Owwies

This morning, while getting the Monster out of bed, the wife discovered that he had a splinter or something in the sole of one of his feet.

Obviously, he’d not said anything at all to us, and we’d not noticed because he’s not been acting funny.  It was simply that she was being observant that we noticed anything at all.

This is, of course, largely a problem of communication – you’d figure that most children would end up saying something to their parents about having an owwie, or that they’d show some kind of outward signs that something was amiss.  It’s coupled with what I’ve heard described as the Autism pain resistance – stories that people with Autism seem to sometimes have higher pain tolerances, or at least just don’t seem to register it as being as much of an issue.

Plus… let’s be honest.  He’s not really inclined to let us poke and prod at his feet to figure out what’s really wrong or to treat it.  He doesn’t like bandaids or medication, and he already was struggling with us this morning when we wanted to put some neosporin and a bandaid on it… which therefore required sufficient distraction so the first-aid could be given and a sock put on over it to avoid his pulling it off.

Of all the things that I worry about with how the Autism affects the Monster, his health is one of the biggest.  He can’t tell us – or doesn’t, at least – when he’s got a sore throat, when he’s not feeling 100%, when something’s bothering him physically… we have to try to divine it based on how he’s acting and what other signs/symptoms we see.  In some ways, it’s worse than with the baby – the baby gets fussy when he’s not feeling well, and we can’t tell when the Monster’s being fussy if it’s due to something physical or due to not having a better way to respond to a want.

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