Aaron's Story , livre ebook

Austin Macauley Publishers - Carol Engler

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102 pages

English

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This book is a story about the good, the bad and the ugly experiences in the life of a special needs young man in a dysfunctional family on steroids. Aaron's Story tells you about the trials and tribulations as well as the hidden secrets no one else wants to talk about..."Immersive, captivating, thoughtful, evocative and deeply personal piece."

Informations

Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	08 janvier 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781787107366
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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A aron’s S tory
O ne W rong T urn
Carol Engler
Austin Macauley Publishers
2021-01-08
Aaron’s Story Chapter 1 The Beginning Chapter 2 I Wanted a Girl! Chapter 3 I Got My Girl! Chapter 4 Aaron Did What? Chapter 5 Let the Fun and Games Begin Chapter 6 Who Knew? Chapter 7 Can You Say Columbine? Chapter 8 First Residential Treatment Center Chapter 9 Second Residential Treatment Center Chapter 10 Third Residential Treatment Center – Meridell Chapter 11 Motor Home to Tucson Chapter 12 Sony Game Chapter 13 Sleepwalking Chapter 14 Equine Therapy Chapter 15 Volatility, Violence and Then Some! Chapter 16 What Challenges? Chapter 17 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) on Steroids Chapter 18 Three Times Is Not the Charm! Chapter 19 Are We Having Fun Yet? Chapter 20 Dr. Morton Doran Chapter 21 Advocating for Special Needs Children Chapter 22 The Pumphouse Chapter 23 Pumphouse Fire Chapter 24 Lauren’s Physical Abuse Chapter 25 What Was I Thinking??? Chapter 26 Mom to the Rescue! Chapter 27 Is It Divorce Time? Chapter 28 Heart Surgery Chapter 29 Motorcycles Were Not Aaron’s Friend Chapter 30 Accident Lawsuit Chapter 31 Pork Chops MIA! Chapter 32 Disability at Age 18 First Time Out Chapter 33 Something Good – Finally!!! Chapter 34 Las Vegas at Age 21 Chapter 35 Bulimia and Cutting Chapter 36 Just Another Overdose Chapter 37 Intervention Chapter 38 Aaron’s Last Day Chapter 39 That Awful Night Chapter 40 Dead on Arrival Chapter 41 How Could This Have Happened? Chapter 42 Now What? Chapter 43 Somebody Please Help Me! Chapter 44 Saying Good Bye to Aaron Chapter 45 The Final Goodbye Chapter 46 Aaron’s Great Send Off Chapter 47 Another Grieving Mother Chapter 48 Correspondence Chapter 49 Psychic Lynn Chapter 50 Hoop’s House Postscript
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Carol Engler was an award-winning newspaper reporter before she went into real estate 39 years ago. Story writing will always be her first love. She is happily married with five gorgeous grandkids. Carol still actively advocates for children with special needs.
For Aaron and Lauren who taught me so much about love and family. And for Michael who happily joined in on all
the craziness!
Copyright © Carol Engler (2021)
The right of Carol Engler to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528990721 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781787107366 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2021)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter 1

The Beginning
One of my best girlfriends told me to start at the very beginning. How does one start from the beginning when the middle and ending are what matters?
My son, Aaron, had so many mental health and emotional issues, I had a difficult time keeping track of them. Throw in a father who spent 25 years ‘living in Egypt on the River Denial’, insisting that Aaron was ‘all boy’, add in Aaron’s younger sister whose face was smashed in when she was physically assaulted by him, and then top it off with a workaholic Jewish mother who would sneak back to the office just seeking to hang on to the very last bit of sanity she had. Now that’s a dysfunctional family on steroids – and it was mine.
I was born to be a Jewish mother. Every person in and around my world knows they were going to get a healthy dose of Jewish Motherhood from me – whether they wanted it or not.
Don and I were married for ten fabulous fun-filled years before I became pregnant (it took me that long to figure out from where babies came). When I got over the initial shock and finally shared the happy news with him, he said he wasn’t ready to be a father and walked out of my real estate office. I burst into tears and sulked the rest of the day.
The following morning, I was greeted by two dozen red roses – and a note saying something to the effect that “we can get through this”. That should have been my first clue about our mutually shared doubt.
At 33, I knew that if you didn’t like your house, you could move into something different. You didn’t like your dog – you could give it away to a new loving family. You didn’t like your spouse – you could go out with the old and in with the new. What do you do with a baby if you decided you didn’t like motherhood after all? Was there a way to put that thing back from where it came?
Don and I never really discussed the issue of children. We were having way too much fun being the happy couple. We would work at our respective offices until 6 p.m. every night Monday through Thursday, go out for a lovely dinner together and then head back to our offices at 8 p.m. We would continue working until 10 p.m. at which time we would go home and sleep in until 10 the next morning. Who wanted a baby to interfere with this perfect world?
I nervously called my aunt in Florida who reassured me that children had a way of ‘inching their way into your heart’. I honestly didn’t believe her but thought it would be one of those ‘wait and see’ moments.
I put on no less than 60 pounds with this pregnancy because I knew I was eating for two – right? Two entrees, two appetizers, two desserts at EVERY SINGLE MEAL. I was really liking this license to eat.
At one of my monthly check ups, I was waiting in the doctor’s office with the other patients and commented loudly for the whole office to hear that “pregnancy sucks!” At 200-plus pounds in the 109-degree Yuma summer heat, I didn’t have a lot of nice things to say about the weather or my pregnancy – or anything else for that matter.
Apparently, I upset one of the newly pregnant young “mothers to be” who burst into tears and told my doctor how mean and awful I was. I was quickly relegated to the last appointment of the day at the clinic so I would no longer come into contact with any more of the new mothers-to-be – those SISSIES.
August 1, 1986 arrived nice and steamy, humid and hot. I was right in the middle of negotiating a purchase contract with a seller, Lore, when it was time to go to the hospital. I was scheduled to be induced within the hour, and I hadn’t been home to pack my bags. I told Lore (who eventually let me adopt her as my second mother) that I needed to get to the hospital NOW, and would she PLEASE hurry up and sign the contract so I could leave and take care of this annoying business called childbirth. She said she would wait until I was finished having the baby and would come back and sign at a later date.
Wrong answer. I told her I was going to have this baby IN MY OFFICE right then and there and it would be all her fault. Needless to say, she signed, and I dashed off to the local hospital to get my drugs and have this baby.
My OB-GYN’s wife was my Lamaze coach. I asked myself – who needed Lamaze when you were such good personal friends with the delivering doctor and his wife? Surely, he would give me drugs the moment I walked through the hospital door.
WRONG! No one told me that they don’t give you pain killers until you start to dilate. Why was that such a national secret that only the president of the United States (or his wife) knew?
My Lamaze coach and I started doing our Lamaze breathing together like there was no tomorrow. Every time the fetal monitor would bleep instead of blip, she would page her husband and make him come down to the labor/delivery ward to see if everything was still OK.
After about the fifth false alarm, he told her to stop dragging him down there until it was time for me to actually deliver. She asked him pointedly, “And just how many children did you personally spit out?”
He said he had delivered thousands of babies. She persisted, asking him repeatedly how many babies he had personally HAD. “I rest my case,” was her final retort.
After eight hours of unbearable labor pains, I decided to get off the hospital gurney and go home. I had had enough of this nonsense and unmitigated agony. How could labor pains be so barbaric in this modern world?
I don’t really know to this day if the doctor just got sick and tired of me or his wife (or both of us together), but the next thing I knew I was being prepped for a C-section. Off to La La Land I went with a smile on my face – finally.

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Don and Carol – “pre-children era”.
Chapter 2

I Wanted a Girl!
When I woke up the next day, I asked the nurse what I had. “Demerol and some other drug concoction,” she said happily.
“No,” I responded. “Not what drugs did I have. What kind of baby did I have?”
She said it was a boy and all I remember saying was, “Shit. I wanted a baby woman.”
Aaron Casey Engler entered the world at just under ten pounds. Don said he came out smoking a cigar. The second thing he said was, “Oh my God, look at the size of his paws!”
I was a busy real estate agent so just having had a baby was no reason for me to stop working. Those were the days before cell phones, so I told all my clients, customers, friends and enemies to call me anytime at the hospital’s maternity ward. I was a one-person office in those days, and I was so busy that the nurses’ station was fielding my many phone calls and actually taking messages for me.
After a second day of THAT nonsense, my OB-GYN doctor, doing his rounds, sternly reminded me this was a hospital – not a real estate office – and could I please lay off the phone calls. No sense of humor with that one.
Aaron’s newly appointed Godmother, Mary Beth, stayed with us