Don't Get Too Attached
Sorry I haven't been updating much, but nothing interesting happened until yesterday.
Tuesday night I did an over night and nothing really happened.
I worked Thursday and we ran a bunch of programs with the guys and cleaned the house. I did an overnight that night too. Friday morning we ran out of someone's meds because we never picked up meds from around a week ago, so we had to stop to get them on the way to work.
Friday night I did another overnight. Around three in the morning, I heard alot of noise coming from a resident's room. I was concerned, so I checked in on him. I found him on the floor humping a pillow. I went back to bed after that and didn't get much sleep.
Saturday was what I want to write about. It was a reminder that I shouldn't get too attached to these guys, because one's feelings can really get hurt when something goes wrong. I won't lie, I definitely have a favorite amongst the six guys I take care of. I don't give him any better treatment than any of his housemates, but he's the one guy I volunteer to spend more time with whenever we have to split up. On Saturday, however, he was misbehaving alot. At around 7 PM, he was trying to ask me something, but can't talk and wouldn't give the sign for it, so I asked him to show me what he wanted. He took my hand and led me up to his room, then pointed at his bed. I asked him if he was trying to go to bed, and he nodded and gave me the sign for "go to sleep," but I had to tell him it was only 7 o'clock and he would have to wait awhile. The reason behind this is if he went to bed at 7, he'd wake up by 3 or 4 AM and start making that terrible siren noise he does and wake up everyone else in the house. At around 8, this resident started tamtruming non-stop. It was very uncomfortable, because he was jumping and doing a high pitched scream, and I couldn't tell if he was in pain or not. We thought he might have been constipated because he kept asking to go to the bathroom. But the real reason he was asking was because when we let him go to the bathroom, he would actually just try to sneak off to his room and go to bed. He also may have been tantruming because his parents visited earlier in the day, and he acts like a maniac around them, probably because they don't know what to do with him.
Anyway, the reason this bothered me on such a personal level was because it almost felt like a betrayel. It's because he knows he's my favorite, so when he's taking swings at me and screaming in my face because of something I wouldn't let him do, and I'm trying to calmly ask him to stop so I don't have to punish him. I feel guilty punishing him because all he wants to do his go to bed and he can't understand why I won't let him, but he's acting out of control. We eventually sat him down in another room and told him to stay there until he could sit quietely. He was still in there when my relief came in and I could go him.
It just stinks sometimes.
I'm The Boss and What's My Name
On Friday, our house was understaffed, so I was called in to work. The only other person was a staff member that works with the guys when they go to work, so she wasn't a normal staff member in our house. So, by default, I suppose that made me the guy in charge for the day. It actually went pretty well. I made the guys a nice snack before they got home from work and had one of them start his laundry once he got home. We didn't do much since it was thunder storming out, so I tried to keep the guys active and entertained inside the house with games and chores. I asked one of them to unload the dishwasher for me, and not only did he do that, he loaded it with dirty dishes afterwards. I told him that he deserved a reward and asked what he wanted, and of all things in the world, he asked for a hug. I would have asked for candy. We ordered pizza since I'm not much of a cook. The guys usually go to bed around ten, but for some reason, they were all begging to go to bed around then. One even asked to go to the bathroom, and when he got up, he just went to bed. One went around turning off all the lights and closing all the doors in the house so he could go to bed. It was strange, but I'm not going to argue with them if they want to go to sleep.
Sunday we had four staff members and only four residents with us. Three of us staff took three of the guys to run errands and go to lunch at Panera Bread. At Panera, we met another autistic man who was
extremely friendly. I had a little chat with him and noticed something interesting. A common trait in autism is that they can't take another person's thought process into consideration. For example, if an autistic person puts a jar of mayonaise in the pantry, he wouldn't be able to understand why someone else would look for it in the fridge. The autistic man knows it's in the pantry, and he doesn't understand why everyone else doesn't know that it's in the pantry. So, in our conversation, the autistic man said, "Did you hear the news? I just came back from my trip to Ireland." I thought this was pretty funny because in his mind, he assumes everyone knows that he went on a trip to Ireland and just came back, so we should talk about it. Very fun and interesting encounter.
We went to get ice cream after lunch, and while the other two staffers were inside getting the ice cream, I sat outside with our guys. I started making small talk with one of our residents that can talk and found something interesting. I asked him what his favorite color was and he said, "Ummmm....," looked at his shirt, and said "Blue and black and white." His shirt was blue, with black and white stripes. As we got his ice cream, I asked him what his favorite ice cream was. He said, "Chocolate and peanut butter and chocolate syrup," which is what was just handed to him. When I told another staff member about the favorite color thing, she asked him what his favorite color was, and he looked at his shirt again and repeated his answer. She told him, "That's what color your shirt is. What's your
favorite color?" I think pressing on the subject made him confused and uncomfortable and start to panic, so he just tried to make an answer and said "Ummm, brownies!" We gave up after that.
On the van ride, I asked another resident who has limited speaking cabalities, "Hey, what's my name?" He said, "Gary." Wrong. I asked him again, and he said "Dave." Closer. I told him my name is Dan, and he repeated, "Dan." I asked him what his name was, and he said, "Dan." I told him, no, that's my name, and asked him again what his name was. He said, "Lisa." We're going to need to work on this in the future. I want to see if it's possible for him to recall names correctly. So, now I was curious if anyone else that I've spent the last two months with actually knew my name, so I asked the first talker my name, and he said "Dan" quickly. It's nice to be recognized.
Cape May Part 2
Saturday was our organization's "Adopt A Beach" day. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a person or organization "adopts" a section of the beach to clean up and remove trash from. So, to celebrate, we had a big barbeque and invited a bunch of other group homes down. However, it started to rain, so eventually everyone was jammed into the living room.
During this, I learned to be grateful that my participants don't really talk. A few can say what they want or how they're feeling, but none of my guys can hold a real conversation. Saturday, I met two that could. One was a man that worked at Wawa that only talked about working at Wawa, what's wrong with Wawa, what's awesome about Wawa, and why you would make a great addition to the Wawa team. The other was a woman that would find something with words, such as the "Welcome To The Group Shore Home" pamphlet, then read it over and over, and then recite it over and over. So, she would run up to people, and say, for example, "Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe!" until Joe answered. Then she'd start reciting what she had just read. And if Joe stopped paying attention, she'd say "Hey Joe! Hey Joe! Hey Joe!" until his attention was back on her, then she'd recite it again. One of my coworkers leaned over to me and said, "I really wish she didn't know my name." Not long after I teased him by saying, "She doesn't know
my name," she came up to me and asked my name. "Hey Dan! Hey Dan! Hey Dan!" followed shorty after.
Another participant was a very sweet looking young lady that only spoke in highpitched monosyllabic words. I was told that she's not as innocent as she looks, however, because if she goes up to you and says "Boo!", she's likely to smack you in the head. So when she came up to me and shouted "Boo!", I shouted "Boo!" back at her and she retreated. I pride myself on outsmarting autistic adults.
Sunday was move-out day. I got out of bed at nine to wake up my manager. She didn't feel well, so I spent most of the day doing everything by myself. I learned the value of having a second person around. It's very difficult to get anything done by myself. Having another person to just sit in the living room with the participants would have made my day much easier. If I got up to do laundry, one of the guys would steal a soda. When I'd go over to him to get it back, another participant would mess with the laundry. When I'd go back to fix that, another participant would be knocking stuff over. It was very exhausting.
One of our participants, the presser, was acting up alot that day. Throughout the vacation, he's had to go into restraints at least once a day. On Sunday, he went in four times. One time, immediately after we let him out, he started grinding his teeth and had to go right back in.
On the ride home, we stopped at a rest stop, and I took three guys to a public bathroom. This was quite the juggling act. The second we entered, one of my participants dropped his pants. While he ran for a stall, I prayed to a higher power that it was unoccupied. My prayers were answered, and he didn't barge in on anyone. He did forget to shut the door though, so I shut it and leaned on it to make sure it didn't swing open. One of the A-team guys was able to use a urinal without any problem. I asked our third bathroom buddy if he needed to go about half a dozen times, and he said no every time. Then I asked him and the other one to stay with the A-Team guy for
one minute so I could use the bathroom. When I came out, they were as I left them, and I thanked the A-Teamer profusely and told him he was awesome. After we got outside though, the guy that didn't need the bathroom started wimpering and leaning toward me becuase, surprise surprise, he needed the bathroom. So I took him back in. Oh, and to go to the bathroom, you have to cross the foodcourt, so one of the guys was screaming "Burger! Burger! Hot Dog! Hot Dog!" over and over, even though he had just had a burger for lunch an hour ago.
When we got home, the presser had another behavior. I don't remember if I ever covered this, but he has two levels of restraints. The first is that he's just shackled and blindfolded. If he continues to act up during this, he has to be strapped down onto a foam wedge contraption. Sometimes I feel that we go for the wedge earlier than we need to, and maybe sometimes we don't need it at all. So when we put him in his first stage restraints, I said I wanted to wait before we put him in the wedge, because I believed that he'll settle down. If he gets violent or starts hitting himself or pressing more, he has to go in the wedge. But sometimes we've put him in just for rocking back and forth or making noise, and I don't like it. I don't think it's fair to him that we put him in the wedge right away just because he might possibly maybe try to hurt us. So, I said I'd watch him while the other staff helped the guys with showers. It was really interesting to watch. First he rocked side to side for a while, then he started some bizarre counting. After he counted to ten, he made two sounds that I guess were supposed to be 11 and 12, but then he went "14, 14, 15..." up to about 18, then started over again and the "14, 14". I wish I knew what the deal was with that.
Also, during this, there's not supposed to be any talking to him. It's supposed to be a completely silent treatment. When I asked him to stop rocking, I was told that there's not supposed to be any talking. But, staff always talk around him when he's in containment anyway, so I wanted to see if he could be calmed down vocally instead of putting him in harsher containment, which is when he usually gets violent. I thought maybe the "no talking" rule was made so people wouldn't yell at him when he's acting up, becuase that would just make him tenser. So I asked him to stop rocking, and he did. I asked him to stop making noise, and he did. Then he sat quietely for five minutes, so I let him out. I asked him, "What are you going to be?" and he said "Be quiet." Then I said, "And?" and he said "Be good." Then he went right back into getting undressed for his shower. I'd really like to see if this could be done again, because maybe we could submit a new program for him that's more affective, becuase I really believe that treating him like Hannibal Lecter isn't helping him.
Four Days At Cape May With Autustic Men Is Not A Vacation
Wednesday night was the start of my 96-hour adventure with our residents in our vacation house in Cape May, NJ. Two other employees and I drove up together and got there around 10 PM, just in time for everyone to go to bed. Since every employee was up there at the time (we were the second half of the vacation's staff, so the first half was still there), there weren't enough bedrooms. Shockingly, I went back to couch duty.
I awoke at five in the morning to Bones screaming next to me on the couch. If you remember correctly, this is what happened on my first overnight two months ago. My career has come full circle in a very short time. Anyway, I put him back to bed, and then awoke to Bones's roomate sitting next to me 45 minutes later, because he doesn't like Bones and avoids him as much as possible. I hadn't yet accepted that I wasn't going to get more than a few hours of sleep this trip, but that realization was coming soon.
During the day, two of our staff took half of our guys to the boardwalk in Wildwood. We jokingly call those three guys the "A-Team," because they're the best behaved and are able to go out in public without much trouble. That would leave the "B-Team" to myself and my manager inside the vacation house. One of our guys had to go into restraints for pressing, and I think we had to do this at least once every day. Maybe he's uncomfortable with unfamiliar surroundings, causing him to tense and press on himself. After the day was complete, I was able to get a bed and a room. Well, it was actually a pull out couch, and it was in the loft above the living room. I soon learned that this really didn't count as it's own room, because I could still hear Bones when he screamed at five AM again in the living room. Why can't that guy just sleep? When I put him back to bed, his roomate came out again, and I realized this was probably going to happen every day.
Friday, my manager and I decided to take the A-Team deep sea fishing. When I agreed to this, I was not aware of two very important things: First, the boat ride is four hours longer. Second, my manager would be doing most of the fishing while I would be dealing with hyperactive, scared, and seasick autistic men. Two of the spots in the A-Team are always the same two guys, because they're never trouble in public. But the third spot rotates between my 5 AM buddy and another resident who
loves to make noises, jump up and down, and touch everything that doesn't belong to him. After our boat trip, I'd like to permanently disqualify him from A-Team status. Bringing him on a four hour boat ride was an absolutely terrible idea. On the outside of the boat, he ran around and touched other people's fishing rods and snacks and anything that he really shouldn't have been touching, all while my manager just called his name and kept fishing. I decided to take him inside the seating part of the boat, since he couldn't be controlled outside and my manager was more focused on her fishing. In her defense, she did have a sentimental reasoning for never putting down her fishing pole, but the fact is, we're at work, and we're supposed to be taking care of our guys, so I was very unhappy. I had to keep Jumpy (we'll call him that for now) from running into strangers, leaning over the side of the boat, and shouting nonsense. To make matters worse, there was something wrong with his eye, so he kept sticking his grubby fingers into it, or trying to use
my fingers to rub his eye. It broke my heart when he pointed to his eye with my hand and said "help me, help me" in his version of English, and all I could tell him was that he had to wait another three and a half hours before we could get him eye drops. I finally got him to settle down when I suggested that we all take a nap, so he stretched out and laid his head on my lap and his feet on another A-Team member. By this point, all three of the guys had come inside to join me, because one didn't like being outside and I think the other didn't like the rocking of the boat. I was getting particularly annoyed at this point, becuase of all three guys are inside and
not fishing, then my manager should not have been outside fishing. At one point, the boat rocked pretty violently, causing my seasick guy to reach out and grab my hand, which he's never done before. Jumpy woke up and went back to being trouble. I doubt I've ever felt more relief than when the boat docked. I felt like I had spent all day running a marathon. In conclusion, if you have ever thought about taking an seasick-prone hyperactive autistic man on a boat for a long fishing trip,
I advise against it.Later that night, we took all of our participants to a very loud restaurant, where and old guy with a huge beard was playing loud country cover songs. I always couldn't get one of our participants to his table because he was so disturbed by the noise that he refused to walk by the musician for a while. I had the pleasure of sitting between that skittish individual and the resident that presses on himself. Our presser was good, but the first guy was being very annoying. Whenever he gets a drink, even at meals, he drinks it all right away. I think this is because he's a food stealer. That means that whenever he can, he likes to steal a kind of good. In his case, it's sodas and water. So, whenever he steal something, he has to drink it as fast as he can before someone catches him. I supposed he does this at meals because he's afraid someone will take his drink away from him. Anyway, after he drank all of his, he kept tapping me on the shoulder and pointing at my water, which he wanted. I told him no. So then he would try to just take my glass. I told him to eat his ice. When we got our food, he wasn't happy with his potato chips and wanted to eat my delicious french fries. I told him no, and to eat his own food. Especially since he at almost all of the appetizer for the entire table. This is the first time it's happened to me, but he actually tried to quickly grab a handful of my fries while my attention was turned to one of the other participants. I caught his arm, however, and made him release my fries, and then got in his face and told him, "There is no food stealing." He and I have a sort of funny interaction where whenever he gets mad at me for not giving him what he wants, he gets in my face and tries to intimidate me by making this ridiculous "angry face." So I bar my teeth and give him one back, occasionally accompanied by a growl, and he quickly shrinks back and gives the "I'll be good" sign.
In the next post, I'll cover Saturday and Sunday.
"Go To Bed" Means "Make Alot of Noise" and Alone In A Room With Twelve Autustic Men
Friday there was only one other staff member besides me, so we had a lazy hang out by the pool day. Both of us also don't know how to cook, but we gave making a raviolli a shot. It turned out okay, but I don't think we made enough for everyone, so I had to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich for myself for dinner.
One of our guys obssesses over laundry, so we switched his laundry day from Thursday to Sunday in order to make him deal with change. Predictably, as an autistic man, he dislikes change. So, on Friday, as soon as he got home from work, he snuck to the laundry room with his clothes and started his laundry before anyone could notice. Tricky, tricky. So, this threw off the schedule of another one of the guys who does his laundry on Fridays, and he spent alot of the day staring at the laundry room window.
At night, I slept in the upstairs bedroom again. Upstairs is where 5 of the six participants sleep too, and if they decide not to sleep, that means the poor person in the upstairs staff bedroom isn't going to sleep either. One of the guys in the room next to me decided to spend two hours jumping up and down on the floor and shouting his name. I went into his room to give him his adversives, but after a couple of times, I knew I was fighting a losing battle and just gave up. Then he finally went to sleep. I guess that was another guy's cue to start making that terrible siren sound he made last time I did an overnight. If I didn't know better, it's almost as if they all planned to take shifts in noise making so I couldn't get any sleep. As I lay in my bed awake, I secretely wished one of them would freak out and need to be physically restrained. At least that way, they could be stopped.
I was not happy when I got up Saturday morning to do 8 AM medicines. Luckily, my shift ended at 3 PM that day, so I was relieved and able to go home and finally get some sleep.
On Sunday, I decided I wanted to work and called in to see if there was an open spot on the schedule. There was, so I went to work. When I arrived, we had two staff members and three residents of another group home that were visiting to watch the World Cup Finals with us. One of our participants didn't seem to like the company, as he spent most of the world cup shrieking. I took him outside an sat with him. At one point, I was alone in the living room with the three guys from the other house. This was worrisome, because I knew nothing about their behaviors, their communication skills, or what I'm supposed to do if they behave poorly. One of them, who only speaks in grunts and "blehhhs" game up to me, rubbed his hand on his bald head, and extended his hand to me. I didn't know if he wanted me to rub his head or shake his hand, but I went with the safer bet and chose the latter. He had a hearty handshake.
They eventually left because they had to do their meds. I learned that our laundry-obsessed resident from Friday, who also had a near freak-out on Thursday, had freaked out earlier in the day when he tried doing his laundry again. They took his watch away (that's his adversive), but he became aggressive and tried breaking into the locked laundry room, then started taking swings at people to get his watch back. He had to be blindfolded and cuffed and wrestled down the the floor. I was dissapointed to hear this, because that resident was the calmest and best behaved one in the house, and he hadn't needed to be taken down like that in almost a year.
Later that evening, the other house returned, but this time, with all six of its residents. We were all sitting on the porch, but for some reason, at one point, all the staff but me were in the house. So, it was me, alone, with twelve autistic men, and about half of them were bigger than me. Do you ever get that feeling when you think, "Hmm, something really bad could happen here." I'm stuck with six autistic men, and I know nothing about their aggression levels and what their behaviors are. Of course, they all started acting up, one after the other. One tried to steal a staff members cigarretes, so I had to tell him to put them back. Then one of my guys started pressing on himself, so I had to put his hands down on his lap. Then one of my guys started screaming, so I had to tell him "no noise." Then one of the other house's guys started rubbing the one of my guys that
hates to be touched. I told him to stop touching people that don't want to be touched. Then everything became calm. Honestly, I half expected one of them to loop up, say "now", and then all twelve guys would start acting like lunatics at the same time, and I would end up very hurt. Luckily, my paranoid hypothetical situation did not come true, and everyone behaved.
Wednesday night, I'm headed down to Cape May until Monday to stay at a shore house that our organization owns. Each group home gets one week in the summer to stay there. So, basically, I'm going to get paid to go to the beach. That's awesome.
First Blood
Today at work was the first time I got my ass kicked. We were in the van, coming back home, when one of our residents started pressing on his fingers really hard. We tried calming him down verbally, but it wasn't happening, so we had to pull the van into an empty parking lot and get ready to put him in restraints. This is monumentally more difficult than doing it inside his bedroom. The van had three more of our guys in it, including one resident that gets scared and panics very easily. There's also very little room to maneuvre. The other staff member got behind him and brough his arms behind his back while getting his bag of restraints open. I was trying to talk him down, but then he headbutted me and knocked me into the front seat. Meanwhile, he started bending his arms so that he bent the arms of the other staff member, and he was pretty much trying to break her arm. So I had to jump up and scream in his face while trying to pry them apart while she was screaming from pain. Then while he was being restrained, he took swings at me. I tried holding his hands down, but he would keep reaching for my hands and squeezing them. It was definitely intense. We eventually got him restrained and lying down on the seat until he was quite. After he was quite and calm for 5 minutes, we were able to let him out and go home. The whole ordeal took around 20 minutes. The other staff member got a cut on her leg and an almost broken arm, and I got a headache from the headbutt and a dozen small cuts on my hand. I sure hope the next time this guy freaks out, he does it inside the house where there's alot more space, because I never want to go through that again if I don't have to.
My Residents Celebrated Independence Day By Acting Like Lunatics
I'll get to the lunacy later. The day started off nicely at 9 PM, when I arrived at the house and told only three of our residents were with us because the other three were with family. The three we had also wanted to sleep in, and I was fine with letting them. Eventually they got up and two of them went swimming for a bit. The first half of the day consisted primarily of sitting outside or swimming.
Our guy with the bone disorder was dropped off by his mom in the afternoon, and I witnessed something new with him. A few days ago, we were told that we might have to call 9-1-1 for him sometime soon, because his life expentancy isn't anticipated to go much longer. Ever since that, I've been on the edge whenever he starts making strange noises (well, stranger than usual). While we were sitting the living room, he started making pained sounds and I thought I heard a few sobs, so I rushed to get another staff member. She informed me that he just does that sometimes, and assured me that it wasn't unusual.
More strangeness occured when our most well-behaved guy started acting up. I've never seen him misbehave in any major way, and he's usually very calm and quite. But towards the end of the night, he was obsessing over something in the kitchen. In addition to this, I think he became more frustrated since he couldn't communicate to us what he wanted. We tried to tell him to calm down, but he started doing this thing where he rubbed his forearms on his face. His adversive (a sort of punishment) for noncomplience (not listening to us) is for us to take his watch for three minutes. I'm beginning to question the usefullness of this, because while it did get him to stop obsessing over whatever his problem with the kitchen was, he became obsessed with getting his watch back. He'd tap us on the shoulder after ten seconds, or go looking through the house trying to find where we hid it. We had to sit him down by himself in another room, because if he saw any staff or made eye contact with them, he'd run up and start asking for his watch back. This didn't even work, however, because he started just getting out of his seat and looking for us or the watch. And everytime he did this, we'd have to start the timer over. Eventually, we found a loophole by making him go take a shower, which takes longer than three minutes, so we could give him his watch back.
At night, I learned another new trick one of my guys can do. I was sleeping in the staff bedroom (no more sleeping on the couch for me!), when I heard a sound that I can only describe as a cross between a fire engine siren and dying cats. I didn't know what in the world it was, so I left my bedroom to follow the sound. It led me to the bedroom of two of our residents, and when I opened the door, I found one of them sitting up and smiling at me. I asked him if that was him making the terrible noise, and he smiled and nodded. I asked him if he was serious, and he smiled and nodded. I asked him why in the world he would want to make that sound at five in the morning, and he smiled and nodded. I told him to stop and to go to bed, and then he went back to bed. What was the point of all of that?
Shadowing Day 15 (Last day of training!)
Yesterday was my last day of shadowing, so now I finally count as a real staff member. Which is kind of unfortunate, because now I can't come over and sleep on the couch and get paid for it whenver I want.
Nothing particularly exciting or new occured. We took the guys out in the van for some errands, and that ate up about an hour and a half of time. We had pizza and vegetables for dinner. It seems every night I work, we have pizza.
One of our residents had some strange behavior. He went upstairs to go to the bathroom when he came back from work. When he came back downstairs, he had his shorts on, but backwards
and inside out, with no underwear on. I was baffled, so I told him to go upstairs and get dressed correctly. This time, he came back down with his roomate's shorts, which were about 10 inches around the waste too big, and again with no underwear. He had to hold up the shorts with both hands to keep them up. So this time I had to go upstairs with him and give him step-by-step instructions on how to get dressed again, which is unusual, because I've never had this problem with him before. Then we found his old clothes laying in the bathroom with his shoes, so I told him to put his clothes in the laundry basket. So he threw his shoes in there. This was frustrating.
The guys like to listen to music outside, so I started wondering if they had any sort of musical preference. Usually we have the radio set to some classic rock station, and I dislike classic rock. So I've been getting a few of my own CDs out of my car and playing them, and they don't seem to react any differently. It doesn't seem that they have any sort of musical preference, just as long as music on. I want to keep trying this out and see if they have any reactions to different music.
I'm going to work for 24 hours on the fourth of July to make extra money. I think we get an extra $50 for each shift, and that consists of three shifts, so I'm very excited to make alot of money on my first day as a "real" staff member. Plus, I didn't think anyone else would want to work on the holiday, so I figured as the new guy, I should take the shift.
