmer than the other arch!

Wednesday rolls around. I decided to work from home in the morning so I can be with them at the doctor appointment in the afternoon because in the past taking the king to a doctors appointment was a two-person job.

But Wednesday morning the big question was “do we send this limping kid to school? Would be look like horrible parents sending Limpy McGimpy to school?”

And then we thought “screw it, we are sending him… he’ll get more out of a day at school then he will out of being home all day.|”

He was up, he was happy, but he was limping, so what?

Our biggest concern was the long walk from the front of the school to his classroom.

But guess what? His school has wheelchairs standing by because it’s a complete special-needs school.

We told the school nurse, we prepared the bus staff, we prepared his teacher and his aides. And then we put Limpy McGee on the bus and sent him to school.

And I worked from home in the morning, wifey did her regular morning routine of phone calls, housework, yoga, shopping, etc.

And then we picked them up from school at 2:30 PM, half an hour earlier than the bus would’ve gotten him.

And we took him to his 3pm orthopedist appointment.

The king did amazing at the doctors office. So good that he probably didn’t need both of us there…
 but it’s always good to hear the doctors report from the horses mouth so I’m glad that I was there.

I don’t want to get into what the doctor thought it might be. All I’ll say is that the doctor gave us a script for x-rays and blood-work and said try to do these in the next day or so.

Now here comes the part where I’m really proud of both wifey and me.

In the old days the prospects of blood-work and especially x-rays would’ve sent us in a tizzy. Partially  because of our concern over what the king might have but even more so our because of our concern over how difficult x-rays usually are with his majesty.

In the old days we probably would’ve gone home, licked our wounds, and regrouped and gone back out the next day to do the blood work and x-rays.   Over maybe even the blood-work one day and the xrays the next because to handle both in one day could be an ordeal.

But it was 4 PM when we got out of the appointment and the king was so compliant and well behaved in the orthopedist’s office that we said “let’s go to our local hospital that does outpatient x-rays and blood-work and get this done tonight regardless of how long the wait is going to be.” 

So that is what we did.

Actually first we stopped at a drugstore to buy Benadryl because in the past the king had to be asleep to get any sort of successful x-ray.

So in the drugstore parking lot we gave him two Benadryl and then we rushed to the hospital.

Wifey put the king in a wheelchair at the hospital because (a) it might be a long walk and (b) it might make us look a little more sympathetic 🙂

Even though we’re going for outpatient tests, we had to go to admitting since we are at the hospital.

And wifey in her politest way possible “played the A&E card” (the autism & epilepsy card) and stressed to the woman in admitting that while the king is behaving nicely now this could change at any moment and anything she could do to speed things up and possibly push us to the front of the line would be greatly appreciated.

And this woman proceeds to bend over backwards to get us everything we need quickly, called up to the x-ray department, speaks to the woman up there stresses our concerns, etc, etc.

Meanwhile the king is being an angel watching his iPad while sitting in a wheelchair. Only bad thing he was doing was trying to put his mouth on parts of the wheelchair which was really gross and God knows what germs are on that wheelchair.

We get up to the x-ray department, the receptionist is waiting for us.  And she is bending over backwards for us.

She had an autism connection. She used to work in an autism school years ago so she got it.
(Look for a separate blog post from me in the next few days about this…about the fact that most people want to help, and want to do nice things for you when you ask in the right way… it makes them feel good to do you a favor)

Anyway, we wait maybe five minutes and she rushes us in.

I have no idea how many people we bypassed but nobody seems too concerned in the waiting room.

I go in with the king to get the x-rays done. The Benadryl really didn’t kick in so he was pretty much wide awake. However he was completely cooperative on the x-ray table.   Very different from years past… We’ve had many rough xray experiences over the years.

Once again thank god for the iPad because as he was lying down on the x-ray table. I was holding his iPad up with one hand so that he can see it from his lying down position. And with the other hand was holding his leg in the positions that the x-ray technician wanted me to.

She gets the xrays done lickety split.  We wheel the king into the lab to get his bloodwork done.  By this time he is groggy but really happy & excited and enjoying being in the wheelchair.  It’s fun!

For the blood-work he still needs to sit on my lap, and we still needed a 2nd technician to help hold his arm still while the phlebotomist did her thing, and he almost spit on one of the technicians, lol, but they were pros and he got thru the blood-work lickety split, and then we headed home.

Dr appointment was at 3, we left dr’s at 4, we were home from the hospital by 6pm.  The Benadryl kicked in finally when we got home and the king was down for the night by about 7pm.

Wifey made a delicious dinner of meatloaf, squash, & spinach which she & I ate at 730.  And then we watched the Netflix show “Love” on the ipad in the kitchen as we cleaned up the kitchen after our meal.

And for everything we did from about 3pm on we all deserve huge props and pats on the back if I do say so myself.

The dr appt went smoothly.

His concerns didn’t freak us out like they used to.

The trip to admissions went smoothly.

The xrays went smoothly.

The blood work went smoothly.

The king was happy to be home and went to sleep without any issues.

The dinner was delicious.

We cleaned up together while watching a great show.

And the most important thing that I’m proud of?

I didn’t google anything!

Basically, the orthopedist thought that the king might have had an infection in his foot.  The blood work and xrays would possibly confirm this.  If he did have an infection he would need antibiotics…intravenously.

Normally that would freak me out, and send me scrambling to google to figure out what the heck all this means.

But yesterday because we got everything done lickety split I didn’t have time to google anything and all the scrips that mentioned what it could be were handed over to the xray people and the lab people so by the time I got home I couldn’t really google anything anyway.

But I’m ultra proud of myself that I didn’t google anything in the drug store parking lot while I was waiting for wifey to get the benadryl.  I didn’t even think of googling at that point!  Now that is progress!

And guess what, we got the results already and the labs and xrays came back normal!  No infection!  They said it’s probably just a soft tissue injury.  Just give him advil for a few days & check back in with the dr in a week!

Anyway, that’s all I got.  Just a long rambling post about how the king’s mysterious limp brought on a chain of events that made me realize how far the king has come over the years.

And how far wifey and I have come over the years.  I cant speak for her, but for me I think I handled everything so much better because of a combination of maturity, antidepressants, and realizing that a limp is nothing compared to autism & epilepsy.

Anyway, that’s it… Over and out!

THE END!

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  If you’re gonna shop Amazon anyway, can I ask that you enter Amazon by using the search box above?  This way I can make a little money.  This blogging thing has been awesome & life changing for me… but I must admit that it’s taking up a lot more time than I ever thought… so if I can make a few bucks it’ll make it easier for me to justify….Love you all! Thanks!!

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Written by

Frank Campagna

I’m a 48 year old neurotypical dad with a 14 year old son with severe, non-verbal autism & epilepsy. I created this blog to rant about autism & epilepsy while celebrating my son who I affectionately call “the king” :-).


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10 People Replies to “I'm So Proud of My Autistic Son, My Wife & Myself!”

  1. Great story – thanks so much for sharing!!

  2. Woot woot woot woot!!!!!

  3. That's FANTASTIC! SO happy for you all!

  4. I completely understand your sense of accomplishment and can totally relate.
    Hope you have many more of these!

  5. Many congratulations on your wonderful hours.

    Our "young Prince" has learned to put up with doctors over the years. One early visit coincided with a trip to McDonald's and for him that became a tradition. Now in his 20s and living in a group home, he gets McDonald's every two weeks and after doctor appointments. Thus, he has taken to writing DR on the calendar in hopes of fooling people into taking him to McDonald's. Whatever their issues, nobody can call our kids stupid.

  6. Pat

    What a joyous day for all !!! The king TOLD you where he hurt, You all seemed on the same page (w/ a little help from what I call "mama's helper"). In and out , no freaking, king asleep, dinner for two, movie and clean-up!!! Sounds like a perfect day. Shout it from the roof tops!!!!! And by the way,congratulations!!!!

  7. Congratulations, not just for the specific success but for the fruit of years of hanging in there together as a family.

  8. I LOVE this. One of our best days was an outpatient x-ray of the tummy that went without a hitch–It was like a dream 🙂 . . .and he told you his foot hurt–so much to be happy about

  9. This is a great story – congrats to you and wifey for finding the things that work to help the King. I am so proud that he put your hand on his foot – that's so HUGE. Yay, King!! And, wow – being able to do this whole day and feel "calm" and "together"? That's the most beautiful thing I've read in a long time. Yay for all of you!

  10. I cried when I read this! Thank God for the little achievements our little ones make.