Sponsored by
The Bald Woman's Blog: Part 21
Su's nightmare trip to London continues...
The last blog entry finished with Su and her autistic daughter Laura paying endless visits to public toilets as Laura found it increasingly hard to cope with the London crowds. Laura heads for yet another public convenience but...
Horrors! Someone was using it. Panic - let's use the 50p one, then, I venture. No, on principle she will not. With the radar toilet still engaged and Laura still enraged she insists that we find a toilet and I can see the immediate future is not good, not good at all!
Through her tears and distress Laura spots a sign on Exit 6 that says toilets and despite my misgivings, we follow it through, only to find it is also a 50p wee!
Incensed, Laura begins to wail loudly and shout at anybody and anything. My head is full of Laura, toilets, routes home, pain in my breast and pain in my heart for her. I decide to try a shock tactic and shout loudly for her to stop while firmly gripping her arm to steer her to the side and I recite our "don't let it control you" mantra.
Unfortunately, Laura screams very loudly and several people stop to look and loiter, wondering what is going on. This doesn't look good I think, middle aged lady in an underpass hassling a young teenager! Time to lose ourselves on the outside.
Oh crikey! We have come up I know not where except it wasn't on the route planned. We walk, with Laura sobbing and shouting alternately. She is now so distressed that I am beginning to feel bad, too.
My toe has a huge blister on it that burns as if someone is hitting it with a red hot hammer, my head is pounding and my heart beating very fast indeed, I am hot and distressed and now lost!
I frantically look for a sign to somewhere, but it is hopeless and the only option is to keep walking in the hope of finding a toilet. From nowhere on the crowded pavement a loud voice booms: "Get out of my way – you are obstructing my liberty – GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!"
I didn't recognise him at first but this was my guardian angel again – sure he was probably the local "nutter" but he was cutting a path through the crowds as he went, sweeping his arm scythe-like as he walked and literally acting as a human "snow plough".
With Laura on the other side of me I nip in behind him – who cares what people think, and like this we walk unhassled until something looms that looks familiar – McDonald's!!
We have passed many things, Horse Guards Parade, Downing Street, the Cenotaph, but no toilets – here was the thing we need most and...it was in Trafalgar Square complete with underground station.
Home, here we come, but first...we dive into MacDonald's. It was the smallest of its kind I have ever seen with only two toilets for women that were as hot as a sauna and very, very crowded, but Laura had to go in there.
We queue with Laura still rattling on, getting more and more worked up with the heat and crowds, a cubicle becomes free and another and we are in.
Websites I have found useful:
Breast Cancer Care
Cancerhelp.org (the patient information website of Cancer Research UK)
Netdoctor.co.uk
Scarf Studio (scarfs and bandanas)
Laura slams her door shut and an awful thought came to me almost immediately. I am right. "Where are you?" she yells. "I am right beside you," I reply. "Come on, we can be out soon."
"I can't use this," she wails, "I can't go, I can't go I..." she was gone, somewhere where I knew I would never be able to reach her, way way into that autistic tunnel.
I come out and stand by her door, there are dozens of people, little children included, all waiting for the loo and inside her cubicle Laura is kicking, screaming and swearing.
She kicks the door and the walls and screams. I plead with her to stop, otherwise I will have to have her removed from there and/or tell everyone what the problem is.
"Tell them," she yells, "I don't care." So I do, with tears in my own eyes I address all those staring people and tell them about Laura and as I speak huge droplets fall from my eyes, not of embarrassment or anger nor for the pain I feel in my own body, but for Laura, for how she feels and how she is and that she can not help this any more than we can help breathing.
A lady whose face is blurred by my own tears reached out to touch my arm. "Stay calm," she says, "you can only help her by staying calm yourself."
I knew she was right and I turn back to the door and stroking the door as if it were Laura's hair I begin my pleading, in a soft voice, speaking calmly I ask Laura again and again to come out, to think of all these little children waiting to use the toilet and the queue and how distressing it is for them.
Pleading and cajoling, I say I know where we are now and how to get home, and that she must come out. Eventually, the door opens and I whisk her out and up the stairs into the fresh air.
I don't care who is watching and as Laura breathes fresh air and tries to calm herself I wipe my eyes, breathe deeply and prepare to make the journey home. Although we still have to negotiate the underground, I know I will be able to do this I just have to keep holding onto the strength given to me by that unknown lady, for which I am so grateful.
We find our way back to St. Pancras, I'm not sure how, but we do and Laura falls upon the toilets there like a ravenous animal.
They are new, clean, well stocked and fairly soundproof with large cubicles and no queues and you don't have to pay. I wait outside for a full 15 minutes for Laura to emerge. I do not hassle her in any way, she needs this time and so do I.
Back home, we are exhausted both mentally and physically and Laura says that she is sorry she let me down and how ashamed I must be of her. I tell her in no uncertain terms that I am not and never will be ashamed of her - I am fiercely proud of her and everything she has achieved and love her more than she will ever know.
I do tell her, though, that unless her counsellor is trained in understanding autism these ideas are not going to be good and perhaps if there is to be a next time the counsellor would like to take her instead.
We have had years of "finding out" how these trips will work out and in all that time we have never managed to complete one holiday, or one trip out without mishaps like these.
On some occasions we have had to abandon the whole day or even the week, depending on the severity of the situation. For years now we have adopted strategies to avoid pitfalls like this and taught Laura how to avoid them, too.
In one fell swoop, we have gone back too far and done too much damage to repair quickly. I tell Laura it is not her fault, not at all, but I might like a word with her counsellor soon!!!
Part 22 next week
Have you been affected by breast cancer? Would you like to comment on Su's blog? Leave your comments below
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Aylesbury
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: -0 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: West
