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DOUG'S STORY
  Douglas was born while we lived in Crownpoint. Our doctor was in Gallup, New Mexico - 55 miles away. Doug was born 2 days before Lucinda’s 4th birthday. Robin was 2 ½ at the time.
Soon after we moved to Chinle, Arizona, nine month old Doug became whiney and always wanted to be held. I thought it was because he hadn’t received enough attention while we were moving. We celebrated his first birthday with cake and ice cream. It seemed as though Doug thought that he couldn’t get enough ice cream. That night, instead of sleeping, he doubled up and screamed. We knew where we’d seen that before. Doug was allergic to milk, just like his sister, Lucinda. After a day or two of drinking Sobee instead of milk, he was like a different chid. He got down off my lap and pulled all of my pots and pans out of the lower cupboards. That was something he had never felt well enough to do before.
Our family doctor referred us to a Pediatrician for Wade. Doug tagged along when I took Wade for his six week checkup. Wade had already been to this doctor for an ear infection when he was about 10 days old. During this checkup the doctor asked, “Doesn’t Doug drive you up the walls? He is the most hyperactive child, this age, that I have ever seen!” On another visit, the doctor asked me how Doug reacted to having a new baby in the house. After thinking for a minute, I answered that he basically ignored him. (Looking back I realize how unusual it was for a three year old ignore a new baby in the family). Doug also showed no interest when our dog had a litter of puppies. After several appointments, the doctor prescribed a stimulant for Doug. We hesitated but the doctor told us how hard it was for Doug to live the way he was living. Thirty minutes after we gave him the first dose, he sat quietly in front of the television and watched Sesame Street. We were amazed! That was the first time he had ever watched television. Now he could sit on our laps and let us read to him. One of his favorite books was Stop that Ball. Doug was still VERY active, and he still didn’t sleep at night, but he did have some times when he could settle down.
Court's parents were terribly upset about us giving Doug medication. His mother thought using a little willow on his legs would correct his behavior. They went to Gallup and told our doctor to take Doug off the medication. They felt the only problem our children had was that we didn't spend enough time with them. They believed that if we would spend more time with them they would be just fine. (I was a full time, stay at home mother, until 1983 when Wade, our youngest, was 10 years old. Then I worked four hours a day while he was at school.)
Doug started running away when he was about three years old. Once he had wandered away and by the time we had found him he was locked in a government work area with a very high chainlink fence. He was hot, sunburned and thirsty. The workers had gone home, not realizing he was inside the fence. We had to have someone with a key come and let him out. Doug’s favorite “run away” was to go out and sit in our car, with all of the windows rolled up. He would take a Christmas catalog with him, but instead of looking at the pages, he repeatedly thumbed the edge of the pages. In the summer, his face would get beet red and the sweat would run down his little cheeks and cause his strawberry blond hair to curl. When we tried to bring him in the house, he would kick and scream, slam the car door shut and lock it.
I woke up one night to check on our children. When I couldn’t find Doug, I woke Court up to help look for him. We looked in the car, the clothes drier and everyplace we could think of. I wondered how we would tell the Navajo police that we didn’t know what he was wearing and we didn’t know how long he had been gone, and still feel like responsible parents. Finally, we did find him asleep in the girls bedroom on top of a built-in dresser, but we realized that he could leave in the middle of the night and we might not be so lucky next time. I talked to our doctor. He told us we would have to lock him in his bedroom. I told him I couldn’t do that. We’d had a fire a couple of years before and I couldn’t worry about trying to find a key in an emergency.
Finally, I knew we had to do something to make sure he was safe at night. We put a hasp on his sliding bedroom door, that would lock him in, but we could get him out quickly if we needed to. The first night we did that, we did all the bedtime preliminaries, the story, a drink etc, then we tucked him in and closed the door and locked the hasp. After a few minutes, Doug got bored and laid on the floor by his door and kicked the louvers, causing them to fall out, the he crawled out. He was quite proud of that accomplishment. We replaced the louvered door with a solid door and went through the whole routine again. This time Doug jumped or lunged against the door, from the inside, and the whole door molding came off and he was a free man again.
The doctor laughed when we explained all of this to him. He said, “I apologized for laughing, I know this is serious, but it just sounds funny”. We thought it was funny, too, but what were we going to do now?
We ended up going to a Psychiatrist in Salt Lake City and he prescribed a medication to help him sleep at nights. It was wonderful to know that he was safely asleep when we were and it was nice to not wake up to peanut butter and honey dripped on the couch, carpet and television as a result of Doug deciding to make a sandwich in the middle of the night.
One afternoon while I was lying down for a few minutes, I dozed off. I was instantly awake when I heard the loud hissing sound as a fireworks rocket, that Doug had lighted, was ricocheting around the living room. I didn't dare stand up, afraid it would hit me. When it finally stopped, it had landed in a stack of paper napkins on the kitchen counter top(another fire ready to happen). We couldn't let our guard down for even a minute!
The third summer we spent in Flagstaff, Ariz at N.A.U. Doug was tested by the same psychological department that had tested Lucinda earlier. Carl Delacato, EdD, from Philadelphia, was coming to conduct a workshop and they asked if he could use Doug for his demonstration. After being assured that it wouldn’t be unpleasant for Doug I agreed. He only saw Doug for a couple minutes before the workshop began. He allowed Doug to wander around the room for a few minutes, then he told the class that he was going to whistle a loud, shrill whistle, and that Doug would freeze and turn gray. I thought, that isn’t going to happen and this man is going to be embarrassed, but he was right. That is exactly what happened. After letting Doug get back to normal, he instructed the students in the class to start visiting amongst themselves and to gradually increase the volume. As the room became nosier and nosier, Doug did exactly as he had before. After the workshop Carl Delacato explained that Doug is Hyperauditory. That explained why he runs away and wants to sit in the car by himself, with all of the windows rolled up. He was trying to escape from noise. That explained why he couldn’t sleep in his bedroom. We lived in a mobile home at the time and the furnace, washing machine and bathroom (running water) were on one side of his room and the hot water heater and refrigerator were on the other side of his room. He could hear a high pitched sound coming from flourescent lights, the fridge and hot water heater coming on and off were very noisy to him, not to mention people talking, the television, just regular living. Carl Delacato suggested we read his book, The Ultimate Stranger. Reading that book helped us understand a lot of Doug’s unusual behavior: for example: why he always screamed when the barber used electric clippers to cut his hair or climbed in the clothes drier when it was full of clean dry clothes, closing the door by himself.
When Doug started school he was in a special ed class room. He had very little speech or language. His teachers really cared about Doug and they were very concerned about the medications he was taking. They wrote letters to our doctors demanding that they stop prescribing them for him and they constantly tried to convince us that he would do much better without medication. I know they were doing what they believed to be right, but we were the ones ultimately responsible for him and his life. We were convinced that he needed the medication, so we stood our ground. His teachers looked for every opportunity to show that we weren't being good parents.
 One day when Doug was six years old, he couldn’t wait for the car to stop when I drove into the driveway, so he climbed out the window on the rear passenger side of our car, and slipped under the rear tire. I stopped before the tire ran over his leg, but it did damage the skin just above his left knee and he still has a scar to remind us.
We had arranged to have our mobile home moved with us. Since we were a couple of days ahead of it, we were still in a motel. December 24th Robin and Doug were “Playing football”in the motel room with a rolled up sock. When Robin tackled him, he received a spiral break to his left femur. We put him in the car to take him to the hospital, having no idea where the hospital was.  He was in the hospital in traction for three weeks. During that time the doctors questioned us repeatedly about how he broke his leg. They felt that a nine years old girl was not enough bigger than Doug to cause that kind of damage. They thought it had to be someone bigger than Robin. We had a scaled down Christmas in Doug’s hospital room Christmas morning. They waved the rules to allow our young children in the hospital. Later they notified us that they wanted permission to completely x ray Doug. That was fine with us. Apparently they didn’t find anything to support their suspicions. Doug had very limited language at that time. We spent as much time with Doug as they allowed and appreciated the way the nurses took care of him when we couldn’t be there.
When Doug came home from the hospital, he was in a body cast that he would wear for a month, so the school sent a teacher to the house to work with him. One morning I went in the boys’ bedroom to get Doug ready for the day and he wasn’t there. How could he not be there? Where could he go in a body cast? I looked under his bed and called his name, then I heard him giggling. I finally found him in their closet. I have no idea how he got in there. It had sliding doors and I had a really hard time getting him out because he was as long as the closet and he didn’t bend in the middle.
Our Pediatrician referred Doug to a psychiatrist. When he saw Doug he said he wanted an EEG. I had asked several doctors if an EEG would be appropriate for Doug and I had been told that it was very expensive, it would be a major ordeal for Doug and that we wouldn’t learn anything from it. A hospital in Salt Lake City had done an EEG on Lucinda several years earlier and said since her’s was normal, they would assume that the boy’s would be too, so they didn’t test them. We already knew he couldn’t talk and that he was hyperactive. When I explained all of those reasons to this new doctor, he said, “Don’t bring him back. Trying to treat him without and EEG is like trying to fix a broken leg without an X ray”. We really needed help so I decided to patronize the doctor. Just for the record, it cost $75 (next to nothing) and they gave Doug a sedative and he slept through it. When the doctor got the results back it said: Doug has gross abnormalities in the electrical activity in his brain. He said the lab almost never uses that strong of language. He said that usually they would say something like “slight abnormalities” He said when ever you see this much hyperactivity you would suspect seizure activity. He prescribed an anti-seizure medication for Doug and after it reached a therapeutic level in his blood, we saw a difference. He was calmer.
Brigham City
 We were surprised to learn that our new school district didn't have a local program for Doug and Wade. Wade was tested and placed in a program run by Utah State University in Logan, 25 miles North of Brigham City. I was told it would be about four months before they would be able to get Douglas tested, so in the meantime they placed him in a classroom at a local elementary school. I had misgivings when I saw the walls covered with Multiplication and long division worksheets. I was assured that not all of the children were working on that level, but for three days Doug came home from school crying, saying the other kids kicked him and called him "Dog" on the playground. The teacher told me that she couldn't do any more than babysit him because the other children were working several levels above Doug and she didn't have the time to create a program just for him. I notified the district that I would keep Doug home until they had an appropriate placement for him. They decided they could get him tested right away and it was decided that he would be in a program in Ogden, a town 25 mile South of Brigham City. Each of our boys spent two hours each way traveling to and from school everyday. That is difficult for any child, but especially for a child who is hyperactive. Their buses came for them between 6:15-7:05am and they arrived home between 4:30-5:00pm. Managing their bus behavior was a constant challenge.(click here to see how we handled it)
Doug asked me if the world was black and white when I was a little girl. I wondered why he would come up with an idea like that. He explained that since all the photos and movies made at that time were black and white and he thought that they reflected the way the world looked at that time. Pretty good thinking.
 Two years later we were able to help get a new program started at our local high school. ( click here to learn more about this program and how we did it did). The district made a wise decision and moved Jeff up to be the teacher. Now, both Doug and Wade had Jeff for their teacher.
Most of Doug’s friends were receiving their Eagle Scout Award and Doug wanted to get his. I explained to him that it was difficult, even for boys who didn’t have special needs. He kept saying, “I know I can do it, if you will help me!” Finally I decided that the best way for him to see how hard it was, would be for him to try to pass off some merit badges. He was already a Star or Life Scout. He had earned that rank by passing off merit badges at Scout Camps, along with the other boys. Court worked with him and I took him to see a councilor. He came out with the card signed, saying he had passed off the material, so I went in to see the councilor to explain that we didn’t want this given to him. He said that Doug knew the information and added that some boys had to come back two or three times to accomplish what Doug had done in one session.  Doug worked on them one at a time and completed his Eagle just before his eighteenth birthday (the deadline for scouts who don’t have a disability. Disabled scouts can get their Eagle at any age).
While I was getting my hair done, a woman in the next chair overheard the conversation I was having with my hairdresser, and asked if I was Doug's mother? I wondered how she knew Doug and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to own up to that dubious title or not. When I told that her that I was his mother, she told me about an experience she had with Doug and what a special kid he was. I never thought that being Doug’s mother would be my claim to fame. Wherever we go, we meet people who know Doug. Many people who I don't know, speak to Doug when we are out.
 Doug graduated in 1992 at the age of 22.(click here) We wanted him to stay in school as long as the law allowed. (Click here)
For several years Doug had been verbally abusive to our family from the time he came home from school until he went to bed at night. He yelled, slammed doors and cupboard doors, swore and even made holes in the walls. No one else in our family behaved this way (except for Wade). Doug’s big issue was that he wanted a cure. He REFUSED to live the rest of his life with a disability and he expected us to find a cure for him. At school Doug always received little awards for bring the most helpful or most polite. I couldn’t understand how he could be so well behaved around others, and treat his family so poorly. I hadn’t discussed his behavior with our doctors because I believed it was caused by the fact that he was a teenager, and I thought time would take care of that, but now he was 23 years old and there was no end in sight.
Finally, the day arrived for us to meet the new doctor. He looked like a kid, fresh out of school. Was he actually a doctor? I felt certain that we were wasting our time. I felt our hopes slipping away.
This man was actually a psychiatrist. After being introduced to his nurse clinician, we explained some of the problems we were experiencing. After about 30 minutes, the doctor turned to his nurse and asked her what she had written on her paper. She said that at the top of her sheet she had written that Doug had Tourette’s Syndrome. The doctor said that was what he had written, too. That was very interesting to me, because a couple of weeks before this appointment, I had seen a talk show on television with several people on it that had Tourette’s Syndrome. Parts of their stories resembled Doug’s behavior. I hadn’t mentioned it to the doctor, because I thought I was just falling into the “disease of the week” thing (whenever you hear about some new ailment, you are sure you have it).
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