Incident where Autistic husband was misunderstood
Dear Nurses,

I'd like to tell you about an incident my dear sweet autistic husband had at a hospital where he had previously had surgery. He was looking for a language therapist to help him better communicate with his doctors about his illnesses because he felt as if he were not getting through. The doctor in this town did take him seriously but many doctors before him tried to treat him for the wrong thing and he wanted to be able to persuade his doctors as to what problems he was having to where they could understand it.

My husband had contacted the Speech Pathology department to recieve therapy as he had recieved in the past before he moved up here. He asked for a female therapist and the secretary told him that there were female therapists but one of the therapists was a male therapist. This made Brian uncomfortable so we went in and asked if we could write a note to all their therapists to ask them to meet with him so he would know who he would be comfortable with.

The Director of this department called the next day and chewed my husband out about the note and my husband got worried because the man seemed to have it in for him and reminded him of a male teacher he had in Elementary School who tried to turn all his teachers against him including a favorite 7th grade special ed teacher at a Junior High School he went to. Because of this Brian wrote his therapists and told all about his childhood all the way to the present and tried to explain why he wanted a female therapists and told how he was bullied in school by both men and boys.

After this the director of this department called him and chewed him out again and asked him not to write any of this therapists again. He also rubbed it in that the male therapist would be his therapist when he came.

Brian got worried and thought this man would try to turn all his nurses against him but especially his favorite IV helper. Because of this he wrote the IV helper and begged her not to say the same things some college girls had said that got the wrong idea about him years earlier and did not think to tell her this is where he was getting his statements from.

Apparently his favorite IV helper got the wrong idea and called the
police.

I tried to go and talk to her to explain Brian to her when he had his next appointment.

He was asked by the police not to write anybody at the hospital but they did not say we could not go in there and a police friend in my own town I talked to about this thought I had the right idea to go and talk to the lady personally so I did.

We went in there and I got her at her extension and she said she got off work at 2:30 and to wait for her and she would talk to us then. At about 2:20 a policeman came and frisked my Autistic husband in the hall and then took us down stairs to question us with two other policeman (deputies) and I tried to tell him why we were there but he did not believe us and told us we could not go to the hospital again unless my husband was having a procedure being done that day. Then he showed us a short cut out of there and told us not to come back.

To this day this problem has never been resolved. We tried to tell the hospital previously that my husband had autistic tendencies but they did not care. We did not know until 1 week after this incident that my husband was autistic and that he actually had Autism itself and not just the tendencies.


The lady said it would take 3 one hour sessions to diagnose the problem but after reviewing his childhood rehab records and asking questions about his present condition she decided that it was so obvious he had autism and diagnosed him that day and did not understand why in the world the doctors did not diagnose him with it as a child because it was so obvious.

So the next time somebody acts strange in this manner, make sure they are not Autistic first. They may just be worried about what's going to happen to them and may just need you to console them and assure them that nothing their worried about is going to happen to them.

If this IV helper would have consoled my husband in this situation it would have solved the whole problem and they both could have forgot about it and gone on as usual and been friends as usual. So, please keep this in mind when you deal with Autistic patients.

It is a common tendency for Autistic people to write because this is the way they communicate. If something sounds odd that they say, just make sure not to take it to seriously because chances are it's not what it sounded like and their just worried about something.

In Christian Love,

Big Bertha Evans