In November of 1999, I submitted my first post to the FML. I was
ecstatic in my post because, after years of being unable to own the
very animals I grew up with and loved, they had entered my life again.
I had gifted my husband two tiny deaf kits that he had fallen in love
with at a pet store. Ferrets were absent from our lives because my son
was autistic. He was impulsive, compulsive, and very explosive making
him a danger to animals. When I brought home the two kits, I was taking
a great leap of faith out of desperation to give my husband something
he wanted so badly in his life again. He worked 5-7 days a week and
came home to a wife who was hardly functioning at times and a volatile,
chaotic little boy. We were very relieved and pleasantly surprised to
see that Sean adjusted to the new pets easily, naturally, and most
importantly safely. Later, we were shocked at the miracle that was to
come to my family.

Sean began to turn away from his lines of cars, cards, blocks and
cookies as well as his beloved can opener to watch the ferrets as we
played with them. The ferrets gently invited Sean into their world with
dooks and the occasional checking in with the touches of wet noses.
When Sean didn't engage, the ferrets were all too happy to take the
party a few feet away from him always keeping in touch with some sort
of parallel play. We watched Sean progress very slowly from that point
to playing with them. That led to him beginning to help care for the
babies. The thing we knew, he played with us through the ferrets. His
social and communicative skills soared. We told Sean that if he gave
the babies water, played with them, and helped clean the cage every day
for three months, he could be a ferret daddy. And so with the special
help from a nearby shelter to match Sean up with the perfect ferret,
Sean was able to adopt his own baby ... Rocky.

Rocky ended up serving Sean as a service animal of sorts. When Sean
took Rocky with him out in public, Sean's anxiety, fears and anger
melted away. The beauty of that was this led to Sean being extremely
verbal with Rocky around and led him to socialize with people more. The
confidence Rocky brought to Sean gave him the freedom to go shoping
with us more, go to events he normally would not have been able to go
to, and even for him to take part in normal little league baseball
among other things. Eventually, with conventional therapy, a dedicated
family, Sean's own stubbornness, Rocky and a little luck ... helped
Sean emerge from the grips of autism to being extremely high
functioning. Rocky aged gracefully over the years. They grew up
together. And at the end of middle school Rocky succumbed to cancer at
age 6 1/2. We were blessed in that he never suffered and Sean was given
a year to accept what was to come. After that the end of middle school
went badly for Sean. But the entrance to high school went fabulously.
And Sean invited another little soul into his life to help make that
transition to adulthood. He named his dark eyed white ferret, Pharos,
meaning point or originator of "light". The relationship was not the
miraculous love story that he had with Rocky. It was what Rocky would
have wanted, something just as important ... a normal relationship.
Very normal and very wonderful. The two grew up into adults together.

Life with and for Sean was quite "bad" when he was a toddler throughout
the time before he adopted Rocky. Our family had a reprieve through
much of his childhood. Then Sean faced another bad time from being
severely bullied at the end of the eighth grade. He was lucky to enter
into a high school with a wonderfully accepting student body shortly
there after. And it was roses from there. By age 16 however, we saw a
few ... red flags. The transient depression brought on by the events in
middle school returned, but this time for no apparent reason. He pulled
far away from us like any other teen boy might, but this was much more
exaggerated. And it just didn't feel "right". Yet he ticked on through
school very successfully. Keep in mind we were and still are on the
frontier of the autistic population explosion that is now entering
adulthood ... and society. We are flying blind. Despite what some
experts say, they are flying blind in this situation as well. So who
knew what signs that we were seeing were nothing and what ones were
something. We had to stand by helpless as we watched new issues emerge.
Most of them were and still are very unclear and intangible to us, and
even to Sean. I think back to when we thought he'd never be able to
attend a normal school. Then we thought he'd never be mainstreamed or
included. Things just kept improving. Even so, we later thought he'd
never be able to take part in normal things in any sort of normal and
independent way. Things such as track, band, or getting a job. He did
everything we thought he'd never do. I used to tell myself each day,
okay if all progress stops here, this is still far beyond our
expectations. We win. Today I tell myself, so what if wakes up flapping
his hands and mute again. It would not take away the positive miracles
that we saw over the years. We are still ahead of the game no matter
what happens from this day on. And that is what I still tell myself
We are now entering the third "bad" phase in Sean's life. Transition
out of high school and into adulthood.

[Posted in FML 6687]