Joys and Sorrows of Living with Adult Autism (Awareness)
Dear Nurses,

My dear sweet autistic husband needs the following accomodations when going into the hospital for a procedure. He needs to have all female nurses. Men tortured and made fun of him with needles as a child and he needs mothering through his procedures and men cannot do this. His nurses needs to all be happy go lucky nurses. They also need to be nurses that are naturally happy go lucky and not just somebody trying to act like it that really aren't becuase this will not help matters. They need to naturally be this way to begin with or he will be uncomfortable. Serious acting nurses just make him nervous and make his scarey situation even scarier. He also needs to get hugs from all his nurses. Unlike Temple Grandin who doesn't like to be touched my husband is a hug machine. He craves touch and hugs everybody he likes.

When my husband has an invasive x-ray or sugery he needs to be knocked out completely with the gas. He cannot just be a little woozy. He has to be knocked out completly or he will freak out. Even if all you wanted to do is just insert a catheter in him he must be knocked out completely with the gas first before you do because inserting a catheter in him feels like somebody stuck a sword in him. An IV feels like a butcher knife and a blood test feels like a steak knife. So you can see how excruciatingly painful this must be for him.

It is better to give him the gas first, but because some hospitals insist on doing the IV first he needs to have two nurses help him with his IV stick. One nurse needs to do the stick while another nurse on the opposite side of him holds his hand through the IV stick and then rubs the top of his head to calm him down when he hyperventillates, screams, and cries. This is what calms him down so this is what they need to do.

Thanks for reading this post. It is very important to my husband that all of his nurses know all these things and understand them.

In Christian Love,

Big Bertha Evans