Ok, so if you are a parent blessed by having a daughter your sleepless nights starts when puberty sets in. Somewhere the time will come when you have to gather the courage to have “the talk” about the birds and the bee’s. Thank goodness I missed the session because Kendall surprised us at the age of 10 in becoming a woman. How do you explain the birds & the bee’s to a non verbal girl with Autism? No different than how you would explain it to a “normal” girl. How they cope and deal with it is where the fun starts. Going through “that week” of the month, we soon learned would not be an option. In very Autistic logical, methodical and literal thinking “if it bleeds it’s must be broken” which in Kendall’s case created a very messy affair.
Our options consisted on “the Pill”, bi-monthly injections or Hysterectomy. Out of my experience most woman forget to take it, oops, that’s why we also have a 3 year old running around. There goes “the Pill” idea. Hysterectomy involves intrusive surgery & conflicting legal issues, so we opted for bi-monthly injections. Thinking in an Autistic way “why the hell would you inject me if I’m not sick?”
We had to overcome the trauma of phobia for needles, fortunately Kendall manage the injection part fairly ok, I am the pale one after the injection. We have our system which stays consistent every time. Verbal prep starts about 2 days in advance. On arrival the nursing sister would load up around the corner, Kendall bend over, I start sweating, we starting to count 1, 2, 3 pain in the ass starts, whilst we count to 10 and all finish & done. My sigh of relief in getting the next date 2 months before the next sweat.
I should feel privileged that Kendall will only go with me, the times Julie took her she nearly cost us half our annual salary. The other half of our annual salary we spend on replacing clothes for Kendall. The injection (and yes we have tried all of them) created nice hormonal moments, which we can track through emotional most of the time aggressive outbursts. The peeps at PEP(boutique) think there must be something wrong with Julie buying new clothes every second day. The injections also contribute significantly to weight gain, with a constant 70kg for a 13 year old on a well balanced diet. We don’t feed our kids crap like MaccyD’s. We are lucky, some families really struggle with girls and how nature always works in cycles.
Just a peak into to a daily reality in the life of the Adams family.
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