Читать книгу Laugh or You’ll Cry: My life as a mum with MS and a son with autism - Sue Askins - Страница 9

A week after coming home, I noticed a few strange things; I couldn’t feel the distinction between the cold floor tiles and the warmth of the carpet. Taking a bath, I might have noticed if the water had been boiling hot, but generally I couldn’t distinguish between warm or hot. I noted these things, but imagined they were all just the after-effects of my epidural. After all, I’d just endured a long birth, was breastfeeding round the clock and had a new baby to look after, so the last thing to be concerned about was funny feet. Could’ve been anything, but it was another sign, and quite common (apparently) for MS patients to be well during pregnancy, then afterwards display problems.

When Josh was five months old, I developed more unusual numb sensations, which doctors thought were due to a disc pressing on my spine, hence why both feet felt identically numb. They suggested not lifting Josh whenever possible. The numbness developed into pins and needles in my feet, as if I’d been walking in the snow. The doctors repeated the same tests and seemed slightly more concerned, sending me for blood tests and an x-ray, and suggested I see a physiotherapist. So I started weekly visits (a story in itself), which didn’t do much good, but hopefully no harm. By April things had improved again. These strange sensations appeared, then just went away. It was infuriating at the time, but once gone I forgot all about them, and didn’t link any of them together.

October 1990. Josh aged one. I was asked back to my old teaching job, so three days a week I started getting up at 6.45 a.m. for the long drive across Wales and over the border into England.

As for when I first noticed any differences between Josh and other babies, well, a few bells began not necessarily to ‘ring’ but to ‘jingle’ when he was seven months old. My friend’s little girl, who’s three weeks older, was moving and generally more advanced, but I put this mainly down to the difference in sexes.

On Josh’s first birthday, we took him to the zoo, believing all kids loved animals. Not the case. He seemed quite uninterested! When an elephant stood right in front of him, he looked away; same with the monkeys, and when they fed the sea lions he more or less ignored them. This really tried our patience, having made the effort; Josh showed more interest in the rubbish bin. It was very hard to comprehend. Even slightly ungrateful.

That winter he suffered constantly from bronchitis and ear infections. He had a really bad reaction to the MMR injection – I’d never seen him cry with such utter despair – and seemed to slip through the net with his health checks; his 18-month test was late. His delayed speech was just put down to all his infections.

At Josh’s two-year test, a different doctor could see no problems with his hearing; he looked attentive enough, although he had little speech. So I was to bring him back in eight weeks. Again, I didn’t feel worried.

But he had started presenting a few phobias. For instance, he was very frightened in car washes, even being near a car wash. Visiting another parent’s house, he wanted a wee, but wouldn’t go in their bathroom. It was the indoor plants; the spikier the leaves, the worse the fear. Even little spider plants caused him anxiety. I had no comprehension of why he was upset. These things just made life harder for me. I wasn’t given a handbook on how to behave with an undiagnosed autistic son.

He was still suffering with his ear infections. We couldn’t let him continue to suffer month after month, so he had an operation for grommets and his adenoids were removed.