The Night My Son Became My Voice
I couldn’t speak. My tongue had swollen so much that I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t form a single word. Panic was setting in as I frantically scribbled notes on whatever paper I could find, shoving them toward my 9-year-old son. He had his grandparents on speaker phone and was reading my notes to them.
But here’s the thing about my son – he gets concerned about things others might consider minor. So when he called my parents, their first instinct was that he just needed reassurance. They thought I had just bitten my tongue or was coughing a little too much.
But my son didn’t give up. For over 10 minutes, my parents offered reassurances that everything would be alright, not realizing I had to write everything down because I couldn’t even speak. My son persisted in communicating, even though they weren’t getting it.
Something in his voice – the urgency, the fear, the absolute certainty that this was different – finally broke through. My dad looked up my symptoms on his phone. “I’m coming over right now,” he told my son. “Don’t let your mom fall asleep.”
I had to be rushed to the hospital, where I discovered I had an anaphylactic reaction – for the first time in my life – and needed an epi-pen injection.
And here’s the thing: my son has autism. And he saved my life.
The Silent Emergency
It was a Friday evening, and I was settling in for what I thought would be a quiet night. My son was with me, but sometimes he spends time with his grandparents on Fridays. (A detail that would prove to be life-saving.)
I made dinner – seafood and salad, which I’d eaten countless times before. I’d never had a food allergy in my life. Nothing that would have made me think twice about what was on my plate.
At first, everything seemed normal. But then I started coughing. Just a little at first – the kind of cough you might get from eating too quickly or having something go down the wrong way.
Then it escalated. I had a coughing fit like I was coughing up a lung. My throat felt raw and strained from all the coughing, so when my tongue started feeling strange, I assumed it was just from irritated from all that coughing.
But then my tongue began to swell, and suddenly I couldn’t swallow. We were still sitting at the table, my throat raw from all the coughing. My son looked at me with worry in his eyes.
“Mommy, I think I should call 911,” he said.
I reassured him everything would be fine and told him no. But even as I headed upstairs, thinking I just needed to rest, my son was already moving to his backup plan.
“I’m calling grandparents!” he announced.
He was desperate to get me help, and somehow HE could tell this was very serious, even though I couldn’t.
At the hospital, they confirmed what my son somehow knew before anyone else – this was a severe, life-threatening anaphylactic reaction that required immediate treatment emergency care.
Why I See Him Differently
People see my son and hear his big vocabulary — the brilliant things he says that make jaws drop — and they assume communication is easy for him. But I see the pauses, the long silences while he gathers the right words. I’ve watched him get interrupted, talked over, or rushed by a world that doesn’t always slow down to listen. Communication is still so hard for him at times.
RELATED: 5 Common Myths About AAC–For more on my son’s communication journey.
That night, though, he didn’t hesitate. When it mattered most – when my life was literally on the line – he persisted – even though communication is not his strength. Even though it’s hard for him. He persisted to save my life.
My son’s speech is fluent now… But what others don’t know—could have no way of knowing—is that my son was nonverbal until he was five.
I used to advocate for my son and I was his voice. Now he was advocating for me and he was My voice.
He took his greatest weakness and turned it into his greatest strength to save my life. Your child will surprise you too – in ways you never imagined, at moments you least expect, with strengths you didn’t even know they had.
Our children are capable of so much more than the world sees. Trust them. Listen to them. And never underestimate what they’re capable of when it matters most. Believe in the power of a voice that fights so hard to be heard.
RELATED: AAC-on-the-go Freebie
To every parent reading this who’s in the thick of it —who’s waiting for those first words, fighting for services, or wondering what your child’s future holds — please remember this story. That same child who might struggle to order at a restaurant could be the one who saves your life someday.
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