Thoughts While Watching Charlie at the Dentist

So maybe it had to do with finding myself driving through a most unexpected (in New Jersey) October snowfall to take Charlie to a medical appointment (the dentist, to be more precise) on a cold mid-afternoon on Tuesday—-but as I glanced at him in the rear view mirror, a strong sense of déja-vu came into my mind. I was driving down a wide avenue on a snowy afternoon, gray sky, and strapped in the middle of the backseat, in his carseat, was my little boy and there was something wrong with or inside of him and no one seemed to know what, or to be able to say what, and not the kindly pediatrician we’d just seen for the nth time……

I was remembering the late late fall days of 1998. We were living in St. Paul, Minnesota, then (I was a newly hired classics professor here) and snow (flurries; storms) occurred regularly, and the days were rapidly shortening and the sky was gray and cold. The doctor talked about how Charlie was a likely candidate for ear tube surgery and how, if he didn’t start talking after that, “we’d have to see.”

If it were now—-when everybody, at least every parent of babies and young children—seems to have heard of autism (though not necessarily to know what it is), and when there are more tests to predict an autism diagnosis in infants, I think Charlie would have been diagnosed as a baby. At the very least, the “minor gross motor delay” that he was documented as having at the age of 10 months—he’d just started to roll over, wasn’t yet crawling or really pulling himself up, didn’t seem interested in moving from whatever spot on the floor where he found himself—-would probably have said to a pediatrician, some things need looking into. (Instead, Charlie’s then-pediatrician blamed me for catering too much to Charlie and so hindering his motor development.)

Everything was mystery and fog then, and a lot of blurry, and really intense, anxiety, I recall. It was hardly “easy” to learn that Charlie had autism, but it was, in many ways, a huge relief, and we started right in to learn about what we might do to help Charlie.

Flash forward to yesterday afternoon. Our low-slung green Saturn’s been long replaced by a black stationwagon and the little toddler in the car seat is now so tall he can’t stretch out all the way in the back seat. While Charlie had had a quite easy time at his last check-up in August, I always feel traces of nervousness taking him to the dentist, as older memories of really awful visits (four adults struggling to keep a wailing boy in the dentist chair, some years ago) are very fresh in my mind.

A hygienist led us to a room to a side and turned on a video of Disney’s Tarzan. Charlie got right into the chair and the whole time that he was sitting in it and the dentist and hygienist were requesting that he open his mouth and keep his hands down and poking in mirrors and other dental tools: For all this time, Charlie was at ease. The only time he got really agitated was when (while we waited for the dentist to examine him) the credits of Tarzan came on the screen. Charlie talked about Barney really loudly and anxiously and when I asked him if I should turn off the video, he cried out, “yes.” He kept poking at the buttons of the dentist’s tools and running his hand on the chair’s handles, both while we waited and when the dentist paused to talk to me. I asked if the seat could be raised and the dentist pushed a button: Another smile from Charlie.

Charlie had no cavities or sores or anything. Some new teeth (including a molar) are coming in.

And, while Charlie was getting his teeth examined, I was standing a foot away from the chair, holding onto his two Leapsters. He knew what to do, and he did it, thanks to a couple of years of practicing with his home therapists.

Jim teaches late in the Bronx on Tuesdays so it was Charlie and me for the rest of the day. We went to the pharmacy to pick up some things (including two sodas); practiced cello; and went swimming. Charlie was so excited to be at the pool that he ran towards the bleachers and ended up howling on one knee. I got him to sit down: No bleeding (thank goodness) and then he pulled off his shirt and jumped into the pool and good thing there was almost no one besides us in it, as he splashed quite a lot of water around with powerful kicks. After dinner, I asked Charlie to get out the dustbuster and he did, and then sat at the kitchen table to do three homework sheets. A shower and Charlie announced he wanted “bedtime” at quarter after 9.
Arguments are often made—as in this recent Washington Times op-ed by two fathers of autistic children, Michael O’Hanlon and Stuart Spelman—about why it’s first of all necessary to provide intensive educational (ABA in particular) teaching to autistic children as soon as possible, in the hope that they may “wind up mainstreamed in school” and have their “prospects for graduating from school, holding a job and having at least some real friendships” greatly increased, and not be such a “burden” to society as adults.

But any “agenda for autism” ought, I think, to take more of a long view, and be more hopeful about the long view. My son’s never been mainstreamed in school; we nonetheless consider his early years of education extremely beneficial. School graduation, a job, friendships; all these are up in the air. Charlie may well be more than adequately trained for more than a few jobs, but will there be employers who’d like to hire him? Will an employer—will we, as a society—be able to accept him as an individual who’s “different” and change ourselves, to make things better for him and others with his disability?

Charlie’s going to have a lot of needs as an adult, and he’s most likely going to need a lot of support, but I don’t think those are grounds for seeing him as a “burden.” It’s a chance for us to envision a communal response for those who need the support and the understanding. And without enough of these, and the belief that a child can do it—can sit in a dentist chair all on his own and smile about it—-things you never thought you’d see can become not only true, but part of the list of things you do any day, every day.