Michelle Nickleberry
adopted her daughters, Tori and Lexi, as a single woman. She works as a
flight attendant with a major airline, provides concealed handgun training, and
works as a grievance specialist with a union. Her ambitions are to:
- Expand airline passenger orientation programs for kids
with autism in order to reduce the chances of behaviors that officials and
passengers may not understand.
- Develop awareness programs for airline staff and police
forces both to reduce the risk of harming a child and to reduce
escalations that may demand resources best used someplace else.
Michelle’s
Story, Part 1 of 2:
“When I married, it was a family decision for me to leave the Dallas Police
Force. I think about going back as a reserve police officer sometimes.
Life is different now. Now, I am a single mother of two daughters,
one on the autism spectrum. I adopted twin daughters, my kiddos, after
they came into my life as foster children at only eleven days old and born
prematurely.”
Michelle oriented me to that difference in her life by sharing one particular
police call:
“He threw us around like we were ragdolls,” recalled Michelle, her voice
steady; like the brawl must have found its place in the context of her life.
“My partner and I didn’t know if we were going to make it. The
perpetrator was so strong… extremely strong. He wasn’t trying to stop us.
He wasn’t trying to resist us.” Driven by rage-induced mental
health issues and the inadvertent intake of laced marijuana, “He attacked us.
He tried to take our firearms. He hit us over the head. This
was a fight for us to go home. So, it was on. We engaged him will all the
strength and tactics coming from the only source it could, God’s gift of the
will to survive.
“A security guard showed up. He had a shotgun. He went to lay it
down so that he could help us. Immediately, we told him not to lay it down.
The police weren’t necessarily appreciated in that neighborhood though we
had a police room in this same complex. He came to help, shotgun and all.
Shotgun flailing at risk of firing, perpetrator kicking, punching, going for
our guns… we got one cuff on him. Other police officers arrived.
We all finally cuffed and subdued him enough to get him into the ambulance.
“My partner and I looked at one another after it was over. Minor
injuries, no hospitalization, and we were still alive. We sat in the
cruiser, looked at one another again and cried. We followed the ambulance
to the hospital.” The perpetrator’s family probably followed as well.
They were the ones who called the 911 operator, “… giving a
warning that he was out of control. He had attacked them first.
When we showed up, he had gone from attacking his family to attacking us.
“The incident made me more
aware of my mortality, but it did not change my path. I had joined the
Dallas Police force in my early 20s. Later, I became a detective. I
loved the rush, chasing people, figuring out what the bad guy was doing and
stopping him. I always kept in mind that it could have been my partner or
me on the department’s memorial wall.
“After marriage, I left the force. When divorced, I made an attempt to
return. But, there were too many changes. Somewhere in all that, I
earned a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology. Then my kiddos came
into my life as foster children. As foster kids, each was required to get
five shots at fifteen months old, all in one day."
Roughly, two weeks after the vaccination, Lexi seemed unaffected. But,
Tori quit talking. She quit giving eye-contact and stared blankly.
“Tori had started saying little things like mommy and bye-bye, the little
things that babies say. She stopped talking whatsoever: no more
hugging and kissing, no more eye contact. She reacted differently to
things that I said.
“She was already behind in development and had occupational and physical
therapy because she was born premature. Both therapists thought that her
lagging development was due to that condition. I asked them about autism
because, in my work, I knew about it. The recurring comment was, ‘She is
too social to have autism.’ They fought me on the autism diagnosis.
Her ability to read labels at the grocery store at age two didn’t help my
argument. So, I contacted a children’s hospital. The hospital
stated Tori needed to be at least two and a half years old before she could be
tested.
“I scheduled her for testing so that the appointment fell on the first possible
day she would become eligible." Michelle continued with the
prescribed care. MEDICAID paid for care because Tori and Lexi were both
under foster care. That stopped after Michelle’s application to adopt the
twins was approved. “My insurance was used to cover the exam and the
testing for autism.”
“One day at the doctor’s, I talked about how Tori crawled on one knee, her
right knee, like her left leg was dead. She pulled herself with her arms.
I don’t think I heard but four words. Bone infection!
Death! Hospital…. Then, I drove. I mean…Al… seriously…
I drove to the hospital! Everything and everybody was in my way. My
car was not fast enough.
“After seven or eight hours at the hospital, the doctors ruled out a bone
infection. They did not know the cause of her awkward crawling. An
occupational therapist saw her and said that the only other time she had seen
something similar was with one of her young patients who had autism .”
To be continued:
