Dan and Autism

Shadowing Day 8, Overnight, Day 9

This weekend I worked my longest shift yet, going from 3 PM Friday to 10 PM Saturday. That's 31 hours.

When I arrived Friday, nobody seemed to know I was scheduled. But, it ended up working out, because with me as extra help, we decided we would be able to take the residents bowling. So, we loaded up everyone in the van and headed out.

I sat next to one of the residents on the way there. This resident, for some reason, is always asking for something to drink. And if he drinks too much, he has bladder accidents, so we usually have to say no. Well, the entire van ride there, every 60 to 120 seconds, he was tapping me on the shoulder, asking me for something to drink. Throughout the course of the drive that felt like three days long, I probably told him "no" in various ways about fourteen hundred times. I'd tell him, "No, you have to wait." "No, sorry, we don't have anything to drink in the van." "No, we haven't gotten anything to drink in the van in the last 30 seconds." "No. No. No. This conversation is over." "No. Now stop asking, I'm about to get furious." "No. Now I'm officially furious." "Tell you what? If you can beat me in arm wrestling, I'll tell them to pull the van over and buy you a drink. Do you want to arm wrestle me? Remember, I'm furious."
I believe that if I ever have kids, I will have excellent patience.

When we got to the bowling alley, I learned that some of the guys are very capable bowlers. Two of them were able to outbowl almost all of the staff. It's fun to watch the guys, because they all bowl very differently. One guy gets really low when he throws the ball; another throws it and won't stand back up until after the pins have been hit, so he sort of wobbles around while bent over, another lightly puts the ball down and pushes it forward; another jumps up and down as his ball goes towards the pins; and the last just drops the ball with so little momentum that it didn't even make it to the end half the time. He was not an enthutiastic bowler.
I was trying to get the one with the bone disorder entertained since he's not physically able to bowl, so I spun him around on a chair. I think it's the first time I've ever made him smile. This guy loves being spun around. But after a couple of rounds of the game, he got tired of it and started grabbing his chair to stay still if anyone tried to spin him. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
One of the residents always asks for a certain food all the time for dinner. We were going to go out to a restaurant after bowling, so he'd be able to get his favorite food. However, during bowling, he misbehaved, so one of the other employees told him that he wouldn't be allowed to get his favorite food. The resident spent the rest of the time being such a suck up, and it was so funny. Whenever the employee that he angered bowled, the resident would jump up and down and shout "Hooray! Hooray!" and then ask if he could have his food. He later ran up to me and went "HUUUUG" and gave me one. I told him that I had no control over his punishment. He lost interest in me afterwards.
At dinner, we parked and let everyone go inside as myself and another employee tried to get Bones to put his shoes on. He rarely wears shoes, because I think his disorder makes them very uncomfortable. However, when we go outside of the house, he needs to wear them, since we can't have him walking around barefoot outside on gravel and such. In the parking lot, unfortunately, he was being an enormous pain in the ass. We'd get one shoe on, and as we put on the other, he'd kick off the first. This went on for about ten minutes. When we finally got both shoes on, we started walking him, with one of us on each side of him, supporting him by holding his arms. He took advantage of us supporting him by lifting his feet up and kicking off his shoes. This also took about ten minutes to get him inside with his shoes on.
We finally got him inside the restaurant and ordered dinner. One of the perks of this job is that our meals are paid for, so I got myself another crab and shrimp in tortillina with cheese sauce. Most of the guys got burgers, because they aren't much for variety. It's hard to enjoy dinner sometimes, because we have to constantly keep an eye on the guys, because alot of them shove food in their mouth faster than they can chew, and could choke themselves. When this happens, we have to tell them to back away from the table until they're able to behave and eat at a reasonable speed. There were only one or two instances of this that night, luckily. Of course, having a peaceful meal would just be too nice, so Bones knocked over a large glass of water to continue pissing off that other employee.
On the way home, I sat next to Bones. He spent alot of the ride grabbing me very forcefully with his good hand. He likes to be tickled there, but we don't reward him for grabbing. Of course, this just makes him more mad, so he just grabs me more. Not a wonderful ride home.
When we got home, it was time to get the guys showered. I figured that since I wiped someone's butt last week, I was mentally ready to help with the showering. I watched and learned what we have to do. Most of the guys can shower themselves, we just need to remind them what they're doing and keep them on task, otherwise some of them would just stand under the water forever. Also, a few of the guys like to turn the water scalding hot on themselves, so we have to always watch them to make sure they don't hurt themselves. After the shower, we check their body for any cuts or bruises and fill out the paperwork for the night. At around 11 PM we had them all in bed. I could wait, I was exhausted, and I fell asleep on the couch shortly afterwards.

When I first started, I remember one of the employees told me that the guys behave really strangely during full moons. I sort of dismissed it as superstition. Saturday went a long way to prove me wrong and make me a believer.
The resident that was bugging me the entire van ride Friday decided to continue Saturday with added intensity. He wasn't just asking anymore, he was flailing his limbs and getting in my face and barring his teeth at me. Despite alluding to him that I may, in fact, be the Incredible Hulk and letting him know that he wouldn't like me when I'm angry, he persisted. I had to get him with adversives very often for noise making and handplay. I started to question the effectiveness of the punishment, since once I finished, it just seemed to rekindle his behavior and make him jump up and get in my face again immediately.
Another resident, the one who presses on himself, was making me very nervous Saturday. I've managed to avoid working on the days where he's had dangerous episodes and needed to be strapped down. I went through the training for that weeks ago, and I'm not confident that I could get him in confinement myself. I caught him pressing maybe four or five times, but I was able to stop him with just verbal warnings. He was noise frequency increased exponentially for the day. His adversive for that is for me to press to fingers to his mouth and say, "No noise." Halfway through the day, I had done it to him so many times that I could just prompt and say "No..." and he would say, "No noise," and be quiet. By the end of the day, I would just look at him and he'd say. "No noise," and be quiet. He was also rocking back and forth alot. I'd tell him, "Uncross your legs. Hands quiet. Lean back. Relax." By the end of the day, he'd recite most of that without me saying anything. At one point in the day, he was getting so tense that we had to have him sit on the floor in front of another staff member until he calmed down.
At night, I ran the showering programs by myself. In one uncomfortable moment, one resident was washing himself, starting at the head and going down. When he got to his crotch, however, his attention lingered there. I thought, hey, he's a grown man, he's got hormones, this happens. So I told him "Alright, I'm going to turn around for about five seconds, and when I turn back, you better have moved on." When I turned around, he still had one hand in the same place, and another reaching to turn up the heat on the temperature knob. I shouted an unintelligable noise that resembled, "yo yo yo yo" to stop him from turning the knob. Then I instructed him, "Alright, time to find a new body part. Wash your legs."
After they were showered, I was finally able to go home. The only thing I think I really need to do with the guys is learn how to shave them. I'm apprehensive because I can barely shave myself without knicking myself, so I'm very nervous about shaving a group of men that like to jump up and down and squirm if they're required to stand still. Next weekend, we'll find out.

posted by Daniel @ 3:22 AM