Obviously, I was irate. I was hurt and confused. I wanted someone to blame.
For a long time, I blamed the pharmaceutical industry for using mercury in vaccinations as a preservative. Someone determined that kids with autism have very high levels of mercury and other toxic metals in their bodies, and this was attributed to all the vaccines given to infants and small children. Because Ian's changes seemed to occur shortly after his second birthday, I believed it was the vaccines he received at 24 months that had changed my baby into a withdrawn and confused child.
Eventually, I began blaming myself. When Steve and I were trying to get pregnant, we went about it very scientifically. I took my temperature every morning at 5:00, then went into the bathroom to read it and mark the result meticulously on a chart. We put the data in an Excel spreadsheet and made pretty color graphs so we could determine the precise point at which I would become pregnant. We even thought about putting a color copy of this splendiforous work of art in our future baby book - like any kid would actually want to know that much about his or her conception! Yuck!!!
I don't remember which of us decided that making the spreadsheet would be a cool thing to do. Steve and I both had jobs requiring us to be graphically proficient, so it was just natural for us to want to plot any set of data - including my daily temperature and how often we were having sex. To be honest, I am surprised now that we weren't timing ourselves to see how long each coupling lasted or why we did not create a Z-axis to document the positions we used. We had way too much time to think about this stuff. No wonder Ian is obsessive-compulsive!
Anyway, one morning I was very tired and hit the thermometer on the corner of the sink. It shattered, and the mercury was never found. I naturally assumed my own exposure harmed my child, who probably had not even been conceived at that point; but surely the mercury was floating around in my system when he was also floating around inside me. Really, though, I'll never know for certain, and there is no point in beating myself up about it now.
Newer studies suggest mercury is unlikely to be the culprit. The link is just too weak to make me assign blame. I do believe the pharmaceutical industry was extremely reckless about consumer safety in an effort to make big bucks. What's new there? For me, the explanation that is easiest to accept is that my son was genetically predisposed to autism, and something environmental triggered it to appear.
Over the last couple of years, my college roomies have had comparable experiences with their children. The similarities in our lives are almost scary.
* All four of us lived in the same apartment and/or apartment complex for 2 to 3 years.
* All of us went into helping professions (one is an elementary school teacher, one a pharmacist, one a physical therapist, and I am a gerontologist).
* We all waited several years to get married and were in our thirties when we had kids.
* From 1997 to 1999, when the closest cluster of our children were conceived, we were living in "new" cities - in other words, none of us moved back home.
* I believe we were all working during these four pregnancies.
* One had a baby with severe Down Syndrome, another discovered that one of her son's has Tourette Syndrome, and the third recently learned of her daughter's information processing difficulties.
* Two of the affected children were born 2 months apart and the other 2 about 9 months apart.
I don't know if any of that is relevant, but it is interesting for me to make the connections. One thing is certain: our professional expertise has been helpful in dealing with our children's diagnoses.
Isn't it strange, however, that all four of us would have children with disabilities? In the back of our minds, I think we have all wondered if it was really a coincidence. Was it the water we drank, something in the building? Was the complex built on a dump or an old burial ground? Was there something in the nachos and pizza we ate too much of? What was the catalyst?
Two weeks ago when we gathered in our college town, we went to see the old apartment. When we were leaving, we thought those questions aloud for the first time. As we approached the street, we saw something we had completely forgotten. We were living across the street from this:
Had stray electricity fried our ovaries or select eggs? Mutated our genes? Changed us profoundly in a way to cause similar birth defects in our children? More questions, no answers.
I suppose it is no less crazy to suspect electricity than anything else. None of this is scientifically proven, so is it worth investigating? I cannot answer that question. I have limited time and energy, and right now I believe those are better spent finding ways to help Ian the way he is, rather than going down another dead end and not having anything to show for it.
Like any parent who sees their child suffering, I wanted to fix Ian in the beginning, take away the autism and let him be normal the way I see normal. Now that we have lived this life for a while, researched theories, taken some paths that have offered hope and others despair, the one conclusion I can draw is this: no one has the definitive answers I seek. Ian is different in many ways; but he certainly is not deficient in intelligence, in character, in emotion, in strength, or in courage. He is a magnificent human being, as is my daughter, and all of my roommates' children.
Will it really matter if the causes of autism are proven? If my son can feel comfortable with who he is and the way he sees the world, should anyone try to change the foundation upon which he has learned to live? I certainly hope not. I want him to enjoy the world and his life in a way that makes him happy, not the way others see as "normal". He is who he is.
Every parent, every person, must decide whether to live in the past, the present, or the future. I don't see much point in wasting my energy on being ticked off about what happened, even if someone else is to blame. It's over, and being angry won't change the way things are. Worrying about what might one day be isn't much better. Sure, I need to plan for Ian's future (I hear MIT costs $45k per year now...think scholarship!). But if I spend too much time doing that, I'll miss all the wonderful things about today. My family gives me more to appreciate every day, as we stumble along and discover the world in a way we could never have planned.
1 comment:
Another similarity I recalled while working out yesterday: two of my roomies married guys who lived in the same apartment complex. I guess their kids got a double whammy of whatever it was. (jk)
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