The Fallout

So where does the story go next? I suppose it goes the only way it can.

Stow missed two full days of school followed by two days at school without going to any classes and then two more days when he went to half of his classes but didn't quite make it to the end of the day. 

After an unbelievably slow start, the district finally figured out how they should respond to the incident. It took nearly 48 hours before I heard from anyone at the school (the principal) and another day and a half for the superintendent to reach out with a plan for Stow's safe return. In the interim, we only got bits and pieces of information from friends. If the admin was addressing the issue and making plans behind closed doors, they forgot to tell us, which meant that even if Stow felt ok, we couldn't have sent him back to school. On the bright side, thanks to this situation, the district now has clearer policies on how to communicate with families who have experienced something like we did as well as on how to manage incidents at non-school, school-adjacent events.

I can’t say much about how the discipline aspect of this issue was dealt with, but I can tell you that the district has been quick to schedule convocations about bullying in a number of the schools. They also seem to be listening when I tell them that none of this would have happened had there been better support for Stow during the school day. Our ideas about what that support should look like differ, but at least the conversation is happening. 

And, Stow? As with so many other things, it is hard to tell where he is with all of this. He doesn't sleep as well as he did before the concussion, and he doesn't feel like doing anything that requires concentration or a focus on details. His anxiety level is high, but that seems to have less to do with a fear of being hit again and more to do with not feeling well and having his routine disrupted. Our next step is an IEP meeting during which we will try to figure out how to mitigate potential negative impacts on his academic and social progress.

Shiro finally found a cat who will be patient with her

A cat in the box

*****

Coda: Bunny Pearl

During all of this, we have also been adjusting to a new cat. 

We got Bunny Pearl because Falcon was staring down a really scary health diagnosis. She hates anything to do with needles, so any time she gets a shot or a blood draw, it can be a major ordeal. And every time, she asks me to get her another cat. Historically, my answer has always been no. Given what the doctor was saying, though, it looked like she would have many more encounters with needles as we figured out what was going on with her. So, I told Ren we should get another cat. Always practical, he thought we should wait. But once I decided to get a third cat, I couldn't let go of the idea. When Falcon sent the Humane Society link with Bunny Pearl's picture to me, I convinced Ren we'd waited long enough. 

And, the rest is history--well, except for the part where the scary blood test results turned out to be much less frightening because they aren't as accurate in kids. On the Wednesday that we took Stow back to school for the first time, we also took Falcon to the pediatric specialty clinic an hour away. Not knowing how Stow would do at school or what the doctor would tell us at Falcon's appointment made for an especially tense day. In the end, though, everything turned out pretty ok.

Bunny Pearl has been here through it all, insisting I pick her up, sit with her for a while, and chill the heck out. Turns out we DID need a new cat but not for the reasons I imagined.

To commemorate the past week, I'm thinking of getting a shirt made that says: "I went to hell and back and all I got was a crazy kitten and this lousy t-shirt."

This is my third post about Stow's concussion.

Part 1 of this story is here.

Part 2 of this story is here.

Concussed

Here is what I posted to FB yesterday:

This is the text he sent to me after working the concession stand at the school dance Friday night; the text in which he excitedly asked me if he could volunteer to work at the Halloween party Saturday. He was so proud and happy, and I’m completely stuck on how something so good ended up so bad.

 
Stow went back to school Wednesday, and even though he still gets headaches and easily loses focus, he persevered (with lots of supports and breaks) until the end of the day. His resilience amazes me.

 
Though I can’t go into detail about what or how, we are making our way forward and doing everything we can to ensure that he is safe and that he is heard. I’m extremely grateful for all of the encouragement and kind words we received from everyone; they have made this all bearable.

 
So much of my advocacy for the kids is aimed at making sure their neurodiversity doesn’t put them at risk of being mistreated. Stow engages with others in ways that make sense to him, and I firmly believe it’s my job as a parent to help make the world he lives in less ablest, to move the needle toward making neurodivergence the norm.

 
Still, all of that advocacy, and I couldn’t keep him safe.

 
I might be stuck on this for awhile.

*****

These days, I'm up at night worried about how and when he will recover from the head trauma and what things will look like for him once he gets back to a more normal schedule. Any change is ALWAYS hard for him, and this time of year has traditionally been when he starts to struggle. Something about moving into the fall and holiday season. How long will it take for him to get back into the groove he was in? Will he get there at all?

But I am also having trouble letting go of the idea that if I had just advocated harder regarding the deteriorating relationship between Stow and his classmate, this might not have happened at all. Overall, I think the team Stow has at school works hard to help him. But I also think there are just some things that they can't see or don't get. None of us figured out that Stow was perseverating for a very specific reason. I didn't figure it out because I failed to ask the name of the student he was having trouble with, and the team at school didn't figure it out because they didn't know of the history between the two students. We both had important pieces of information that, if combined, would have led to a very different approach to intervention. Maybe even if we HAD intervened more effectively the same thing would have happened, but I can't help but think that it wouldn't have. 

Concussion

This is what I posted to FB on Sunday:

Recently, Stow joined student council and has been very excited to help with events. He’s proud of being a good and thoughtful worker. After volunteering for one event on Friday, he eagerly asked if he could work at another event last night.

 
While he was working, another kid came and hit him hard on the head with a heavy bag full of candy. At first he thought it was an accident, but then the girl left, came back, and hit him again. The THIRD time she came back and hit him, he got dizzy and felt like he was going to pass out. He told an adult what happened and then called me panicked, saying he didn’t understand what he did wrong.

 
The PTO parents handled the situation very well. They communicated what happened to me and also tracked down the child who did this (even though he didn’t know who it was because she was in costume). They called her mom and the parents of the girl who put her up to it and made sure that the girls understood their behavior was unacceptable and that it would be reported to the school. The one who hit Stow was someone he thought of as a friend; the other one has been mean to him and has tattled on him when he has perseverated about how she treats him. Apparently the one who hit Stow 1) didn’t realize it wasn’t funny to him, and 2) didn’t realize the other girl dislikes him and was setting her up.

 
The upshot, though, is that he left what should have been a fun and confidence-building experience injured and had to spend hours in the ER last night. He has a level 2 concussion and can’t do anything today. His head still hurts and lights and noise make it worse. All he can do is stay in bed in his darkened room. He’s missing the youth group trip to the corn maze and won’t be able to game with his friends or do any physical activity for at least several days.

I used the brush tool to cover Ren's face per his request. Sorry it's a bit creepy looking!

 

And, he still doesn’t get why someone would be mean to him when he did nothing to provoke it and also didn’t react when he was hit.

I spend hours working with the school to advocate for Stow and to make sure that he is being supported. He spends hours with therapists and the school social workers trying to better understand how to interact with his neurotypical peers because he wants to be friends with them. He puts in so much work, but still this kind of crap happens. Kids who are different are disliked and even targeted for things that are part of their disability.

 
Please teach your kids to be kind to the weird kid and to stand up for them when someone is being mean or trying to trick them into getting in trouble. All the work we do as a family to support our kids isn’t enough. Teachers and counselors can’t control how other kids treat my kid, and some days it completely breaks my heart.

*****

So, it has been a hard week. I'm still working through it, both personally and as his parent and advocate. For now, I just wanted to share this. He's back at school, finally, but he isn't able to manage going to class or the cafeteria or anywhere but a quiet room, where he sits alone, and I am angry that the thoughtless actions of others had done this to him.

Not Kevin

For years Falcon has been campaigning for a third cat. Once Shiro (our golden retriever service dog) joined us, she doubled down, insisting that Shiro needed a friend. Momo, our 7-year-old calico, and Taro, our 5-year old gray-blue cat, want nothing to do with Shiro. Since Shiro seems to have zero ability to be cool or chill, she consistently succeeds at fully irritating the cats. The always reticent Taro won't even be in the same room when Shiro isn't crated, and Momo has dealt with Shiro's boundless joy by clearly asserting her dominance. Whenever Shiro tries to say hello with a nose boop, she gets a cat-paw thwap on the head in return. 

Shiro demonstrating her lack of chill.

Thwap

For almost as long as Falcon has wanted a cat, I've wanted a cat named Kevin. Momo, Taro, and Kevin just has such an amazing ring to it. Momo, Taro, Shiro, and Kevin. 

Timid Taro

Momo doesn't need you

Recently Falcon had to have some blood drawn. Since she has an extreme needle phobia, having blood drawn is no easy feat. Every time she has to do something that requires a needle to pierce her skin, she asks me if I will give her another cat. I always say no. But the last blood test was different. First, Falcon asked me to take her to get it; I make it a point not to force her to have things done to her body without her permission, so I'd been waiting to get this one done for a few months. How do I make sure she is as healthy as she can be without forcing her? It's a difficult line to walk, but she has always come around to blood draws and shots on her own eventually (though sometimes with a lot of strong encouragement from me). This time, there was no cajoling. 

Second, even though the draw happened at a place where Falcon had one of her worst blood-draw experiences ever (they restrained her in something that looked a lot like a straightjacket), she walked into that lab like a champ. And, even though the phlebotomist decided that the best conversation topic to distract her was FOOD ALLERGIES and how sorry she felt for kids who have food allergies and especially for kids with PEANUT allergies,*** Falcon kept her cool. When the phlebotomist got a "bad" vein and had to try again on the other arm, though, the traumatizing allergy conversation started to get to Falcon. By the time the blood was drawn, she was positively pale, blue almost. Immediately, her body reacted to the stress by making her throw up. 

As the mom of a kid who struggles with this particular phobia, I couldn't imagine a worse scenario. How would I EVER convince Falcon to have blood drawn again? Of course, I left that experience praying she wouldn't need blood drawn for a long, long time. The universe didn't comply, though. It turns out Falcon is going to need more blood tests and probably fairly regularly. Not long before I had to give her that news, I decided it was time to get Kevin.

The hiccup, of course, is that I had to convince Ren that this was a good idea. He understood my motivation but also wondered why we needed another cat. He's sure he is the one who spends the most time caring for them (he's not). It took about three days for him to come around, and as soon as he gave the slightest indication that he would support the idea, Falcon and I were in the car on our way to the Humane Society. 

That's how cats come into our lives. 

We had a particular cat in mind when we got there, but the place was packed and the lines long, so we were sure she'd be gone. Both of us had a hard time being patient as we waited. When we finally got to the front of the line, we were thrilled to learn the cat was still there and that there was still enough time before they closed for us to see if she was the one for us.

She was.

But, apparently she isn't a Kevin. I mean, I campaigned HARD, but sometimes no one else in my family gets my sense of humor. Birdie was a close second choice for me, but that also got shot down. So, meet Bunny Pearl. She's named after the shiba-inu we had when we lived in Japan.

Bunny P

She seems right at home in MY CHAIR

Considering the fact that we were a pet-less family for more than 10 years, I find it pretty funny that we have so many animals living with us now. Just imagine how much vacuuming Ren has to do!

***For those who haven't been long-time readers: Falcon has many serious food allergies, including to peanuts.  Link and link.