Daily Miracles for Caleb

My dad recently sent me an email telling me what's been going on with my brother recently. It's quite a story.

Daily miracles
By Cliff Jones, Sr.

My son has suffered severe autism and developmental retardation, along with several other diagnoses, from his infancy. It has been a long journey, and it has been coming to a head recently. He is now 23 years old. I cannot go through the entire story right now, but will just try to give a thumbnail sketch of the last weeks.

He was in a special school in San Antonio for about 8 years. They had told me they would keep his medications at a minimum; however, when I moved him closer to home into a group home, he was on many drugs and I could not get an accounting for the reasons or the drug history from that school. He spent a year and a half at one group home, then the last month and a half at another. Neither could control his behaviors enough to reduce the drugs he was on. Brenham State School seemed to be the only option, but it has not accepted applications for the last 6 months due to lack of medical staff.

This last place he was said that they were a church ministry; however, their methods did not seem Christ like to me. This included keeping me in the dark about what they were doing, and flat-out lying to me.

Each time Caleb exhibited autistic or compulsive behaviors, they seemed completely clueless about how to deal with it. I tried to explain to them what to do, but I was ignored.

He would bite himself when he was stressed and anxious. The answer was to reduce his stress. But his caregivers would constantly increase his stress level by becoming confrontational and dragging him to doctors. He has an ointment that heals his wounds quickly, but these people would not use it.

I mentioned they would keep me in the dark. One night, two weeks ago, I got home late from work, after 8 PM, and had not even begun to think about fixing dinner, when a phone call came, informing me they were on the way to the hospital with Caleb. He had been awake for more than 24 hours, but they had not told me. He had bitten himself on the hand and needed medical attention, they said.

I raced there and found a dozen or so security people and nurses. They were all making him very nervous and stressed. He was in an emergency room, losing it. I put everyone out and worked with him for about an hour. He was throwing things and banging holes in the walls with his head. The hospital staff finally insisted on restraining him. I had to coach him through the experience. It was horrible - to think it all could have been avoided if they had told me earlier that he had not slept that night and was biting himself.

He finally calmed down in the wee hours of the morning and was taken back to the group home. Two days later, these Christian caregivers practically forced my hand to take him to a "psychiatric hospital" in downtown Houston. I was told they would keep him for about a week and get his medications stabilized. They told me I had no choice. They lied.

We got there and it was only a processing center, not a hospital, and they found an excuse to send him next door to Ben Taub hospital to be "medically cleared." That was their way of dumping patients, the ER staff told me. Meanwhile, all the staff from my son's group home left us there alone. We got back to his home at 5 AM. I took my son to his room and fell asleep on the floor next to him. The next morning, the staff was gone again, having abandoned their charge a second time.

I had already decided this place was not good for my son, but I had nowhere to put him. Taking care of him by myself would cost me my job, and I had already done that for several years, a decade earlier. So I was hesitant to go through it again. But I was willing if it meant the well-being of my son.

A few days later, I was called at work. It was 12 noon, and they said my son was having problems again. I tried to explain what to do, but they kept giving excuses and not listening to me. They wanted to call the paramedics. I insisted that they wait for me to arrive, not to call the paramedics, and that I would be there in less than an hour.

I neglected to mention that, in the intervening days, I had had a vision of my son being in a confrontation with police officers, who were tasering him. I had feared for my son's life and was in constant and intense prayer. I hated even the thought of his being aggressive to an officer, and that it could lead to his death.

I even told his mother that we had to get him out of there, and described what would happen. But these "Christian" people who abandoned their charge, just as the hireling shepherds that Jesus spoke of in John chapter 10, had convinced her that I was wrong.

So again, I raced to his school. Ten minutes before I got there, they called me again, assuring me that they were waiting for me. They lied. One staff told me that 911 had been called before they'd ever even called me.

I arrived to a parking lot jammed with emergency vehicles. There were 5 or 6 police cars with lights flashing, an ambulance, and another emergency vehicle or two.

I ran inside to find my son strapped to a gurney, screaming, with his pants pulled down and exposed, and a dozen "professionals" standing around him. They never explained why he was exposed or why they had left him that way in front of so many strangers. The administrator later told me that the police were called "for another client," which was a lie. I am obtaining the police report.

They would not release him to me because they had given him a sedative injection. I told them all that I was withdrawing any authorizations from the school and that I was his guardian. I told the school that my son would not be returning.

The ambulance took him to a hospital a half hour away. Keep in mind that all of the traumatic events my son suffered were supposedly so he could get medical attention for his hand bite. After 5 hours at the hospital, they had not washed his hand nor given it any medical attention. On our way out, I washed it myself and put some ointment on it.

But here is the good part: While at the hospital, I got a call telling me that my son was accepted into Brenham State School. This was good timing, because I had just put my new job in jeopardy, because I was committed to keeping my son at home until a better place for him could be found.

After a day at home, he was no longer stressed and had stopped picking at and biting his hand. He was now offering his hand to me to dress. He was happy and not anxious.

Within 48 hours, I was in a tele-conference for admission to Brenham. It was brought up that I had not provided his immunization records, and that he would not be admitted without them. Also, my guardianship renewal letter. But miraculously, they could take him in less than a week, which was phenomenally quick for a bureaucracy to move.

Although his mother had agreed to locate the immunization records, she had tried for 2 years to do this and had not been successful.

It was now Friday. I needed to go to the courthouse to get a copy of my guardianship papers. It is very hard caring for my son and getting him ready, but about 10 AM we were at Jack-in-the-Box for breakfast. I found that my driver's license and my debit card were missing from my wallet.

You'd have to know my son to understand what this means. He has compulsions and hyperactivity. Every small object in my home has been picked up and relocated to destinations unknown. There are books, puzzle pieces, and everything imaginable scattered everywhere.

I prayed on the way back to my house, knowing that I would not be able to find my license and debit card without God's help. I prayed his promises, such as the promise in Proverbs that he would "direct my steps." I have found him doing that with me many times, and it never grows old to me. I will be going one direction, and my steps will end up going a different direction, and I will end up where God wanted me.

I heard from his mother, meanwhile, that she was not having any luck getting the immunization papers. Nothing seemed to be going right.

I got to the house and began searching for more than a half hour. While searching, I decided to call the school district to see if I could run down the immunization records. Somehow, it was easy for me. I immediately got through to the right person and she found the records. I could come by the school in 10 minutes and pick them up. However, she said, "You'll need a photo-ID."

"I just happen to be looking for that right now," I said.

It was hot and my air conditioners don't work well. I was sweaty and searching the whole house, so I opened my front and back doors to let fresh air in.

Of course, I was praying the whole time.

"Oh great," I was thinking.... A large wasp had just flown into my house and into my bedroom. My son was going in there, too, so I went in and got the fly-swatter. Telling my son to stand back, I got it in about three swats. The swatter had not been in its right place, of course, so I went over next to my bathtub, where I kept the swatter.

As I fell to my knees to replace the swatter, sweaty and weary, I prayed on more time: "God, I need a mir - a - " The last part of that very word sort of fell out of my mouth accidentally. There, where the swatter normally was, lay my driver's license and my debit card.

God had sent that wasp into my house, knowing that it would redirect my steps and that I would find my lost cards.

We got in the car, with photo-ID, got the immunization papers, got the guardianship papers, delivered them where they needed to go, then drove into Houston, where my boss handed me what I needed to be able to work at home. I forgot to mention that before - my work completely understood my situation and was willing to let me work at home.

After years and months of trying to get this stuff all together, God performed it all within a few hours.

* * * *

It is a hard thing for me to place my son at Brenham because I believe in the power and willingness of God to heal. But it seems to me that this is where God wants him right now, to get him off of as many of those drugs as possible.

Meanwhile, I am having a very blessed time with him and he is now accustomed to coming to me with any problem, such as a tummy-ache, a tooth-ache, or whatever, and having me pray for him.

Tonight, I got to see him pray a prayer all by himself and to see God answer it.

He was experiencing a choking sensation in his throat. I laid hands on him and prayed. He put my finger on his Adam's apple and I massaged it and prayed again. Then the thought occurred to me to give him a few Fig Newtons with milk, to soothe the throat.

He doesn't speak well, but a few minutes later, he spoke to me in his own manner of speech.

"Want more snack food."

He sort of mumbles, but I understood. "You want more snack food?" I laughed.

"Yeah."

"Have you asked God for more snack food?" I smiled.

My son threw his hand into the air and said, "God, want more snack food in Jesus' name, amen."

That was the first time I ever heard him create and pray his own prayer. In tears and joy, I laughed and gave him a big 'high-five'.

And yes, God answered his prayer.

(more at Prophetic Ruminations...)