This week was an interesting one.  Phoebe slightly complained on Easter that her tooth/mouth hurt.  While I believed her- I also thought it was probably a cavity, and some sensitivity to all the sugar she took in.  She didn’t sleep that night, and woke up for the day at 4 am.  I was slightly annoyed, to say the least.  It was not one of my better mommy moments.  Finally, on Tuesday I took her to our favorite dentist, and low and behold…she had a raging abscessed tooth.  OH MY GOD.  I felt awful.  The few times I have known people with abscessed teeth – they have been laid out.  Literally, could hardly get up from where they laid.  Although she is 13, and slightly dramatic (I say that with sarcasm), she is still autistic.   Her pain tolerance is out of this world.  She has had fillings, tooth repairs (a broken front tooth), etc. and never complained.  When she had her tonsils out 7 years ago, immediately after she said, “can I have my bologna sandwich now?”  She never once said she didn’t want to eat. (big shocker)  It was only a few years later when her brother had his tonsils out, that I realized she was amazing when it came to pain, and he was like a typical child…in tons of pain, and hard to console.  This autistic child is amazing.  (not that her brother isn’t…he’s amazing in his way too)

I had to give Phoebe Tylenol to help her sleep during the tooth pain.  While it helped, it started me on a journey to remember all the meds this child has taken.  For my Psychology class, I had to watch a documentary on childhood bi-polar disorder, and the medications for it.  It was eye-opening and scary.  The things we will do to make our kids more “normal”.  God forbid they don’t fit in that box of “normal” I don’t deal with bi-polar, and I don’t know what those families dealing with it have to do for their children.  I only deal with PDD-NOS.  Only.  (Ha!)  I do, however, wonder what I am doing to this child of mine.  She has taken medications to make her less hyper, less moody, less impulsive,  more able to focus, less anxious, less sleepy, more sleepy…etc.  At one point a few years ago, I weaned her off many of them to get back to the basics.  I needed to see who she was again.  Throw puberty in there, and growing…who knows what you’re really getting?  While I want Phoebe to like herself, and be able to fit in with peers…I also want her to know that she is unique, and special.  She doesn’t have to be like everyone else.

So Phoebe…
Not everyone can name every child in the 1st grade on the first day of school.  Not every child can list all the kids in the 4th grade, and then go back and make sure to cross off those that have moved.  Not every child can name the quarterbacks in the NFL, remember addresses, where mom left her keys, give the numbers and names of every basketball player on MSU’s team, text my friends and finish my Words with Friends games, finish my sentences when I didn’t really even know what I was going to say, and change all the settings on my iMac, and iPhone so that I can’t figure out how to change it back.

Embrace your uniqueness in this Autism Awareness month.  I sure do.