ABOUT OUR GRANDSON AUSTIN

Each day is a challenge in ways of trying to cope, understand
& raise this child. We have learned much about 'special needs'
and will continuously keep learning more as time goes on.

Photo taken November 2003.

UPDATE ~ (Austin is now 12 years old.)
On May 6, 2008 ~ Austin had major brain surgery to remove a small
mass from his right temporal lobe. The monitoring done in March
showed that's where the seizures were coming from. The small mass
was removed & now it's wait & see if the seizures are forever gone!
We pray that it is so!

UPDATE ~ June 2, 2008 ~ (Seizures are back.)
After a month of NO seizures; Austin has started to have them
again. When he had the first one this evening; he was crying and said,
"I'm not suppose to have any seizures." For Austin (being Autistic);
to show emotions like this is very rare...he cried and was so upset.
Having seizures again was not expected and we are all discouraged
by what has happened. He had 2 more seizures during the night.
Phone calls will go out to the Drs. today June 3; to his
neurologist and the surgeon.

My thoughts:
Austin has gone thru so much pain and being sick from the surgeries
and medicines given at the time. He has horrible scars on his head now
and to go thru all this without the results we expected; seems at the
moment all for nothing. How much more does he have to go thru?
He wants so much to join in sports at school and to be able to do
things like...spend overnight with friends, etc., all the things that
young kids his age like to do; but he can't because of the seizures.

UPDATE ~ June 9, 2008 ~ First follow-up apt. after surgery.
Austin had apt. today with his neurologist....the Dr. increased the
dosage on two of the three seizure meds that he takes and the
next apt. is in late August. I left the apt. feeling totally unfulfilled
in answers to my questions. I wasn't given any hopes of it becoming
any better. Nothing else is planned for now; the med dosage was
increased to hopefully slow down the seizures that are happening.
(June 2 thru 4 - Austin had 11 seizures. June 8 & 9 -- He had 9.)
Jim and I are so discouraged and upset with the out come of the
surgery just done. We were given such high hopes that this would
stop Austin's seizures and give him a better quality of life;
but for now, it hasn't happened that way.

UPDATE ~ August 2008 ~ More increases on his seizure meds.
I worry about this, because of increase in behaviours
with the higher doses. The meds cause mood swings and
aggressive actions. He has shown this at home already.
I now worry about when school starts. What will happen?

Austin's FIRST time going to Puyallup Fair.
September 2008
A passer-by offered to take our photo.

We didn't take Austin places much, because we never knew
when he would go into a seizure and if he did, would it be
a grand-maul and we would need to use a diastat kit? That's
something we wouldn't want to have to use in public.

UPDATE ~ October 9, 2008 ~ After the increase of meds again in July,
Austin has been 'seizure free' since July 21st! The last seizure
was a 'grand maul' lasting for 8+ minutes. We are so thankful
that at this time he hasn't had any more!

UPDATE ~ October 16, 2008 ~ With the increase in med dosages and no
seizures at this time; it has caused more problems with behaviours.
Lots of problems now at school and he has been sent home on
several occasions. Lowering the dosages may cause the seizures
to return; and we don't know if it will slow down the behaviours.
One med has been dropped back a bit; and now it's a wait and
see what happens and constant phone calls to his neurologist.

UPDATE ~ October 22, 2008 ~ One of Austin's seizure meds has now
been dropped back again; once last week and now this am.
We'll see how the behaviour goes for the next week. I'm holding
my breath that we don't see the seizures return.

UPDATE ~ Nov. 22, 2008 ~ No seizures have shown up so far; but the
behaviour at school varies. I have met with the staff on several
occassions to figure out how to get Austin to be better behaved
and 'on task' at school. This is an ongoing job every day; with
various actions he does. We have the same problems at home too.

Austin's 2008-09 school picture ~ 13 years old.

UPDATE ~ April 2009 ~ I haven't updated here for quite some
time. Austin still hasn't had any seizures since July 2008.
He is slowly being backed off on the seizure meds; but his
behaviour has increasingly become worse....we don't know how
much longer we can handle this. He has his first phyc apt. soon
and praying that will help him...if not, we'll have no choice
but to have him placed in foster care.

UPDATE ~ May 2009 ~ Austin's behaviour has been increasingly
getting worse and lasting for longer periods of time. Police were
called several times in April and we did what was told - to take
him to St. Peter's for eval, but when done, just ended up taking
him home with nothing done or any help that was needed. There
were no other options at the time for us.

We've been going for months - of Austin becoming enraged
generally over not getting something he wanted or going where
he wanted. He lots of times would also just do it for no reason
at all. The house has a lot of damage with holes kicked in the
doors and walls...lots of things he has thrown and broken; or
thrown, the item hit something and broke it. We have not
done any repairs, because it would of most likely been damaged
all over again.

When in these rages, furniture would be overturned, he'd pick
up heavy wood high-back dinning room chairs and throw them at
us. We have gotten a lot of bruises in his actions. Talking foul
language and calling us hideous names--the list could go on.
His rages have continuously become more frequent and lasting
longer. For about 5-6 days a week, up to several hours at a
time; we've been dealing with this and most times really hard
to get him to stop.

On May 30th ~ Austin started in the early afternoon with the
aggressive, out of control behaviour, and every-thing thing
we tried with 'redirection' did not work. This time he even
put his fist thru his bedroom window.
The house was a total mess with overturned furniture, a broken
window, etc. and this time I knew this was it. We just couldn't
keep him any longer. I called the police again.
Police took him to where an eval was done and then he was place
in a hospital up north for over 2 weeks. We had to make Austin a
dependant of the state, in order to get him placed somewhere else.
We are still his legal guardians, but the state deals with where
he now needs to go.

June 9, 2009
I went to Austin's school, before it was let out for the
summer; to inform the principle on what has happened so far
with him. The staff there is actually relieved to hear that
he will be living somewhere else. They have known for quite
some time what has been happening at home and feared for
Jim & I.
Austin had been going to school there since Kindergarten. So
the staff all know him very well and how far he has come in
his development while living with us. They too hope the best
for him in the future.

UPDATE ~ June 24, 2009
Since Austin has been out of the hospital on June 8th; he has
now been placed in a 3rd home last night...he did the same at
the first two homes that he'd been doing with us. Going out of
control, attacking staff members and doing damage to the homes.
I hope this 3rd one, can control him and they can keep him there.
We so hope that he will get better so sometime in the future it
will be possible to take him back home. We miss him terribly.
We know the loving, fun, good side of him.

UPDATE ~ July 18, 2009
We got our first visit with Austin today since he was placed in
that 3rd home. It's been rough for the staff there with his out
of control behavior. He went once to the hospital for an eval,
it was the same there as with our trips to the hospital...sent
back home.
We are waiting for the medical 'clip' to be approved and to see
where he will go for that...it has to be in a medical facility;
to monitor and try different meds and to keep him safe and others
too when he goes out of control.
We celebrated his 14th birthday with him today and had a wonderful
visit with him. Other photos can be seen on my FaceBook site.
It had almost been 4 weeks since we had seen him.

My Facebook site

Austin with his Grandma & Papa for his 14th birthday.
July 18, 2009 (his actual b-day is the 17th)

UPDATE ~ August 1, 2009
We got to visit with Austin today. We never know till the last minute
if we will be able to go see him. It totally depends on his behavior.
We are the only ones allowed to visit him at this time.

The time went by so fast and we had a wonderful visit. He
showed us some b-day cards he had gotten. One from his mother
and biological grandfather. There's been no communication with
either of them for many years.

He also got a card from his other parent; that he doesn't
remember or even know - his father. To my best re-collection,
I don't think Austin had seen his father since he was about 4?

I told him we had seen his father just a few days ago....
I talked with him about his father and that he had some half
brothers AND a sister; we didn't know about her. I didn't get
any reaction when I told him this new info, only that he
mentioned Tyler, his older half brother with a different father.
He hasn't seen his brother Tyler since he was 5 and maybe the
memory is only because I've talked about him thru the years.

I told him his siblings have different fathers and tried to explain
to him the difference. He seemed confused and doesn't understand
how family ties work. I told him it was nice he had heard from his
father and someday they would meet and get to talk.

Our visit lasted about an hour an a half today. He was ready for
us to go; because he was going to be allowed to go to the store
and spend some of his 'chore money' he had earned after we left!
He hadn't been allowed to go anywhere for quite some time.
So was anxious to go and do that. We found out later, everything
went ok and he bought gum and tic tacs. *S*

The staff said his behavior had been 'awesome' the last couple
of days...there was a large med increase and that may be the
reason for the better behavior.
He's allowed to call us every night...only if the behavior has
been fairly good most of the day. So when we don't hear from
him, we know his day was not good enough to do so.

We are still waiting to see if he will be accepted and placed
on a waiting list to go into the medical facility---to try and
balance out his behaviour with medicines. We haven't heard
anything yet and it may take awhile for that to come about.

UPDATE ~ August 16, 2009
Our visit with Austin on the 15th was ok; but at the last 15 mins.
or so, he got a bit over-stimulated. Jim and Austin were playing a
bit on the Wii and that got him going.
He is usually not allowed to play while we're there....I will hope
that the next time we are there, we do the 'quiet' things; like do
puzzles, play cards or play board games.
We didn't get our usual phone call later from him that day, so I'm
guessing it was because of the behavior earlier. Our visit today
was an hour later than usual, at their request. (Later in the day
can be harder for Austin to keep his behavior in check.)
We were told one of his meds had been doubled again; without much
help on the behavior. It's up and down and not much change in it
since he's been there at this house. DCFS has no place else to
put him and we are anxiously waiting for approval for him to
be accepted and put on the waiting list for the medical facility.
More medical info was requested last week and hopefully I'll
be able to get it myself this week; so I can forward it on.

UPDATE ~ August 24, 2009
Things have not been going very well with Austin and he's been
moved to a different home today. This one though is in eastern
Washington; which means we'll not be able to see him on any
regular basis. I've been told that they have more of what
Austin needs to be safe and safe for others.

Austin had some very out of control behavior on last Monday,
Aug. 17th. The police were called and he was taken to children's
for evaluation, but was released and sent back to the 3rd home.
The staff there feel they can't keep him any longer & be safe.
He was only there till today, waiting for the transfer. There
wasn't any other available home here for him to go to and why
the move to eastern Washington till his possible 'Clip'.

Meanwhile, we're waiting for the 'Clip' to get approved; so he
can be put into the medical facility here. The team meeting for
that is on August 26th. We're hoping that he'll be accepted and
a bed available right away for him! If/when that happens; he'll
be moved back here to go thru a possible 1 year placement. This
will hopefully work, so as to get the behavior medically under
control. If this doesn't work....there'll be no other options
for him. He'll be placed where need be, to keep him safe from
harm and others too.

So please pray that the 'Clip' will be approved and happen soon.
We probably won't be able to visit him; with being so far away.
We also don't know how much we'll be able to phone him or him us.
Phone calls up to now, have been most every day and visits every
two weeks or so.
We know he won't understand 'why' we can't come visit him. He has
no concept of distance or miles. Hopefully he'll be back before
winter sets in and there's snow in the mountain pass.

UPDATE ~ September 4, 2009
Austin totally surprised us by phoning us last night at 9pm.
We'd heard earlier in the day that he was placed in the hospital
to run blood tests...his sodium levels were really low and also
checking for diabetes too. We were not to have phone contact till
Monday; as he had to be at the new house for 2 weeks, before
contact was allowed. I hope he doesn't get in trouble for calling,
but it was so good to hear from him!
He asked us to come visit him in the hospital and told him why
we couldn't...'we are to far away'...and as I said before...he
has no concept of the distance he is from us.

UPDATE ~ October 1, 2009
We heard a couple of days ago that Austin's medical clip has been
approved (YEA!), and he is on the waiting list. He will be coming
back for that sometime early October. It will be good to have him
back here so we can see him. It's been over a month, but we talk
on the phone just about every nite. He likes his new school there,
and the house he's at--he's been doin pretty good there. The best
out of all the places he's been!

UPDATE ~ November 15, 2009
Austin is at the medical facility for the clip we were waiting for.
So he's back in the area and we can visit him again...being in
Spokane for 2 months was hard and we didn't drive over there to
see him. We would have to go for the weekend and gas, motel,
eating out, etc. all costs.
He came back in early Oct to the medical place and we've been
to see him several times. We talk on the phone with him just about
every day, as usual and we go see him every other Sat. He has grown
and put on some weight too, looks good. He likes the place he's at,
they have what they call cottages there, it's kinda like a dorm and
there's about 14 others his age living in it. They go to other
buildings for school and activities.

Not much has changed in the strange behaviors he does....he's done
them every place he has been. He of course still has his out of
control behaviors too...maybe not quite as much. He wants to earn
privilages, so knows he has to keep under control to get them or
at least tries to.

We are going up on T-day, to have lunch with him, besides our usual
every other Sat. visit. In Dec., the kids are putting on a holiday
concert on the 18th and we are going for that. It includes a meal
with it. He will have a family table and he will also meet:
(I should say, re-meet) his father. His dad has been in contact
by letters for several months and recently by phone visits.
Austin doesn't remember him, cause he hasn't seen him since he was
around 4 or so. So it will be interesting to see how Austin takes it.

We've seen and been in contact with Heath, Austin's dad, since the
dependancy hearing in July. He's been married to Jennifer for several
years. Austin has a step-brother, 2 half brothers and a half sister.
I didn't know about her. She is 9 and I hadn't seen Heath for about
10 years or better, till this last July. So that was a nice surprise
to find out Austin had a half sister too.

Anyway, I'm not sure; but I think Heath and family will be there too
for the Holiday concert. I'm for sure taking the camera to get photos
of them all together. I have a photo of the 4 kids already and have
shown Austin it and told him the relationship they are. But he doesn't
seem comprehend what that means....maybe when he actually meets them,
he will understand it better.

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Page redone on June 4, 2009
Updated November 15, 2009