Blood Draw

With this morning's events fresh in my mind, I'll try and capture how everything went.

There are a few reasons why I write this blog, and one of the main reasons {to be honest} is to educate you. Yes, you...my friend from high school, my former co-worker, my neighbor, my new friend, my fellow Christian, fellow American, fellow lover of life. I want YOU to know what life is like for us, and more importantly, how Caleb experiences life. One day you will be the teacher, the lab technician, the firefighter, the policeman, the social worker, the speech therapist, the Sunday school teacher, or the neighbor of an autistic child, and maaaybe this will be helpful to you...

For about a week we've been practicing for the blood draw with real instruments (minus the needle). TJ's sister Christy is a Child Life Specialist at CHOC and works with pediatric cancer patients on the regular and she supplied us with the tools and a few ideas {if you don't know about Child Life, read about it HERE, they're amazing...also Christy's one of my all time favorite girls}. It's so important to "practice" when you do something new with Caleb. Before we took him to Disneyland last year we had him watching YouTube videos of the attractions because even though something is fun, it can be very overwhelming and over stimulating for him. And this wasn't even going to be a FUN adventure. 

We watched videos of children having their blood drawn (calm children) and used the same words over and over...we called it the blood doctor and our script went something like "tight rubber band, cold wipe, small poke, wait, wait, wait, rubber band off, band aide, all done!" He had it down, baby. Maybe he'll have a future in phlebotomy? Anyway, I asked Auntie Christy to come along with me because there was so way I could've done it alone.

This morning came and Caleb was incredibly excited that he didn't have to go to school. And then when he was in the bath he started asking questions (in his own way) and figured out what was ahead. I told him he could bring the iPad and that {surprise} I had downloaded a new app and a new movie. He calmed down and was able to get there with few tears.

As soon as we got there, Caleb and I took our seats on the floor...in the hall...outside of the lab. He was absolutely sobbing with anxiety and I didn't want to overwhelm him by making him sit in a quiet waiting room with everyone staring at him. He cried the entire time we sat there watching Finding Nemo, waiting for his name to be called. When he's really upset he repeats himself a lot. He kept saying "I wanna watch Nemo! I wanna watch Nemo!" which is was we WERE doing, he meant that was ALL he wanted to do.

Christy had gone in before us to give them our paperwork and alert them that he was autistic. It's very important for us to do this; autism doesn't have any physical markers and a lot of people are still learning about it (and EVERY autistic child is different). As soon as it was our turn, I took my crying Caleb by the hand and dragged him into the room. Christy asked the technician to "let mom do the talking" which was enormously helpful. With Caleb if there are too many people talking it makes for an overwhelming experience (even at home). I sat him on my lap, propped up the iPad for optimal Nemo viewing, and proceeded to wrap my legs around his, wrap my arms around his, and hold him tight. Christy held the arm they were drawing from nice and steady and we used our script...until the vein the tech tried wasn't working out...and she dug around...and then gave up and when to the other arm (how confusing for Caleb). He screamed pretty hard when the needle went in, but I held tight and repeated my "good job!-almost done!" mantra for the duration. The tech had to fill up somewhere around 15 vials! Each one serves a purpose; there are a few disorders that frequently run parallel with autism, so it's standard procedure, but we're not really worried about anything.

The tech was finally done and Caleb JUMPED out of my lap, he was so excited. We were all set to go get our egg mcmuffins when the lab tech handed me a urine-sample cup...ugh! One more thing, kid...! But he was happy to do it. What little boy wouldn't be happy to pee in a cup?? And we were outta there faster than you could say Bob's-your-uncle! He kept saying "I'm so good at the blood doctor, Christy!!" I handed him a protein bar in the backseat because not only did he have a lot of blood taken, he also had to fast for it! 

We had a nice little breakfast and he was happy to come home and chill with his blankie. This next part was slightly hard to swallow. I came into his room while he was writing on his Magnadoodle and I saw he had written the work "SAD" with a sad face above it. I said "Why did you write sad? Do you do that at speech? You wrote sad because...?" and he couldn't really answer me, he wanted ME to tell HIM why. Then he erased it and wrote SCARED with a scared face above it. Then he said "I'm scared at the blood doctor." "Oh boy, I know bug, but it's all done, you don't have to be scared anymore, now you can be happy." When inside I wanted to do ten different things. I wanted to cry because my bug was upset, I wanted to cry because he was hurt, and I was SO upset in that moment and SO frustrated that he couldn't just TELL me that; how rough it must be for HIM to not be able to express how he feels. And at the same time I wanted to JUMP UP & DOWN because he HAD communicated how he was feeling...God bless the Magnadoodle! And praise God he could share with me that much...

I know this was just a blood draw.
It was really just another thing to check off our list, but I'm so happy it's done. I'm pretty sure I've expended my adrenaline for the next six months. I'll be accepting caffeine at all hours of the day.

Hugs to you and yours.
*miss you, T*