JOHN'S WORLD OF AUTISM   Web www.johnsworld.cashhosters.com Parenting the Strong-Willed Child

Not An Average Trip To The Dentist By John Crawford We've taken John to a dentist for regular routine checkups as we did for our other children. Unlike them, no dentist has ever successfully gotten a panorax, a dental xray. So they look in his mouth and make the best assessment they can. For some time, we've been trying to get him into Walter Reed Army Hospital's Dental Clinic. The only way yo get any dental xrays of John was if he was knocked out.. We already knew from previous exams that John has wisdom teeth, and when they were coming in, he literally tore up my house. We didn't know it at the time, but when we found out, we wanted to make sure he (or us) didn't have to endure that again. Our day started at 3AM this past Thursday. We got up, got ready and headed to Walter Reed for a 5:30AM pre-op appointment. Not much traffic that time of day on the Washington beltway, so that made things much easier.   We arrive in time for our appointment and got a close parking spot in the garage (something you can't do during the day).  We got John up to Ward 67, inprocessed, and got his clothes changed. He likes pajamas, so asking him to put on hospital clothes was kind of fun for him. Our daughter was with us, so I went with her to the waiting room and my wife stayed with John until he was 'under'. Once they took John to the dental clinic to get the xrays and do a thorough exam of his teeth, we made a pit stop at the BK Lounge (Burger King) inside the hospital. After that we went back to the waiting room. It's amazing the type of injuries you see there.  Military hospitals have always had to deal with allot of extremity injuries, it's the nature of their business. However, besides seeing far too many people (not just men, women are getting injured in combat too) on crutches, I saw people without legs, arms, eyes, ears and God knows what else. And those are not the 2000+ that didn't live. While in the waiting area, there was a young lady and her mother, they were from California. The young lady's husband had been injuried in Iraq, and they'd been there all week  I believe she was working on their will. This is not a political article, and I won't get on my political soapbox. I just think it's amazing to see their spirit as good as it is, the people working in the hospital, and the patients. It was certainly more than an eye-full for me and my family. Parenting the Strong-Willed Child As parents and longtime child-behavior experts, Dr. Rex Forehand and Dr. Nicholas Long have devised a program to help parents of strong-willed children find positive and manageable solutions to their children's difficult behavior. Their book, Parenting the Strong-Willed Child, is the first self-guided program for managing disruptive young children that is based on a clinical treatment program. Drs. Forehand and Long place more than 30 years of collective research into this informative, yet easy-to-read manual, giving you, as parents, a step-by-step guide toward improving your child's behavior as well as your entire family's relationship. SC, 256 pages. We got several calls and visits to the waiting area keeping us aprised of John's progress and what they find.  Keep in mind this is one big dental exam. After they got the xrays, and got a good look in his mouth, they discovered he had 4 wisdoms that needed to go, along with a bunch of cavities. Like I said, we took him to the dentist regularly, and brushed his teeth everyday and more if we could. But he was never good about letting us get back to the hard to reach areas. So they cleaned his teeth, then went in and filled the cavities, The last part was cutting out the wisdoms. Now, I've had wisdom teeth pulled, but under a local anesthesia and in the dentist's office. And I know how much that hurt; John had 4 (2 on each side) cut out. He woke up in good spirits, but you know he felt like death warmed over. If you've ever had any surgery with general anesthesia, you know what I mean. They gave him some medicine and he stayed in recovery for about 2 hours. Meanwhile, I went to the pharmacy and got his prescriptions. After his discharge, we went to the little store in the hospital to find some soft foods for him.  Keep in mind, he hasn't eated since 8PM the night before; it's not 2PM the next day. We thought there was gonna be a major incident at the store. As we entered he ran to the checkout and picked up spicy sausage, the ones with the juice, and opened it before we could wrestle it from him. He was not happy, but we kept things calm. We got him some applesauce and a spoon, and that kept him content through the ride home. We stopped at the local Food Lion on the way home and got some potato wedges from the hot bar and some packed donuts. Not necessary good for you, but his diet is limited and he is not gonna wait for us to cook something.  Before we got out of the parking lot, he had potato wedges in one hand, and donuts in the other, eating both at the same time. He was  happy. Once we were home, we gave him some pain medicine, and off to bed he went without any problems. A few hours later he awoke with some swelling, so we fed him some ramen noodles and a dose of pain killers.  he went back to sleep until the next morning. Except for the one incident in the store, he did great, much better than we expected.  Back in 1998, he had to be put under to get an MRI on his knee. Everything was fine, except maybe we tried to leave too soon from recovery. It was just him and I, so I decided to take him to the dining facility in the hospital before going home. We had to wait a few minutes for it to open for dinner, but John couldn't wait. He proceeded to throw up right there in front of the mess hall entrance. We got someone to clean it up, but headed home so John could rest some more. I am so glad things went so well this time. About the Author John Crawford is the father of 19 year old John (IV) who is autistic.

Copyright ©2005 Piper Enterprises