Success Sundays

Hi, I'm Blaze, I am the mother of an amazing little boy with autism and a rare genetic disorder and a rare disease, my son also has a brilliant sense of humour, the most compassion I've ever seen in a little boy and loads of love. Ben has asked me to write a success story every week for success Sundays. I don't identify myself or my child in my posts because Little D is not old enough to understand to give informed consent, but people who know us will know who we are, he's hard to miss. 

Well, this week was bonfire night. Unlike some children with autism, little D absolutely loves loud noises, what he can't stand, however, is a lot of different noises at once, so if he is in a crowded place and loads of people are talking, there's traffic noise and noises of people going about their fault lives, he tries to listen to every single noise at the same time and it completely overloads his senses. 

Recently I was talking to Ben about little D's super hearing and Ben said that he is the same, he can hear an oven door being opened from two floors above. Little D is like this also, if I try to confiscate something, such as the house keys so he can't escape, he can hear exactly where I put them, no matter how quiet I try to be.

So super hearing definitely has it's benefits for little D. However, it has meant that we have never been able to attend a bonfire and firework display. If little D gets overloaded he bolts, cries, or has a bad seizure, so we've always avoided it. What we have done, however, is given him his own mini fireworks display in the back garden which he absolutely loves. 

Recently, little D has been doing really well with communicating when things are getting too much for him with simple phrases for example "go now" and he now trusts that I will always remove him from the stressful environment so he doesn't have to bolt. 

So, this year, I asked little D if he would like to go to see some fireworks with lots of other people, he obviously agreed because all he heard or understood  was 'fireworks' so I was still very nervous about how he would cope. 

I went through everything with him before hand via social stories, I explained that he'd have to wait for the fireworks outside, that there would be a lot of people, that he would have to stay by mum at all times, where his ear defenders and I went over his get out free phrase "go now". 

Little D was so exited, he wore his ear defenders willingly (they are sometimes a sensory issue in themselves) and we went off to stand in a pub car park in the cold to watch a bonfire, my heart pounding for him all the time. 

He was amazing! He left his ear defenders on, spent the waiting time jumping up and down and pulling faces at me, he tried to blow out the bonfire when it was lit which was very amusing, and he cheered at the fireworks. 

One hour in, he looked at me and said "go now" and we left immediately, and he smiled all the way home! 

Next year I'm thinking of taking him to a professional display because he did so well this year! He works so hard and makes me proud every single day. I won't find writing a weekly success story a challenge at all. 

Blaze.