A year ago this past weekend, I went to my 20th high school reunion in California. There were a lot of familiar faces, a lot of somewhat familiar faces, and some people I kind of vaguely remembered their name but that was about it. I had a good time chatting with everybody, whether or not I talked to them back in high school, and often enough my son Jack’s autism came up in conversation. I don’t walk up to people and shout, “HEY! MY SON HAS AUTISM!” but it consumes every aspect of my life. Ask me what my kids like to do and you’ll find out that Jack likes to punch himself in the head, you know?
Anyways, I was talking to somebody named Joann about him and she brought me over to talk to somebody else named Jeanine. Jeanine didn’t graduate with us, but she went to junior high with us. I remembered the name, but I didn’t know her back in the day. She’s an autism mom, though, which is why Joann made the introduction. We chatted for a while and found that we have a lot in common in our approach to dealing with autism and have stayed in touch through Facebook since then.
That introduction out of the way, I get Lisa Ackerman’s blog in my email (Lisa is the founder of TACA and has been a huge, huge help to us over the years). I took a quick glance because I was just getting to work, but I didn’t put 2+2 together. Later that night, Jeanine sent me a link and I realized Lisa’s blog was her story. It also got posted on the Autism Speaks site.
While all kids with autism are different, I found the story encouraging because it goes to show that there’s a lot going in their minds — probably more than we realize. I don’t know what Jack knows or understands, but things like this give me hope. Also, I’m guilty of frequently saying that I don’t expect my son to amount to much because of the severity of his autism, but these types of incidents are a reminder than you can have an impact in ways other than having a good job.
Anyways, I asked Jeanine if I could run her post here and she said no problem. So here you go …
I wanted to share what happened last week because as the mother of a child who has been diagnosed with Autism, I would want to hear this.
Last week, I was in the kitchen preparing lunch for my kids. One therapist had just left and I was expecting another one to arrive in about 20 minutes. I heard my 5 year old son Liam, who has been diagnosed with Autism, scream out for me with the most urgency ever, ” MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!!!” It was very concerning to me because I had never before heard him like that.
I rushed out to the playroom and he had a look of pain on his face but I couldn’t see what was wrong. It was then that I saw what will haunt me for the rest of my life….my 3 year old daughter Eloise had the cord to the blinds wrapped around her neck so tight and she was purple! Very panicked, I ran to her as fast as I could while wondering if I could make it to her in time. I had to lift her up to pull the cord off of her and after all was said and done, she was ok! Liam had saved her life!
![Jeanine and kiddos.](http://www.operationjack.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/nichols-fam-300x300.jpg)
She had been climbing on the back of the couch, reached up and put the cord over her head and must have slipped down into a seated position on the top of the couch. I know how very close we were to having a very different and tragic ending….I couldn’t hear a thing from the kitchen. My husband and I both know that God used my son to save his little sister’s life.
We are stunned that our son even knew that the situation was urgent and called out like that for me. If you had asked us prior to this happening what we thought he would have done, seeing this happen to his sister, we would have said we are convinced he would not have known anything was happening and he would have remained silent.
Our son has always been verbal, but he has always struggled with his language as well as understanding things going on around him. We have learned so much from him, and now we realize he understands more than we thought…..there is a treasure buried in there that we did not know exists. He has always been our special blessing but on this day he also became our little Hero!
You never know what your child is capable of until times like this. We are truly thankful. By the way, all of the window coverings have been completely removed!
That’s all for today. Thanks for letting me post this, Jeanine![subscribe2]
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