If you have a child with a profound disability you are probably very familiar with Miralax. For a multitude of reasons, people with special needs often have gastrointestinal issues. It is sometimes said that the gut is like your second brain, so it does stand to reason that if your “first” brain needs to process differently, so does your second brain.
Anyhow, about a decade ago we needed to start Marston on a daily dose of Miralax to keep him regular. For the most part this daily dose works well, and everything runs smoothly, if you know what I mean. At times, however, Marston still gets constipated, and we will need to do a “clean out” to make sure he isn’t carrying around any extra baggage.
When we first started him on Miralax a decade ago we had many situations where we needed to do a clean out. To do this we would double his Miralax dose until we felt he had gotten everything out of his system.
One November, many years ago, Marston needed to do a clean out. We were in the middle of this process when our family went to my Aunt and Uncle’s house for Thanksgiving. It is a wonderful, festive day for our clan with many cousins to see and play with. On this particular Thanksgiving, all of the kids were congregating in the den. I was able to keep an eye on Marston in this room and still enjoy the company of adults in the adjoining kitchen.
After a period of time I went into the den to just make sure everything was ok at ground level. As I entered the room there seemed to be the smell of poop wafting in the air. I froze - and prayed- “Please let it be the toddler in diapers and not my 7 year old son wearing underwear.” I ran over to Marston and sure enough - it was him. I grabbed him and frantically signaled across the room to Nathan that I needed help and to grab the spare clothes bag. (Yes, when you have a kid with special needs you always have a spare clothes bag, no matter how old the child is.)
We ducked into the bathroom with Marston. There we were, the three of us, squished in the narrow bathroom, in between the toilet and the tub. Nathan and I sitting on the floor, Marston standing. Gingerly, we peeled down Marston’s pants to reveal MASSIVE amounts of liquid poop lining his underwear, pants and legs. And what was the first thing my husband said?
“HAPPY THANKSGIVING!”
I laughed so hard when I really could have cried. It was perfect. The situation completely, totally sucked, but he was still able to make me laugh.
THIS is why we are not crazy folks. Everyone always says, “I don’t know how you do it.” Well, we laugh whenever we can. Even when there is (literal and figurative) crap everywhere, we try to laugh.
Seriously, it would have been totally justified to cry in this instance, and there are many, many other situations in this Autismland experience where I have opted to cry. But this memory is so much brighter, thanks to my husband’s humor. I actually file this in the “great memories” category, because it is just that.
2 crazed parents on a bathroom floor
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1 boy covered in poop
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1 funny statement
______________________________
** Great Memory **
“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.” — Mark Twain