They drove him that night to the ER at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Kennedy-Krieger Institute (KKI) is just next door. I had just faxed them his application for the Neuro Behavior Unit (NBU) days before. Thank God. They looked at him the next day and he was admitted to the NBU three days later, after Alex came back home and they supplied us with one on one help for a couple of days. It was a first time for me having any time off from Alex since Adrienne left Germany on August 27th, 2001.

Alex stayed at KKI until November 5th, 2002. We were trying to put a support system together for Alex at home once he was released. Unfortunately that never came together. Everything we experienced, of course, was new learning the area, the people and the system, etc. Because of that, every step we took and take now is always a new surprise and mostly not very present. Therefore when Alex made it home, the support system was not together like it should have been. Alex was going to school right away, in the special program of the Baltimore City public school system. Of course, I tried to get him into a private school situation that knew how to deal with autism. I found out that was not possible because Alex had to fail in the public school system first.

Then the worst problems started again two weeks later. It was a long weekend on Sunday November 17th, 2002 in the evening between Alex and his mom. I was stepping in between the two and got hurt by Alex that night. The police came. Because of what happened before with the police department, I was able to put a system together with them of having a supervisor coming to the scene as well. Therefore they handled Alex properly, respecting him and me accordingly. It worked very well this time. We ended up at the ER in Johns-Hopkins Hospital again with the police. This time Adrienne, his mom, was very shaken and it was too much for her to handle.

Hurt as I was, I stayed with Alex at the ER. I am the closest person in Alex´s life, and always was, from the beginning of his life until today. Alex felt very remorseful as well for what he did to me. It was a long night. Alex is not your regular patient and being in strange surroundings make it even more difficult. Every little change is hard on him. Alex can get extreme in all his action. He did not want to go to sleep and kept me up all night as well.