for nick, begging for help. lenore feels like once again, she s on her own. that s all i can do is hope and keep my fingers crossed. and work with him minute by minute. minute by minute. some days are truly minute by minute. you re thinking about the shawnee hotel, yes? yeah. reporter: after months of lobbying state administrators and looking for loopholes, she manages to piece back together some of nick s support team. over muffins and coffee one recent weekend, lenore brings them back up to speed on nick. we know now he s not wrong, he s just him. but he needs supports from us to be ok with being him. reporter: lenore knows nick will always need a lot of help. but she also knows he can still participate in his community. we join nick and his team members as they recycle bottles and cans that nick collects. wow. $1.25, $1.45, 25, 35, i m not great with math.
there s nothing to write. there s nobody coming. lenore is on her own. reporter: what are those first weeks like? i remember pulling the shades, turning on the air conditioner and saying, ok buddy. it s just me and you. reporter: as the weeks went on, lenore says she watched her son regress before her eyes. his personality dimmed. his willingness to interact dimmed. because there s less practice. there s less to do. there s less opportunity. it s like it s literally dimming the lights. reporter: nick has been on a waiting list for government money to pay for the at-home services his mom really wants. but there s a catch, even if the funding comes through, the state requires anyone receiving services to have a social worker.
excellent holding it together, bud. reporter: lenore begins making frantic calls herself trying to get nick hooked up with an agency that could provide him with adult services. and now we wait til monday. we put that on the list of things to do. here we are right on the brink. and i didn t know how to make it gel. the whole system just didn t make any sense at all. and there s no instruction manual right? no. it depended on who you got on the other end of the phone. i remember making cold calls to 30 agencies and just taking notes like crazy and i look back at the notes and i m like, my god. it was chaos. you re doin all right. reporter: there is one particular program lenore has been desperate to get nick enrolled in before he aged out known as self determination. the government would allocate a certain amount of money for nick and let his family pick and choose how to spend it on services for him at home. but with graduation just a few weeks away, lenore finds out h
time. reporter: did you miss it? oh i was heartsick. reporter: but then on the other hand i m sure you would do absolutely anything for your son. of course. that s what was happening. i couldn t say no to any possiblity of help for him. you know, i just saw so much potential. i knew this kid had so much in him, that any help that he needed, i, we gave to him. reporter: the symptoms of autism are measured on a spectrum. eric is roughly in the middle. there are many people who are far more challenged, like nickolas kubicsko. his story starts at home on new york s long island, where he lives with his parents and sister. nick doesn t speak, and spends large parts of his days watching disney movies, something his mom lenore says he does repetitively. nick is watching his favorite scene in the whole world right now. the flavor of the month is 101 dalmatians. it s a few seconds long when he actually lets the scene play, he
some good news. his mom finds a social worker to take his case and after three months on the waitlist, he s approved for that self determination program. lenore now has state medicaid money to hire a support team for nick, including some familiar faces like his former teacher, holly. the team that comes to help him, helps me do better for him. because when they re here they meet his needs. reporter: you can breathe. they carry him. and i get to sit back as mom and go, you go guy. like, look you can do it. i don t know what s bothering you today. reporter: and here s something that may seem odd that makes nick s mom proud, he s crying. expressing emotion like this has always been a challenge for him. so when he cries, there s a little happy dance goin on from my side because he didn t do it before. he does it now. which means i bet there s a lot more that he didn t do before that s gonna happen. and we re ready. reporter: but lenore can t sit back for long there s another