old farm well
Unlocking the mystery. Dear readers, thanks so much for tuning in to the latest chapter of Luke’s autism saga. A quick recap: Luke was born six weeks prematurely because his twin was in distress. The doctors said that his twin was too badly damaged to survive, and we took him off the ventilator after four days and let him die in peace. The doctors were stumped as to what had happened to him. They said that his part of the placenta was in shreds, but had no answers as to what had caused it. Luke was different from the time we took him home from the hospital. No cuddling, no eye contact, and no language emerged. He constantly cried and tugged at his ears, and was put on antibiotic after antibiotic, all to no avail. Nothing touched the raging infection in his ears. At the age of three, Luke got an autism label attached to him. He was then completely non-verbal. After taking him to an allergy specialist, he was started on allergy drops for his recurrent ear infections. Within six weeks he started talking, his first word being “mama.” Needless to say, I was thrilled, and quite certain that he was on the road to recovery. But severe behavioral issues started to emerge, such as head-banging, hurling himself against the walls, and tantrums that would leave me questioning my sanity. I had the doctor start him on medication for his hyperactivity, but Ritalin caused depression in him and Adderall made him want to commit suicide. I took him off of all medications, vowing to never put him on drugs again. We had our highs and lows for the next several years, though mostly lows, to be honest. One bleak, wintry day I pulled up in our yard and stared at our old well as I turned off the ignition, just as an airplane flew over my head amidst a flurry of pesticides that were dispersed upon rows of crops abutting our house. A light went off in my head, as if someone had illuminated a path for me, unlocking the mystery of my son’s autism. As I stared at that old well, my mouth agape, I realized then what killed Luke’s twin.
We lived in a wooden clapboard house that had stood for a century, on hundreds of acres that had once been a working farm, where fields of cotton stretched as far as the eye could see. A dilapidated storage shed leaned precariously over an ancient well, which was our source of drinking water.
My husband found that house shortly after we got married and fell in love with it. He had to have it. But the ramshackle house needed a lot of work done on it. The floorboards were sagging and paint was peeling off the walls. Being the man of the house, one would think that my husband would do the work restoring the old house to its former glory. But that chore was left to me. I scraped and sanded thick layers of paint off the walls, coughing and choking on the clouds of dust that swirled around me.
At night, exhausted, I would ladle water from our well and make iced tea to accompany the dinner that I cooked using the water from our well.
It was shortly after I finished scraping off aging wallpaper and sanding the paint off the walls, then painting and shellacking that I realized that I was pregnant. Six and a half months later Luke and his twin were born, and chaos in the form of autism reigned supreme in our household.
Seven years after Luke was born, and his twin died, I stumbled upon the key to unlocking the mystery to my son’s autism.
Can you guess what it was?
Leave your answer in the comment section!
Until next time…
Scarlett
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