Beyond the Obvious

Jake has made some great advances over the past year, most noticeably in the area of speech communication/vocabulary. He speaks very intelligently, and understands and correctly uses some very big words and some abstract concepts. However, he has not mastered the back and forth of conversation, and often his talking is "TV talk" where he is in his own world talking to Sponge Bob or some movie character. If you ask him "how was your day?" you are just as likely to get an answer of "good" as you are to get "and now it's time to go to the Krusty Krab!." But, when it comes to him telling you that he wants something to eat or drink or to go the to store, etc., he's doing a pretty good job of making himself heard and understood.

It is unfortunate though, that he still has an extremely high tolerance for pain, and often will not communicate when he's hurting. Yesterday I received a call from his teacher, telling me that over the last few days he has really been acting out around recess; not wanting to go outside, and then when he gets outside he is difficult and angry. Upon returning to class, he has been going into crying fits and causing disruption. He even bit and hit an aide on Monday.

His teacher and I went through several scenarios trying to figure out what was wrong. Of course we considered the obvious that he is acting out since daddy had to leave him again, or that he was having a hard time dealing with changes in the classroom, and even that maybe going to school all day was to much for him.

After my conversation with Mrs. Burden, I started to really think about Jake and what I know of him, and I just didn't feel like any of the things we talked about were really the issue. Yes, he misses his daddy, but he's adjusted very well at home and is not showing any signs of acting out like he did in the past. He's also talking to me a lot about daddy and how he misses him, and that is new and positive. Then I started thinking about changes at school, and the one thing I couldn't get over was the fact that he is happy to go to school in the morning, and this behavior is new - something has happened very recently.

I was still pondering what was wrong when Jake arrived home from school. He came in saying, "Jake had a bad day. I got all reds." They work under a color system at school, greens mean all is good, yellows mean we had some issues, and reds mean things didn't go so great. I hugged him and started to help him get out of his school clothes and into some comfy clothes so he could relax.

He was indeed sad, and although I kept asking questions, we just weren't connecting - I couldn't' figure out what was wrong. That is until he took off his socks, and I saw his big, swollen, black and blue infected big toe.

"Jake!" I cried out, "what's wrong with your foot?"
"DON'T TOUCH IT," he yelled, "IT HURTS!" Well yes, I could see that. He had a major ingrown toe nail that had abscessed and had swollen to the point that I was thinking we might need a trip to the ER. I could only imagine how terribly painful it had to be for him to put that foot in a shoe, where the toe would be smashed against his other toes, stabbing him with each step.

Now it all fell into place - when he gets to school he takes his shoes off, but for recess he has to put them back on. Force that painful toe back into a tight shoe, where once again every step he takes will bring agony. And yet, he didn't tell anyone. Usually when he is hurting he will at least say he has an orange (he learned to tell pain in color; orange is bad, red is REALLY bad), but this time he said nothing to anyone. He just suffered through it, and when it got so painful he couldn't contain himself, he acted out, biting and punching and finally deteriorating into a sobbing mess.

I was able to doctor his toe and kept him home for the day. He is now saying that it feels much better, and it certainly LOOKS better, so that's a good thing. Tomorrow he will go back to school and I will tell his teacher what happened, and we will have solved another mystery.

As a mom, these types of incidents just rip my heart in two. Thinking that my beautiful, sweet little boy is needlessly suffering in silence is enough to just send me over the edge. I wish there was more I could do for him. I wish it was all just a little easier for him. I wish we could have a miracle.