Sean learned how to say "Mom" today!

Any mom of a non-verbal autistic child knows what music to the ears this solitary word is. It was the real thing, not an approximation, but just beautifully stated while handing me a colored chip for the bingo game we were playing during our session. His speech therapist has been great for him. She has really helped Sean learn how to use his mouth for functional speech. I keep asking him to say it over and over - and he is gladly obliging me. What a kid! I have 5 years worth of hearing my name from him to make up for. Oh, the things mothers of typical kids take for granted - the things I take for granted from my own 3 other healthy kiddos.

We had a really great day today. Despite the fact that Sean started our day out at 5 am, he has had one of his best days yet. He told me this morning, "poopy", and so off to the bathroom we went where he was true to his word! He needed to go again about a half hour later, telling me "poopy" again and taking my hand. We are really taking giant steps forward to say the least. What a HUGE difference!

At this point, we are just soaking it all in and enjoying seeing all these changes FINALLY occuring at such a rapid pace.

We're Back on Track!!

Wow, what a difference a few days can make! Sean is now independently pooping on the potty. When I say independently, I really mean it. Take this morning for example, I was upstairs putting make up on, and by the time I can back downstairs, there he was, standing in the bathroom, pants pulled back up, toilet paper roll emptied, toilet flushed...

But not only that, today, for the first time ever, Sean could blow his nose in a tissue! How great is that?!?! We're still not sure what caused the progression in skills. The Monolaurin or the lack of multiple cookies?? I think it's the Monolaurin.

Either way, we are seeing great strides in Sean's behavior. He's also saying more words, and sounds. He pointed to some Halloween decorations in our house and labeled them appropriately with the word, "bat". It is so cool to hear him say that! And he looks right at me while saying it, so it's not just a random word.


I will give more updates as they happen.

We're Definitely on to Something Here!

Today we had fabulous success! Sean independently went to the bathroom and pooped!! I was upstairs putting clothes away or something and I heard the bathroom light go on. Annie was asleep so I knew it was Sean in there. I gave him a minute to himself before heading downstairs to see what he was doing in there. When I opened the door, there he was, standing up with toilet paper in hand, ready for me to wipe him. I looked into the toilet, and there it was, a healthy looking load at the bottom of the bowl. His Pull Up was on the floor and completely clean. Whoo hooooo!

This was not our first success story with getting Sean back into pooping mode though. He told me "poopy" yesterday while grabbing at his butt, so off we went to the bathroom where he pooped for me. I was so encouraged by his consistent pooping efforts that I grabbed him a fresh pair of undies and put them on, figuring he'd be glad to have comfortable, breathable boxers for a change. Yeah, well, less than 5 minutes later he dropped a sludge bomb in them and so he was back in Pull Ups.

So what we've been doing since last Thursday is cutting out the cookies from his diet - they're completely off limits for now, just to give his system a break. Sean had HORRIBLE smelling gas. It was embarrassing to take him out in public places. Mike and I both felt that the cookies had a lot to do with it. Also, we took the supplement L-Carnitine out of his daily regimen. It made him smell like fish - it seeped out of every pore of his body, he breathed it out, he peed it out. It just became too much. It was becoming harder and harder to be around our own son. He stunk! The gas and the fish smell are no longer an issue. The last thing we did was reintroduce a supplement called Monolaurin, a coconut extract, which works as an anti-viral. The first day we started the Monolaurin back up was the first day that Sean pooped on the toilet for us. When we first started giving Sean this particular supplement, he did not potty train right away for us. But it was an important first step to get to that goal. Monolaurin really helps bind up Sean's bowels, sending a more obvious signal when he needs to go! When we took him off of it, we didn't realize how sludgy Sean's poop had become again, so this is something we're going to stick with. Treatments for autism are very complicated, and sometimes you don't realize how something is affecting your kid unless you're very organized and document everything, or until you begin removing things and adding other things, which can help you to figure it all out. Once Sean is consistently using the toilet again, we'll see about adding cookies back in, one brand at a time.

I am so happy that we seem to have found the problem, or we're at least looking in the right places. If the Monolaurin continues to bring us success with Sean, we're going to look into starting Valtrex, which is a prescription medication for the herpes virus, which seems to be a successful mode of treatment for some kids on the spectrum. Apparently, some of our kids are suffering from an underlying virus, which is screwing up the body's ability to detox and function normally. Is it the vaccines that weaken the immune system and allow the viruses to take over? Who knows for sure right now. But I believe we'll find out eventually. And that's when our kids will stop getting autism.

And in other news, Sean is doing great with his speech. We are actually starting to understand what he's saying to us. How cool is that? And he's beginning to use his speech more and more for things that he wants and needs. He has also begun interacting very nicely with Annie. Yesterday, even though I had to ask him to do it, he tickled her. That was the first time he's ever done that. So we've got a lot going on. We're still chelating and doing iv glutathione pushes once per week, speech twice a week, and school the rest of the time.

Recovering your kid is really hard work. People that don't have autistic kids couldn't understand how much goes into this kind of a life. But it is so worth it! Sean is doing things that he wouldn't be doing yet, if ever, without this type of intervention. I love working with him and seeing him answer questions for me that I didn't know he could answer yet. That's when you say to yourself, "it's working!". He absorbs more at school because he feels better and can relate to everyone and everything better. That's all the proof I need that biomedical is the way to go!

Some Thoughts on the Election

Mike sent me a great article today about Sarah Palin and her attacks on Barack Obama regarding his abortion record. Everyone who knows me knows I am passionately pro-life, in every case. Good can never come out of a situation in which we kill an unborn child. I cannot even believe our great country offers abortion as a legal alternative to motherhood. Anyway, I am totally justified in saying this, as I was faced with an unplanned pregnancy, and an ex-boyfriend, at 20 years old. I chose life, not because it was easy, or the right time, but because it was the right thing to do. There simply was no other option. For me, there is only black and white on this issue.

Since it's looking more and more like Obama is going to win the White House on November 4th, I'm wondering where the hell the special needs community is? Sarah Palin is living what we live every day. She had the guts to do the right thing by her child Trig, and gave him life. She would be an incredible advocate for us in Washington! What is wrong with this country? We are putting our pocket books ahead of our morals in this election! Barack Obama doesn't give a damn about our special needs kids, for God's sake. If he's okay with NOT INTERVENING after a baby survives a botched abortion, then what makes you think he's going to do a thing to help our community? If we can legally kill our unwanted babies at all stages of gestation, up to and including the due date, then how long will it be until we can start terminating our special needs children when they become too much of a burden on us as parents? Does that sound crazy to you? It shouldn't. It's coming down the pike.

McCain and Palin have met with special needs families after rallies. I haven't heard about Obama and Biden doing anything like that. I just cannot believe people don't educate themselves on all the issues. They'll vote for Obama because he seems "nice", and he's young, and black, and his family is so cute. If that's what you base your vote on, then please, stay home. You are obliged, as an American citizen, to be educated and informed before stepping in that voting booth.

I'm just amazed at how many parents that blame the government in the first place, for letting big pharma get away with poisoning our kids with polluted vaccinations, will turn around and vote for this guy. Just ask the parents living over in Jersey how happy they are with the revised mandated vaccine schedule for their kids. They are ramming shots down those poor kids throats. Parents have less and less of a say. Jersey makes it very difficult to opt out. Very scary. But yes, let's elect Barack Obama, Corzine's fellow Democrat. They seem to be so friendly to the autism community!! Here's the link. You can read all about it.

http://politics.healthdiaries.com/new-jersey-makes-flu-shots-mandatory-for-preschoolers.html

At the end of the day, I guess our special needs community feels more strongly about paying less at the pump, and shitty government health care for all because you know, the government is so good at everything it takes control of, right? We'll see how this all turns out soon enough. Unfortunately, I believe we're about to make a huge mistake by electing the wrong guy for President to represent our kids. And our kids are going to continue paying the price for government's mistakes. They are the ones who will end up being the biggest losers in this election.

The Poop Update & the IEP

Well, I was hoping for a better update than what I have to offer right now - we've still got deliberate pooping in the pants going on - with occasional successes in the toilet. I picked up a bottle of "Tri Salts" on the advice of nurse Kim Hamada from Dr. Freedenfeld's office. They are supposed to help rid the body of any lingering gluten. I'm not sure if it will work or not, because I've been forgetting to add it to his juice. When I added it to his juice last week, he refused to drink it. Maybe it was too much in one cup, I don't know. I'll have to add it in smaller amounts and see what happens. So that's that...

Mike and I went to Sean's IEP last week and it went as expected. I want them to pay for private speech, and they don't want to put out an extra nickel unless forced to do so. What a crappy organization the Bucks County Intermediate Unit is! I'm not talking about the teachers and the therapists, but the organization itself. Their only objective is to give your child the basics, and nothing more! How do we get these kids functioning at a higher level with this kind of mediocre system in place? I know they are swamped with all the kids flooding into the system, but that's still not a good enough excuse for screwing all our kids. For instance, Sean has been receiving "small group" speech therapy for 2 going on 3 years now. Guess how much progress he's made in that kind of a setting? That's right - none. Since treating Sean with iv glutathione and chelation, he has finally begun making more sounds and has shown the ability to begin linking these sounds together in order to make words, thanks to Jennifer over at Yarley Speech & Language. I'm talking simple words like, "bat", and "daddy", and nice approximations for things like "my turn", "turtle", "that one", colors, numbers, and can even carry a tune, though you can't understand what the heck he's singing. I need Jennifer to see Sean for a few more weeks so she can write a really in depth, meaningful report about him so that I can call another IEP meeting and present to them her findings and diagnosis. Hopefully it will be enough, but I don't know. Families like ours are stressed out enough and then we have to deal with this kind of bullshit on top of it. Kinda makes you wonder if anybody BUT you really cares about your kid. Information about meaningful services is never freely given, but always a struggle to obtain.

Tomorrow we have our weekly chelation appointment. I always look forward to seeing all the great people that work in that office and treat Sean. It's a good thing to know that you're helping to remove filth from your child's body. I hope that in time, we will really start to see some promising results. It seems like we're always waiting on things - test results, changes in behaviors, meetings, dr. appts., etc.
I prayed for the virtue of patience and God gave me Sean - go figure. But for the record, I'm still working on it. I'm a LONG way from having "mastered" that skill!

Finding the Pieces of the Puzzle

Okay, so we were having smooth sailing (as smooth as it can be on the Sea of Autism) for about a month - we were having success with chelation, Sean was making strides - such as becoming fully potty trained. For parents with an autistic child, we all know what a HUMONGOUS deal this is! It's a huge milestone. I almost threw out the leftover Pull Ups, but decided not to just yet. Well, thank God for intuition because little did I know that just a few short weeks later, Sean would be back in them. Sigh...
I guess the most distressing part about it is that we don't know WHY Sean has reverted back to crapping in his pants. But I'm finding it very hard to deal with. It's a big loss, but hopefully one that can be overcome. We added casein back into his diet about the same time this toilet regression hit. Unfortunately, I also inadvertantly had added gluten back into Sean's diet as well. I saw "Wheat Free" on a package, and for some reason, for a couple of weeks, that translated in my brain as being "Gluten Free". I know, I know, there are other sources of gluten besides wheat. I've been doing this damn diet for a year now and should have been able to easily avoid such a stupid and careless mistake. So is the gluten infraction what caused the pooping in the pants? Or the casein? Hmmm....
Can't answer that yet since Sean hasn't pooped for 2 days. Stay tuned for an update.