|
Mother copes with therapy
By: RORY SCHULER
10/01/2006
TAUNTON - Bryan Cantwell was born
19 years ago, a normal, bouncing baby boy.
As the years passed by, his body
grew, but his mind regressed.
With age came strength. And with his severe mental disability
came fits of violence and self mutilation.
"He started eating non-edibles," recalled his mother, Denise
Cantwell, who in a strange twist of irony, has worked as a nurse
with mentally retarded adults since 1979, years before the birth
of her son.
"He ate glass and WD40, that oil lubricant. He'd eat anything he
found laying around," she said. "He chewed the wood off our
mantles."
The Taunton man's family did what they could to contain, control
and console the budding danger growing within their son and
brother.
They tried six different institutions.
One by one, each failed to make a dent.
Three years ago, they found the controversial Judge Rotenberg
Educational Center.
Electrical shock treatment helped calm the confused, frantic and
powerful young man.
Taunton public schools have been picking up the tab.
But recently, for the first time, school committee members
questioned the moral implications of paying for what seems like
a potentially cruel behavior control device on the taxpayer's
dime - an $18,000 monthly fee, or more than $200,000 per year.
Bryan's mother's heart broke all over again, when she heard
school officials may consider pulling their approval of funding
for her son's attendance at the Rotenberg Center.
"They have influence that may jeopardize his placement," she
said. "The alternatives I'm aware of will not work. Prior to the
center, he wasn't smiling while he was doing these horrible
things. He was screaming. He was in misery."
The troubled youngster didn't fit in to most conventional
diagnoses. After endless tests and observations, doctors said
Bryan suffers from mental retardation and autism.
For the first three years, he developed as most children do.
Bryan started preschool at age 4, but tested a year behind.
"He was late onset," his mother said. "When he was 4 years old,
he tested in the three-year range - no big deal. Then, at 5
years old, he tested at 18 months."
By the time Bryan entered puberty, growth spurts reinforced his
erratic behavior with physical strength.
"Around 11 or 12, he started getting bigger and faster, but had
the same mentality," his mother recalled. "I kept putting things
up higher on shelves, until we couldn't reach them any more, but
he could."
Meanwhile, as Bryan's penchant toward violence increased, he
bounced from school to school throughout the Bay State, mostly
in the Boston area.
He spent time at the Boston Higashi School, a Japanese-based
approach to special education, which employs musical training
and other artistic mediums. He prospered there, said his mother,
but regular shutdowns left the boy without therapy for several
weeks at a time.
School officials suggested the League School of Boston, a school
specializing in children with autism. After a relatively brief
stay, a confrontation led to the injuring and hospitalization of
a teacher.
By this time, he started physically attacking peers, family
members, and educators with absolutely no notice.
He tried to bite his grandmother one day. And on a trip to
school, while his older brother was driving, he threw a fit, and
nearly caused a crash on the highway.
While in public, he made a habit of darting into traffic. His
mother felt tragedy lurked around every corner - for her son and
everyone with whom he came in contact.
"He just kept getting bigger and badder," she said, thinking
back to decades on the job as a mental health care nurse. "Every
day I saw what was in his future. I know what's out there. I
don't want him to be surrounded by staff who are afraid of him -
workers in fear of getting hurt by him, who may hate and abuse
him back."
Denise Cantwell found herself backed into a corner, asking
herself the same question over and over.
"Is there a way to keep him from doing this, so he can be part
of the civilized world?" she asked herself out loud. "Then we
found the Judge Rotenberg Center."
At 16, Bryan's first round of observation and testing started. A
court-appointed attorney took the child's case, to watch out for
his best interests. The use of a Graduated Electronic Device was
recommended by the center's experts.
A judge heard the case, and issued a court order allowing the
use of shock therapy in Bryan's specific case.
"We had to present in court that this was needed to save his
life," his mother recalled. "The options were running out. The
only other alternative was to put him in restraints and a
drugged stupor. That was all that was left for him. The Judge
Rotenberg Center is not a school for any kid. This is the last
stop."
Doctors fully briefed the worried mother about the exact nature
of the therapy. They showed her the four, tiny, dime-size
devices - small electrodes attached to bracelet-like straps - to
be worn on each limb.
They gave her a sample shock.
"It felt like getting stung by a bee," she said. "It was not
pleasant."
In the beginning, Bryan was forced to wear all four electrodes.
When he engaged in erratic or dangerous behavior, two trained
professionals had to observe the behavior and sign off on
administering a shock. Eventually, the bursts of pain helped
alter the child's behavior.
"Two people have to agree it's warranted," his mother said. "And
everything's recorded, monitored, and watched constantly."
As time, and progress, went by, the devices were removed one by
one. His mother said it has been more than three months since a
shock was necessary, and he only has to wear the devices at
night.
Denise Cantwell can't believe the progress her son has made over
the past three years - more headway combined than he has made
since he was a toddler.
"I don't know where to start," she said. "He's able to sit in a
classroom, at a desk, and do schoolwork. He can be around other
people and not hurt anybody. I can bring him home for a visit,
and not be afraid of him, or for him."
And above all else, his frantic, belligerent, dangerous actions
have been replaced with a calm, thoughtful placidity.
"He's so much calmer," she said with a smile, for the first time
in the interview. "He's self-controlled, focused, and happier."
rschuler@tauntongazette.com
|
