We Go With Him

End of Semester Issues

It being the end of the semester for Jim and me at our respective institutions of higher learning, we seem to have come down with the usual/inevitable 'end of the semester' cold-thing, with scratchy throats, a few bodily aches and pains here and there (well, those could be from other sources such as the daily regimented exercise a-bike and a-foot), rather woozy heads. Charlie has gotten a whiff of the same: The tight team that sticks together, gets sick together.

That said, this is not one of those lie-on-the-couch-moaning-from-sheer-fatigue kind of ailments. If I had to teach a couple of classes in a row tomorrow, I'd be packing some extra fluids (besides my ever-essential 20+ ounce stainless steel commuter coffee tankard) but could certainly teach, having done so with near-laryngitis, raging headaches and other discomforts, not to mention two or fewr hours of sleep after a long Charlie insomnia night (or just a night of deep unhappiness, so to speak). Tomorrow at work is all sitting at my desk while a dozen students appear for make-up quizzes, two students translate a last round of Cicero for a tutorial and one student stops in to review her research (after which, I hie myself to the white car as quickly as possible, to stop at the store prior to getting home to meet the schoolbus).

However Charlie felt on Sunday, he insisted on the usual two bike rides that are his and Jim's weekend standard, 16 miles on the bike path in Jersey horse country and 12 at home, for a grand total of 100 miles for the past week.

He was more somber, and quiet, than usual. The latter I especially noted, but with a pang to think of how far Charlie has come. While his 'length of utterance' is 1 to 5 words, tops, he talks lots, frequently and quite clearly now, in sharp contrast to his earlier years of silence or verbalizations that were not words or, that is, were not distinguishable words. Now it is notable that he doesn't talk because he does so much.

In the evening, Charlie was hungry for a big dinner. Then we three enjoyed a walk in the pleasant evening air. After two requests for me to change the music on his iPad (no more K.D. Lang; I admit she's not a typical teenage boy choice), Charlie said good night. Jim went up to give him a little bedtime shave and a big good night and Charlie was asleep well before 10pm.

Maybe, too, he's finally catching up after so many 3 -5 hour nights of sleep throughout last week.

We don't travel far and rarely out of New Jersey these days, but we do seem to do enough to fill the time and get the 'end of semester' fatigue (Charlie too, though of course he doesn't have semesters).

The next morning, 7.43 am EST. Our serious schoolboy did make it onto the bus after a solid night of sleep. As one of his former teachers did say, he's a lovely boy.

 

Back to the Doctor's Office (some things get worse before they get better)

Alas, the rash on Charlie's left cheek has gotten infected -- I think we had a feeling it would when we first saw it last Friday. It's just impossible to keep from scratching and rubbing it and the steroid ointment the nurse practitioner gave him on Tuesday did stop the inflammation, but more was needed. Jim told me he was crying in deep distress on their morning local ride; I texted him between classes and called the doctor's office once home. They said come right over (they are really super) and the nurse carefully examined Charlie (who was so amenable) and we left with an antibiotic ointment prescription and one for an antibiotic if need be.

Throughout, he remained -- as he has all this week -- a super trouper.

This is the doctor's office that Charlie broke a window at three years ago with the back of his head.

On Vacation

 

Charlie still has 3 more days of Spring Break (though I kind of don't count the weekend as he is, of course, off then anyways) and so far it has been, well, sort of a second Spring Break for both Jim and me. We've both limited the time we went into our respective jobs to the days we teach (and have been doing extra-heavy amounts of email to make up for less time on campus). Charlie woke up Thursday and insisted on a walk after which I went for my habitual morning jog and, on returning, found him conked out in his brown chair (he had not slept until past 1 or 2am the night before). Jim was still sleeping too after his Wednesday of driving/teaching/biking.

There's been some very happy / simply fun moments on this break, like Wednesday night when Charlie was sitting in the brown chair smiling and playing with his iPad. He turned on an all-time favorite of Jim's and mine, the Pogues doing Thousands Are Sailing. And in Brendan Behan's footsteps / I danced up and down the street.... When I got back to my empty room / I suppose I must have cried.

Somehow Charlie got a bad rash on his left cheek, starting around Friday. We took him to the doctor on Tuesday and got some prescription ointment. It's impossible to tell Charlie not to scratch (doing so or trying to block his hands would only lead to him scratching more). It must have hurt a lot because Charlie scratched himself quite hard and the ointment seems to have dried out his skin. But he's wanted to keep biking (29 miles Thursday) and been tense at times, but that's all. The rash isn't spreading and hopefully the worst is past. Often with Charlie, things get  worse before they get better.

And really, he has been so good. Suffering through that rash, great at the doctor's, patiently waiting when told it's 'too soon' for the next bike ride.

Thursday, after waking in the brown chair, Charlie asked to go to Jersey horse country. The kids out there didn't have Spring Break and schoolbuses were out, plus garbage collectors and utility workers. There was regular daytime busyness; it all reinforced the feeling that, we were getting to do weekend things on weekdays.

Which is what a vacation should be all about.

You're Gonna See a Lot of Bike Riding Photos This Week

Drinking half-cases of Capri Sun juices may be the reason Charlie broke out into a rash on his face that he scratched hard. He was rocking hectically in the car after a ride in Jersey horse country and crying at home. But he sat down in the newish blue chair as soon as I said 'fingernails,' went up to his room for a brief nap, and came down ready for his second long ride of the day.

(I have been thinking about how to explain cutting his nails -- it was a several-year process, but how worth it!)

The one advantage of consecutive 30-mile bike ride days is that a boy is propertly tired, and ready to sleep before midnight.

 

 

 

Summoning Energies

 

I'm extra-glad I took Charlie to the doctor on Thursday because Jim and I had relapse of the same cold and good to know it is 'just' a cold. It's likely that teaching three classes in a row on Friday morning had something to do with it -- when I'm sick, I can still always teach and even don't notice I am sick while exerting myself.

I suspect Charlie does something of the same when he's bike riding!

 

Post-Parent-Teacher-Conference

 

Despite his cold, Charlie insisted on a neighborhood bike ride, as if to be totally assured that Jim is indeed home (and not in Boston). The ride got off to a slow start and then proceeded pleasantly, with singing and banter.

Despite my coughing, the conference with Charlie's teacher, aides, behaviorist and speech therapist was productive, informative and easy-going. Charlie likes being there and is liked; his new speech therapist was his classroom aide when he started school in our town back in 2003 and, afterwards, his home speech/ABA therapist and sitter, for some years. I said, we could only wish there would be a BAC for kids after they turn 21.

It is sort of incredible how settled and at home Charlie is now in school, after an odyssey through many schools and towns.

Charlie was asleep when I came home. He woke around 9pm and said he wanted a walk but with his sniffles and the cold and wet outside, we suggested that we do that tomorrow and, after sitting and then standing, he went back to bed and to sleep.

 

 

The Reality of Motherhood

 

On your day off (which is already going to be shorter than usual as Charlie is getting home 2 hours early due to parent-teacher conferences), you rush your coughing child into the car to get to the pediatrician walk-in clinic before the line gets too long. You get there at 7.55 am and are 4th in line.

Happily, the wonderful nurse practitioner who Charlie usually sees is on duty! And your child is determined to have nothing more than the common cold. No antibiotics needed though the nurse, noting the bruise (and the acne) on Charlie's forehead -- the result, I said as nonchalantly as possible, of head-banging on the table and the wall the previous night after starting to cry in the car in the midst of a very runny nose and anxiety that Jim working late meant Jim going to Boston again -- I didn't explain all this to the nurse, but she understood the head-banging/physical discomfort due to symptoms Charlie doesn't put into words and said if need be she could prescribe him an antibiotic in the upcoming days.

Then you go home and offer Charlie a choice: 'stay home' or 'go to school.' 'Stay home,' says Charlie. 'Ok,' you say. You pull into the driveway, Charlie refuses to get out of the car. 'No home.' 'School?' 'School.'

You hastily fill both lunch boxes (you hadn't because you thought Charlie might be too sick to go to school), put them in his blue school bag, grab his green parka under the pile of coats, drive to school and notice how far traffic is backed up on the highway on what would be your route home.

You drop off Charlie who starts walking right towards his classroom.

You take an alternate route home during which the neurologist calls to say the doctor will be out of the country for weeks and can you reschedule? You get cut off. You leave a voice mail. You are glad you threw a piece of Chinese preserved ginger into your bag for the ride. The neurologist calls again; you find out that every day during Charlie's spring break is booked because every other child in New Jersey has the same spring break BUT you and your husband, due to teaching at Catholic institutions, have Good Friday off so, yes, April the 6th is great. You can even go early in the day instead of at the end of the day when everyone is more tired and slightly cranky and there is too much traffic on the NJ Turnpike.

You go home and make coffee and get to work for three hours.  

 

Troopers

 

Though sick and coughing we seem unable to do without our routines, i.e., bike rides on the trail. The weather was in the 40s and though it has been a very mild winter, it still felt like, as Jim proclaimed, 'opening season' after winter (though it is still winter).

In the wake of stomach sickness misery throughout January, we have been watching Charlie carefully and taking precautions. I loaded up on various over-the-counter medicaments last week and we have tried to be attuned to how Charlie's stomach might be feeling, especially as he has been coughing very hard at times. He can't be feeling that great -- we both know as we have the same thing -- but Charlie is being a decided trooper.

He gamely biked 21 miles with Jim on Saturday, 15 in Jersey horse country and 6 in our neighborhood and went on both an early morning and an evening walk with me. With very understandable moments of frustration and some tears -- who likes being sick and it's certainly very hard to explain the biology of it to Charlie -- he has been in good spirits. Saturday, the second day of a 4 day long weekend, was fun and pleasant -- quite a statement to make considering the coughing chorus we have become.

 

 

Sick Together, Sticking Together

 

We all three have the same cough-sinus-throat 'thing'; Jim got it in Boston, Charlie has been coughing all week and I joined him in the chorus at some point mid-week. So the four-day holiday from school is fortuitously timed. Best of all, in contrast to the misery when Charlie had the stomach ailment in January, he has been cheery.

Just coughing.

 

Chocolate, Hearts & (Love) Poetry

 

All day at school, Charlie was bedeviled by the cough he's caught. At home he was peaceful, still wanting the usual bike ride (with a request to swing at a playground, too) and a walk that was one-third fast running (Jim came on this too and wore his yellow jacket for visibility). Then, while I was making up some special Valentine's Day lessons for my Latin and ancient Greek classes (Catullus! Sappho!), he ran up and down the stairs and through the kitchen-dining-living rooms a few times. At one point, he opened the refrigerator to make sure his lunch boxes were in there with juices and watermelon packed (they were).

Then he went to bed and I attempted to get back to the so-called 'Dark Age' and the 'Sub-Mycenean Age' and the Protogeometric and such good things but first, chocolate marshmallow hearts had to be prepped to send off with Charlie tomorrow morning on the bus (assuming he's not coughing a lot more).

 

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On a Valentine's Day note:

Love and Autism

Autism Heart's Club

Loss and Love

An earlier post entitled Love and Autism