Part Five - "You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet"

 “It does not do to dwell on dreams Harry, and forget to live.”

Albus Dumbledore

I hope I got that quote right.  I didn’t actually check it, I’m afraid.  Anyway, let me the repeat the question - Have you ever tried to change the diet of a child with Autism?

For nearly four years (before we moved to Phoenix), I ran a day care out of my house.  And I loved everything about it except for the food preparation and resulting clean up.  I thought it was overwhelming to have to produce multiple meals (of the same foods), three times every day (breakfast, lunch, and the full blown late afternoon meal called “snack”), plus prepare something for my own family for that night’s dinner, all while maintaining a sanitary environment (the details of which were monitored and recorded by the state).

The food I used for my daycare kids had strict guidelines regulating it too (the details of which were also monitored and recorded by the state).  I could only serve processed meats (like bacon, lunchmeats, or hot dogs) once a week.  During the rest of the week, I had to serve unprocessed meats that required careful cooking.  Along with the meat, I had to serve two fresh vegetables (each needing to be washed, chopped, and steamed), or two fruits, or one fruit and one fresh vegetable, one starch (pancakes, breads, or potato), and one cup of milk, at every meal.  And since I took care of very little kids (0-two year olds mainly), I also had to make sure that everything on each plate was cut up into bite sized pieces.

Now, I’m challenged when it comes to food in the first place.  It’s the timing of things I have a hard time juggling.  So while I was burning my fingers trying to cut freshly steamed squash into bite sized pieces, the hamburgers were burning on the stove.  And while I was burning my fingers trying to cut burnt hamburger into bite sized pieces, I was also trying to keep one kid from hitting another, while trying to chop apples into bite sized pieces, while trying to prepare formula for a screaming baby, while trying to get the kids belted into booster chairs, while trying to butter bread, while trying to pour milk, all while the bite sized freshly steamed squash was growing cold on the plates.

After I’d finally get the kids into their chairs and eating, I’d sit down to bottle feed two babies at the same time.  That was my favorite part actually.  Did you know that you can make googly eyes and soft sounds at two babies at the exact same time, yet each of them think they’re the only baby in your arms?  Then I’d burp one while rocking the other in a bouncer with my foot, then switch, all while hoping that the kids weren’t making too big a mess of the dining room.

Well, they were of course – puddles of milk on the floor with chunks of burnt hamburger and buttered bread in it, squash smeared onto the walls, chunks of partially smashed apple in every visible crevice.  But that was nothing compared to the mess they made of themselves.  I’d wash down each kid (faces, hands, fronts of shirts, and laps,) with their own washcloth, clear the plates (throw them all into the sink to deal with later), wash down the walls and the table and the booster chairs (carefully removing the smashed apple from the crevices with a butter knife), and then sweep and mop the dining room floor, three times every day. 

Then, after the daycare kids went home at night, I’d have a mountain of dishes to do before I had any to use for my own family’s dinner.  So I’d do all of the dishes from the day, make dinner for my own family, eat, wash down my own kids, clean up the dining room again, and then do the dishes again so that they’d be available to use for next day’s juggle.

It was all such an incredible pain in the ass, and I often found myself living for the day when I wouldn’t have to put this much effort into meals anymore.  This is the experience (regarding kids and food) that I come to the table with in the first place.  Plus, I’ve had babies around (food smeared on the walls, and other joys such as constant poop) for over eight years in a row now.  To say that I’m burned out is a vast understatement, yet I’m the one who God has chosen to give my children to.  I’ve already been ready to retire from preparing meals only to wash them off the walls later, for a very long time now.  Yet it now appears that that was only the beginning. 

Changing my daughter Isabel’s diet (back when we first did so) wasn’t actually as difficult as I thought it would be.  I thought it would be very difficult, because she had all of these strange “food texture and flavor” issues and would vomit if made to eat something new.  However, I knew my daughter.  I knew all of these little things about her that I could use to my advantage – I knew which textures she liked, I knew which flavors she could tolerate (sweet things), and I knew that she had been born with an unusual sense of integrity.  She says what she means, and very much likes to mean what she says.

First, I talked to her about what we were going to do and why (even though she didn’t really seem to understand), and I secured her permission (even though she didn’t really understand what she was agreeing to).  The conversation went something like this, “I’m going to stop giving you wheat and milk because they make you sick and crazy (she was four, and Autistic, so I needed to explain it as simply and directly as possible).”

“Okay,” she said.

Once I had her permission, I could later remind her that she had agreed to this. 

Next, and as much as possible, I bought gluten/casein free substitutes for the foods that she was already used to, with similar textures as the foods that she was already used to (white or brown rice bread instead of whole wheat bread, gluten/casein free waffles and pancake mixes instead of regular wheat ones, soy milk instead of regular milk).  Then, to deal with the flavor, I added sugar - lots and lots of sugar.

I toasted the breads (she was already used to the texture of toast) and then put something sweet on them before serving them to her (jelly or honey or actual white sugar sprinkled on, whatever she wanted).  And I slathered the waffles and pancakes in maple syrup.  And I put Hershey’s strawberry syrup in the soy milk.  

She did cry, at first, and let me know that she didn’t like the new foods I was giving her.  However, she didn’t actually realize that it was option to go back to the old foods because she had agreed to this change (I know it was kind of mean of me to use this against her, but I was really quite desperate to get her to stop slamming her head onto the floor).  I very much involved her in the option that we did have though, by asking her repeatedly how I could make the new foods edible for her.  And anything went – anything at all that would encourage her to eat them.  And eventually, she did get hungry enough to try some of these new foods. 

Just as I’d hoped, she quickly became hooked on the sugar.  So she began to eat these new foods readily and with no problem.  I continued this until she was good and accustomed to the slightly different textures of these new foods.  Then, I gradually put less and less sugar on, allowing her to become more and more used to the actual flavors of these new foods, until one day she was eating these foods either plain or with healthier alternatives such as peanut butter on them.  And, as I’ve said before, she stopped slamming her head onto the floor (she stopped the very worst of her disruptive behaviors) the moment she stopped eating the gluten and casein.

I did the same thing with Cale at the same time that I was doing it with Isabel (partly because of the Autism, but also because Cale has actual food allergies to wheat and corn), and succeeded in getting both of them onto a mostly gluten/casein free diet.  However, even though it’s made a huge difference for Isabel, it’s never made much of a difference for Cale.  And Shane and I, especially after talking to my healer, had been wondering if this is because we had never really taken it to the next level – had never removed sugar, or yeast, or the few other things that are specific only to Cale.

Let me tell you why it was such a threat to consider taking it to the next level.  Again, it was because of the “food texture and flavor” issues.  You see, this kind of change wouldn’t be a matter of simple substitution.  Instead, it would be a double edged sword.  These were the two options – the first was to try to get Cale to eat completely different textures and flavors than the ones he was already used to (vegetables), and the second was to try to bake (from scratch) foods with similar textures as the ones he was already used to (but not bread, of course, because he can’t have sugar or yeast – I’m talking about baking homemade, sugar free, yet somehow still edible, cookies and crackers), that would never really, no matter what, have similar flavors to the ones he was already used to.

Shane and I decided that we needed to give it a wholehearted try.  Therefore, we decided to commit to these restrictions fully, for one month, to see if we could make and/or sustain such a change.  The first thing we did (and this helps to heal the gut) was to put both Isabel and Cale on enzymes and probiotics (enzymes before a meal, to help properly digest any escaped gluten/casein/other toxins, and probiotics after a meal, which are filled with good bacteria that line, protect, and maintain the gut wall).

Houston Enzymes (which you can google if you want learn more) makes a high quality enzyme supplement, which can be taken in pill form or opened and mixed with juice, specifically for children with Autism.  And HLC Child (or, if a kid can’t stand to chew a tablet, HLC mindlinx powder which can be mixed with juice) is a high quality probiotic made for children with Autism.  Both of these dissolve entirely in juice by the way.  I put them in about a tablespoon of juice and then give them through a medicine syringe thingy, so that I don’t have to have a heart attack if my kids don’t drink their juice all gone.

I also invest in a good, liquid vitamin supplement for my kids.  And, just recently, we’ve seen an ND who has put Cale back on 1 TBSP per day of Cod Liver Oil (Norwegian Cod Liver Oil).  I have no suggestions, however, for how to get Cod Liver Oil into kids.  There is simply no way around the oily nastiness.  I just have my kids plug their noses while they drink it, and then give them sugar free suckers or candy right after, which does kill the nasty flavor immediately (I checked).  I’d also like to put my kids on super blue-green algae (a live essence supplement, in pill form, that feeds the good bacteria that lines the gut wall), but the ND said that this is more appropriate for older children with Autism.  She said we’ll try this later if we can’t get Cale to eat vegetables.       

So, we had to address the food.  Now, If you’ve ever had my baking, and I mean with regular ingredients like white flour that swells up fat almost completely unaided, then you can only imagine the screwy concoctions I might create with basmati rice flour, coconut flour, almond flour, and garbanzo bean flour (the only carbohydrates besides vegetables that my healer wants Cale eating at this time).  Therefore, I decided to start with sword edge number one.  I decided to go back to my old daycare menus and try those foods (unprocessed meats, steamed vegetables, and regular basmati rice) first.

Cale had an O.T. that did a couple sessions of feeding therapy with him one time, and during those sessions he got Cale to eat peanut butter via a fairly straightforward desensitization process.  So, I figured that I’d simply use the same process to get Cale to eat the unprocessed meats, steamed vegetables, and regular basmati rice.  Sounds simple enough, right? 

The only problem with this is that my son needs real feeding therapy (which I can’t get for him because our insurance doesn’t cover anything for Autism therapies, because the sum total of all of the therapies that Cale needs cost around $4000 per month out of pocket which we can’t afford, and because the state of Montana only feels it necessary to take care of some, but not all, of its disabled citizens).  Unfortunately, I am not a real feeding therapist.

The first night, I served freshly steamed acorn squash with dinner.  And I told my children that they all had to eat the squash before they could eat the rest of their dinner.  Alden (God bless him) reluctantly ate the squash and then happily ate the rest of his dinner.  Isabel took one bite of the squash, chewed it for a moment, and then spit it out.  And Cale sat there staring at the squash like he might actually throw up.  So I did the very thing the O.T. had done with the peanut butter.  I slipped a teensy, tiny, well salted piece into Cale’s mouth (he loves salt) after which he actually vomited on the dinner I’d spent an hour making.  Then he threw the vomit filled dinner plate across the room before I could stop him.  He went hungry that night.

The next night, as I was preparing dinner in my dress clothes right before I had to be somewhere (Shane was out of town by the way, and my eighty-two year old grandmother with bad hips was on her way over to babysit), Cale pooped on the bathroom floor (and I mean that he filled his pants with poop, which then seeped out the bottoms of his pant legs onto the bathroom floor).  Then he ran through the poop and through the house, screaming at the top of his lungs and spreading poop from here to hell and back (a daily occurrence now that my healer has solved Cale’s constipation problem, since Cale absolutely refuses to poop in the toilet), all while I was burning my fingers trying to cut freshly steamed vegetables into bite sized pieces.

Shortly afterward, as I was scrubbing poop off the walls while the freshly steamed vegetables were growing cold on the dinner plates, in my dress clothes (I’d missed my engagement of course because I was covered in shit), I found myself reminiscing about those good old day care days, and singing to my own past self, “you ain’t seen nothin yet…bump, bump… b-b-b-baby… you just ain’t seen n-n-n-nothin yet… bump, bump… and this is something you ain’t never, ever, EVER gonna forget…”  And I couldn’t help but giggle at God’s truly sadistic sense of humor.    

In a nut shell, I tried to get Cale to eat chicken or salmon, steamed vegetables, and regular basmati rice, over and over again during the course of that week.  He went for days without eating anything.  Days.  And after I had finally succeeded in causing us all to completely dread meal times (Alden and Isabel have trouble eating, for some reason, while their little brother is choking and gagging and vomiting on the foods that their pissed off mother has spent over an hour preparing), I finally succumbed to sword edge number two.  I decided to try baking with the weird flours so that I could make foods in textures that Cale might actually be able to tolerate (crispy cookies and crackers).

You wouldn’t believe how much time (and money) it takes experimenting with these flours to produce edible baked goods.  But I finally managed some pretty good, sort of crispy, sugar free, basmati rice flour/cononut flour/ almond flour cookies and soda crackers, which Cale still tried to vomit up upon eating.  So I made some different ones, which he tried to vomit up, and some other different ones, which he tried to vomit up, and some other different ones, which he tried to vomit up.  I was spending hours every day baking, only to get to spend even more time cleaning up puke.

In addition to the baking, I was preparing three completely separate meals of completely separate foods - one for Isabel, a different one for Cale (since Isabel and Cale have different dietary needs now), and another different one for Alden, Shane, and me, who all eat regular foods that aren’t nearly as expensive - three times every day (breakfasts, lunches to be sent to school, and dinners).  Not only that, but each food that Cale could have (that I hoped he would actually eat) could only be made from scratch.  They don’t actually sell basmati rice flour at the health food store of course.  I had to buy it whole and then grind it myself with my brand new, $300 grain grinder ($300 that could’ve paid for almost two whole sessions of speech therapy).  So by “from scratch” I mean everything but actually growing the damn rice.   

Let me rephrase this, since I can feel my husband’s eyes on this even before he’s actually read it – I was preparing two completely separate meals of completely separate foods - one for Isabel, a different one for Cale, and then usually ran out of steam before making a third one for the rest of us – three times every day.  Alden was actually lucky to get a hot dog at dinner time, while Shane and I either ate fast food, soup, or went hungry. 

Before long, Cale had gone for weeks without choking down more than a little bit of hamburger and a couple of home-made crackers each day.  Plus, he was coming off of his psychiatric medication and was crying for hours, literally, every day after school.  Plus, he was pooping everywhere at least once, sometimes twice, every day.  So while he was at home, he was requiring constant attention.  And while he was at school, I was either on my feet baking or writing in my blog about all of my daughter’s success with dietary restrictions, so as to inspire the strength to get back on my feet and keep baking, so that I could spend the afternoons and evenings on my feet chasing Cale around and cleaning up puke and poop instead of baking.  The stress was incredible.   

Then, one day, Cale walked up to me up and touched my arm.  So I looked at him and said, "Hi beautiful!"

And he looked at me and said, "Be a foo... Be - a - foo."

I looked at him and began to cry, as he kept saying, "Be a foo... Bee - aAA - foou."

Not only was this his first real attempt (that I'd heard anyway) since we'd moved to Montana, but he was actually trying!  He was actually saying each part slowly, trying to say each part correctly.  And after this, I hit the baking with a whole new level of desperation.  

In the meantime, the laundry wasn't getting done.  The socks weren't getting folded.  And any dishes I didn’t immediately need for baking, weren’t getting washed.  Have I mentioned that we’re not getting respite care?  And have I mentioned that this was affecting our marriage, before I even started the baking?  My husband, being the kind of father that he is, saw that I wasn’t getting much done other than producing weird food that made Cale gag and vomit.  So he started doing the laundry, folding the socks, and washing the rest of the dishes, in addition to cleaning Cale up after many of little his pooping escapades, after he got done working all day every day.

Needless to say, this little experiment of ours, even though it appeared to be working for Cale's language development, was proving to be a swifter and more effective way of exhausting the hell out of both Shane and me than I ever could’ve possibly imagined.  And last Thursday, we both reached a snapping point at the same time.  It was bad, because we don’t usually both reach a snapping point at the same time.  Usually, when he’s down, I’m up.  And I can love him through it.  And when I’m down, he’s up.  And he can love me through it.  But we were both down, and I mean to the bare threads, at the exact same time.

My husband and I had never even called each other names before this.  And I think that I could probably count on one hand the number of times that we’ve actually cussed at each other over the course of our fifteen year long relationship.  I had always heard about domestic violence situations, and I had always sort of wondered how one could actually come about.  Well, now I kind of know.  My husband and I have officially had our very first one.  I’m indulging heavily in a bit of drama here, because all he did was give me a little shove towards the front door.  But still, I like to think of it as domestic violence.  It makes me feel sort of bad ass or something.  You know?  Like I should almost go out and get a tattoo.  Or get something pierced maybe.

Okay, maybe this isn’t the moment to try to be funny.  I’d love to give you the details of our argument, but I want for my husband to not be uncomfortable even more.  So I’m going to have to skip ahead here.  A little while later, I found myself walking down the street, defeated in every possible way.  It was cold.  It was starting to rain.  And it was getting dark outside.

I HATE it when I get to this point in a story, and the words, “to be continued… “ pop up in front of me.  But Cale’s got an appointment now, and I really do have to go.  More soon…    

Part Four - "You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet"

"Look at every path closely and deliberately.  Try it as many times as you think necessary.  Then ask yourself alone, one question... Does this path have a heart?  If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use."

Carlos Castaneda

I had a great conversation with Cale’s new pediatric psychiatrist this morning.  We had been waiting for three months to get in to see her, and we almost left before our appointment because we found out that she isn’t a preferred provider for our insurance (which means that, if we use her, we’ll be facing a $6000 deductible for the year).  But we figured that since we had already been waiting for three months, and since we were actually there, we may as well at least stay for our appointment.  And we may be able to ask our insurance company for an exception, since the only psychiatrist in town who is “a preferred provider” isn’t a pediatric psychiatrist.  Shit.  It’s always something, isn’t it?

Anyway, the conversation was about how silly it is to group all children with Autism into one category.  We talked about some of the known subcategories that are currently under the Autism Spectrum umbrella - Asperger’s syndrome, Fragile X with Autistic Symptoms, Autism with a profound neurological component (accompanied by seizures or other involuntary body movements), and the possible Autism gene coupled with an environmental assault. 

She explained that as we grow more sophisticated in our knowledge about and treatment of Autism, that these subcategories will probably each become classifications of their very own, and that the fact that we still call them all “Autism Spectrum Disorder” is actually quite primitive.

There are also subcategories under the “Autism gene with an environmental assault” theory (which is what I think my children have) – the first of which is that there is no environmental assault at all, that it’s simply genetic and that there’s nothing that can be done about it.  Then come all the theories about what the environmental assault might be – birth trauma (bones out of place in the spine or bones out of place in the skull (which I’ve heard that cranial sacral therapy helps)), diet, vaccines, heavy metal and/or other chemical toxicity, etc., which might cause immune dysfunction, allergies, nutritional deficiencies, nutritional imbalances, digestive problems, toxin overload, energy imbalance, the list goes on and on and on.

And no one knows, of course, whether the Autism causes the problem or the problem causes the Autism  (which comes first, the chicken or the egg).  In fact, no one even claims to know for sure if any of these things have anything to do with the Autism at all.

It’s kind of sad actually, because everyone just wants to share what they’ve learned about their own kids that might help others.  However, I’ve seen differences in opinion on these matters split whole Autism parent support groups right in two.  This conversation with the psychiatrist started as a result of her asking me whether or not I attend an Autism parent support group.  I should really look into that again.  And if there isn’t one in town here where everyone “plays nice” then who knows, maybe I’ll start one.

This conversation got me worrying about my recent blogposts, in that I may be giving the impression that what’s right for my kids might be right for all children with Autism.  Please don’t take it that way.  If there’s one thing that’s become clear to me in delving into all of this “natural healing” stuff, it’s that the “natural healers,” the ones I’ve been gaining experience with anyway, don’t clump diseases (or people) into convenient categories at all.

My healer won’t even call my children Autistic.  She calls them “Isabel” and “Cale.”  Even the old psychic she’s had me reading about didn’t clump diseases.  He dealt with one person, and his/her own specific problems, at a time.  He also provided very different solutions for each and every single one of thousands of different individuals over the course of his lifetime.  Actually categorizing people under specific diseases seems to be a rather foreign concept to these people.  Okay.  Now that we’ve got all of that cleared up, here’s the scoop regarding Cale.     

My healer has been telling me, for a few weeks now, that she’d like to see us take Cale off of his psychiatric medication because it, along with his diet, is making his body “toxic.”  She keeps telling me that this toxicity is causing his head to hurt all the time, that it has something to do with muscle tension in the neck and teeth, and that this muscle tension is also cutting off nerve supply to the hypothalamus which is causing his body to crave sugar. 

She eventually became so concerned about it that she actually called and asked if she could come over to our house and talk to us (Shane and me) about it.  We set aside the time of course, and she sat in our living room for almost two hours and tried every course of conversation that she could think of to get us to agree to taking Cale off of this medication.  She also told us that this would only work (that we would only be able to control Cale’s extreme ADHD symptoms) if we took him off of all sugar.  Then she went on and on about how poisonous sugar is for both Isabel and Cale, and provided us with sugar substitute options and some possible natural ADHD solutions (she’d done her homework).

After almost two hours of persuasion, I still wasn’t thoroughly convinced about the psychiatric medication thing.  So she used her very last resort and said something about this medication “breaking his spirit,” to which I couldn’t help this rather defiant response (inside my own head of course), “Listen.  I have to live with him.  Not you.  And if he has to have a broken spirit so that the rest of us can live in peace, SO BE IT.”

 After she went home, I looked at Shane and said, “Now, you need to look at me and tell me honestly.  Do you think she’s crazy?”

He looked at me and responded, “Absolutely.”

“Now,” he continued, “you need to look at me and tell me honestly.  Would you have her any other way?”

“No!” I laughed, “I guess I wouldn’t!”

Shane never wanted Cale on this medication in the first place, so he was on board with my healer immediately.  Nobody else, however, liked the idea of Cale coming off of this medication.  Shane’s sister (who has two sons with Autism) sprouted warnings.  And my mom (who’s a shrink – I like to call her a shrink because it makes her cringe) sprouted warnings.  And I really wasn’t sure what to do.  I went back and forth with it for a couple of weeks before I finally had a dream about it.  And in this dream, I came to my own heart’s conclusion.   

In the dream, a person whom I trust was doting on me (it was a guy of course – I have no doubt that there was a wish fulfillment component in there somewhere!).  We were at a retreat at this hotel, and this guy that I trust took me out into a cave behind the hotel. 

All of my friends were in the cave, smiling and telling me that they love me and telling me that it was going to be okay.  Then, the person that I trust handed me a joint.  And because I trust him, and because everyone else was encouraging this, I took a hit off of this joint.  Now, I should tell you here that I was never one who could stand pot.  I was more of a beer with a martini chaser (or vise versa) kind of person.  However, the person that I trust only gave me one hit.  So it wasn’t enough to get me uncomfortably high, yet it was just enough that I wasn’t exactly sober either.

Afterwards, I studied everyone’s faces and proceeded to wait for something bad to happen.  However, after I’d had my little hit, everyone else was able to relax.  And we all spent the remainder of our time in the cave chatting and laughing and having a good time.  It didn’t degenerate into anything yucky or anything like that.  In fact, it didn’t turn bad by any stretch of the imagination.  It stayed really nice.  It wasn’t a bad dream at all.  It was really a very nice dream.  The only problem was, I HAD JUST SMOKED POT! 

I think that I experienced this dream from Cale’s perspective.  I think that, in the dream, the “person that I trust” was actually representing me (the doter, the person that Cale trusts).  And I think that I was representing Cale (the one being doted on, the one being given a drug).  And I think that my friends in the cave were representing Cale’s family, teachers, therapists, and doctors – everyone in his life.  And the pot, of course, was representing his medication (given to me by someone that I trust, everyone encourages it, not too much, not too little, my taking it causes everyone around me to relax, and nothing bad happens as a result of it, but which leaves me feeling like I’m not who I really am (sober).

Now, I really think that the timing of this particular dream had as much, if not more, to do with it than any supposed subconscious values that this dream may imply, because I actually have nothing, what-so-ever, against psychiatric medication, or any other drugs for that matter.  In fact, I absolutely do not believe that there is a right or a wrong answer on such matters.  I believe that everyone has to come to their own heart’s conclusion about such things, and that no one else can possibly ever know the right answer for somebody else.  This issue is as private and as personal and as idiosyncratic as an issue can possibly get.   

I once befriended a woman who was diagnosed with Bipolar, and I gave her the impression that I was against psychiatric medication.  I’m not sure if she messed with her medication after this or not, or if the impression I gave her even had anything to do with it.  All I do know is that, shortly after hearing all of my stupid and uneducated thoughts, she went home and slit her own throat.  She survived, thank God.  But another friend of mine went through this exact same scenario with a friend of his once, with the exact same result.  Only his friend didn't survive.  I’ll always live with these things in the back of my mind, so I tend to be very careful with this.  Just because something is truly right for one person absolutely does not mean that it's truly right for another.  My firm opinion is, and always will be, to let the doctors do their job.

Well, that’s what I decided to do.  I decided that I would simply ask Cale’s new psychiatrist if it would be okay with her if we took Cale off of his medication.  Actually, I called Cale’s old psychiatrist in Phoenix first, who agreed to let me lesson the dosage, but who told me that I needed to have the new psychiatrist here in Montana be the one to decide whether or not to take him off of it entirely.  And, like I said, we almost didn’t go in to our appointment with the new psychiatrist.  And I’m not even entirely sure that we’ll be seeing her again (it’ll depend on our insurance company).

I had already decided against telling this new psychiatrist that my healer thinks that I should take Cale off of his medication because it might be “breaking his spirit.”  But I did tell her, when she asked me what my most immediate concern was, that Cale grinds his teeth really hard all the time, and that I’m really afraid he’s going to fracture a molar or two.

Well, she happened to be the daughter of an oral surgeon, so  she immediately told me that one of the side effects of his medication is muscle tension, particularly in the neck, with sometimes quite severe jaw pain.  She said, and I kid you not, “his head probably hurts all the time, particularly in his jaw.  And since he’s nonverbal and can’t tell you that his head hurts, he’s probably trying to relieve the pain by grinding his teeth.”

I didn’t even have to ask.  She wants him off this medication as quickly as safely possible.  However, since it’s an anti-psychotic, and since he’s currently on the maximum amount that they would give a teen-ager (Cale is five and a half), he has to be tapered off of it rather slowly.  It’s going to take about a month and a half, but we have already begun the process.  And since Cale was so calm during our entire appointment (as I’d had him off of sugar ever since the conversation with my healer), the psychiatrist told me that she really wants to see how Cale does without any medication for awhile.

You know?  If I hadn’t first heard the idea of taking Cale off of his medication from my healer, I never would’ve had the dream.  And if I had never had the dream, I have no doubt that I would’ve given the new psychiatrist my rather defiant response of, “Listen.  I have to live with him.  Not you.  And if he has to have a sore jaw so that the rest of us can live in peace, SO BE IT.”  I really don’t think that I would’ve been very open to it.  But now, how can I really argue?  Especially since none of the advice has been contradictory.  Instead I think I need to thank God, one more time, for his uncanny timing of these events.

Unfortunately, the psychiatric medication ordeal was the easy part.  Changing my son’s diet has been the real issue.  I mean, have you ever tried to change the diet of an Autistic Child?  Autism parents (and some regular parents too) might now be thinking, “Ah-HAH!  NOW she’s finally getting to the REAL issue.”  Because it’s one thing to know what a child with Autism should be eating.  But it’s an entirely different thing to get them to actually eat it.

There are so many dietary suggestions for how to heal the gut – lots of lettuce, carrots, and celery “to keep the body alkaline,” and “remember that carbohydrates also covert to glucose (sugar) in the body (so avoid them)” and “the best natural product to eliminate yeast is olive oil and garlic” and “the YES foods - Enjoy them! (with a list the length of Mars that my son wouldn’t touch, let alone eat, to save his own life).”

My son requires feeding therapy, but since our insurance company doesn’t cover any autism therapies, I can’t get it for him.  And I, unfortunately, am not a feeding therapist.  The other thing I am not, and never will be, is a cook.

I’ve read lots and lots and LOTS about what kinds of foods I should be feeding Cale (complete with simple recipes and everything), but NOWHERE does it tell me how I’m supposed to actually get these foods down his throat.  There have only been a few people that I can think of, throughout all of history, who might’ve deserved such a task – people like Caligula, Cortez, Hitler, Stalin, Bush:)  The only thing I can think of is that I must’ve been one of these people in a former life, and that God is now exacting his revenge. 

I think I’m going to need an Autism parent support group for this one.

Part Three - "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet"

I began seeing this healer when I was in my early twenties, and I’ve always felt that she has a gift.  I’ve never pretended to be able to explain her gift though, not even to myself.  All I know is that, over the years, she’s relieved my body of every kind of ailment – out of place neck, back, and hips, asthma, bronchitis, common colds, flu bugs (she can completely stop the puking that accompanies the stomach flu with one treatment), sinus infections, etc.

I once sought her assistance for a severe headache that I had right before an exam.  She was on her break in between clients and only had about five minutes to help me, but during that five minutes she got rid of my headache entirely.  Another time I saw her for a badly sprained ankle.  I walked in on crutches, and walked out without them.  And I didn’t need them again.

For the better part of a decade (before I started having babies anyway), I didn’t see any actual doctors.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  There was one time when I went to see my healer with a bad bacterial infection (it was strep throat if I remember right), and she actually told me to go to the doctor for antibiotics.  She knows her limits, I think.      

I went to see her while I having my miscarriage, years ago.  The doctor had told me that miscarriage was inevitable (there was no heartbeat anymore).  And since I had refused the vacuum extraction, they expected it to take between seven and ten (and possibly longer) excruciatingly painful days to complete the process.

I went to see my healer the following morning, in a great deal of pain.  And I asked her to save the baby (even though the heartbeat was gone – I’ve always had a real gift for denial).  She did a reflexology treatment, after which the physical pain was relieved a great deal.  Then, a little over an hour later, my uterus gently expelled the remainder of its contents all at once.  Sorry to be so graphic here.  The bleeding stopped immediately, and I had no more physical pain.

I went to the emergency room anyway and demanded that they do an ultrasound.  I was having a very hard time letting go of that baby, and I secretly hoped that everyone had made some sort of terrible mistake and that the baby was still there.  But my uterus was completely empty, and the doctor seemed a bit baffled.  I didn’t ask him, or care actually, why he seemed baffled though, no doubt because I was too caught up in my own sadness at the time.  And strangely, it took several years, and hearing about other miscarriages, for me to come to understand and appreciate what my healer had done for me.  

When my daughter Isabel was about four months old, I took her to the doctor for a chest cold.  They did a chest x-ray to see if there was an infection in her lungs, and found, instead, gas bubbles.  There were so many gas bubbles in her abdomen that they had actually expanded up into her chest cavity (yet she hadn’t cried or been upset or anything).  So I called my healer, who came over to my house and did a reflexology treatment on her.  She relieved so much gas from my daughter’s tiny body that the whole living room stunk!  The next day, the doctor took another x-ray, this time of Isabel’s abdomen, and found no gas.

My healer suggested to me, on the night that she relieved Isabel’s gas bubbles, that I stop eating wheat and dairy products while I was breastfeeding Isabel.  I thought this was ridiculous, and I didn’t listen.  Two weeks later, Isabel was hospitalized for constipation because she hadn’t pooped in two weeks.  They gave her an enema and ran a bunch of tests, but they finally released her without having figured out what was wrong.  After that, I stopped eating wheat and dairy for the remainder of the breastfeeding.  And later, when I switched Isabel to formula, my healer suggested that I only give her soy (not milk) based formulas.  She couldn’t tell me why though.  All she could tell me was that Isabel’s body didn’t like wheat or dairy. 

I continued the soy formula up until Isabel was eighteen months old (at twelve months old I made sure to switch to a soy based formula that was specially designed to meet the needs of older babies – twelve to twenty four month olds to be exact).  Up until that point, Isabel was a happy, chubby, and really easy baby.  The only problem was that she hadn’t started to walk yet. 

Naturally, the doctors became concerned that she was eighteen months old and not walking yet, so they sent her to a developmental pediatrician.  This developmental pediatrician (oh, how I’d dearly love to give you this idiot’s name, but it would go against every one of my self-imposed writing rules) told me that Isabel hadn’t started to walk yet because she hadn’t been drinking whole milk, but that other than that she was perfectly normal.  If this doctor had noticed the Autism, I could’ve gotten Isabel early intervention.  And I would’ve seen the Autism much earlier in Cale.  And I could’ve gotten him early intervention.  But I had no idea what I was looking at, thanks to this developmental pediatrician.   

Feeling like a terrible mother, I put Isabel on whole milk immediately (and since I was giving her milk, I figured I may as well give her wheat as well).  Then we moved to Arizona, and within two months Isabel did start to walk.  But she also started getting skinny.  AND she started slamming her head onto the floor.

By this time I had had Cale (my third baby), and I had fallen out of contact with my healer.  At first I thought Isabel was just jealous of the new baby, and she may have been but that still didn't explain the extent of it.  She started to scream and bang her head onto the floor over any tiny confrontation (if I told her “no” about something, or to be careful, etc.).  And she wouldn't do it on the carpet.  No.  She'd go over to the tile and bang her head on it.

She did it EVERY time I sat down and started nursing the baby.  As a result of the constant interruption, my milk dried up early and I had to put Cale on formula.  And before long, Isabel’s head banging became head slamming.  She started slamming her head onto the floor repeatedly with no confrontation of any kind.  And she'd start it so quickly and so unexpectedly, and slam it so hard so fast, that I'm simply amazed she never split her skull open before I could get over to her.  It was absolutely terrifying.

I told the pediatricians about this repeatedly, but since Isabel had already seen a developmental pediatrician (oh GOD I want to give the name!) they figured it was just the “terrible twos.”  Still, I prayed every day for God to protect her head long enough for me to get over to her.  We had a lot of very hard ceramic tile, so I stopped showering before Shane got home at night because I didn't know if Isabel would survive it.

Isabel did this whenever we had people over too, so we stopped having people over.  And she did it in public places too, so we ended up avoiding public places.  If I did have to take her to the grocery store, I would run to grab everything we needed because I knew that it was coming. Some well-meaning person would inevitably look at her and say, "Hi sweetie," and give her a little wave. In response, she would scream at the top of her lungs and start slamming her head into the bar on the front of the grocery cart.

Every day, when I would take Alden to pre-school, Isabel would scream and flail and slam her head into the back of the stroller the entire way through the school, into Alden’s classroom, and all the way back out to the car again.  And when we’d go to pick Alden up from pre-school, she’d repeat the process.  One time, I made the mistake of trusting her to get out of the stroller in Alden’s classroom.  Well, she got pissed about who knows what, and slammed her head on the floor so hard that she didn’t get up right away.  It gave Alden’s teacher and me a terrible fright.

This behavior went on for nearly three years straight (we had the terrible twos, and then the terrible threes, and then began the terrible fours – there seemed to be no end in sight).  The most terrifying times for me were when she’d throw herself onto the ground in the middle of streets and parking lots to slam her head onto the ground in front of moving vehicles.  I would have to drop my purse, grocery sacks, and anything else I happened to be carrying, and try to wrestle her, while holding the baby, into the car. 

At three and a half years old, Isabel still couldn’t point to body parts when asked to.  She was seriously behind in both her receptive and expressive language development – specifically, she could only imitate.  If you asked her a question, she could only recite short lines out of Dora The Explorer.  She also hadn’t gained any weight (not one pound) since the age of eighteen months.

At four years old, Isabel still couldn’t tell us what her birth date was.  And when asked questions, she still could only give short, pat, imitated answers.  She was finally evaluated by a pre-school team, who referred us to another developmental pediatrician.  This time, Isabel was diagnosed with Autism.  But the only treatment options the doctors had to offer were speech and occupational therapies (which our insurance company wouldn’t cover and we couldn’t afford to pay for out of pocket) and psychiatric medication.

This was big.  This was really, really big.  So naturally, I thought of my healer.

It had been years since I’d talked to my healer, and I called, from Arizona, fairly late at night.  Thankfully, she took my call.  She tested a bunch of foods (don’t ask me how, I’m already having trouble straddling my own credibility here:) for Isabel over the phone and finally said, “I’m so sorry, but there aren’t any foods at all that are good for Isabel right now.  I’m sensing that it’s her liver.  Does she have any anger?”

Envisioning fresh incidents of Isabel pulling her own hair out, vomiting on the dining table simply because she was pissed, and slamming her head onto the ground, I answered, “Why yes, she most certainly does.”

My healer suggested that I start giving Isabel 125mg per day of Magnesium (since Isabel had suffered severely from constipation ever since I’d put her on the whole milk because of Dr. wooops, that was a really close one) and 750mg per day of MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane).  I started giving Isabel these things right away, and I also remembered what my healer had suggested on the night that she relieved Isabel’s gas bubbles – to not give her any wheat or dairy.  So I stopped feeding her wheat and dairy as well.

Isabel stopped banging her head onto the floor (in fact, she stopped tantrums of any kind) immediately.  And, shortly afterward, we made a trip to Montana for a visit.  I took Isabel to see my healer, and she immediately tested a bunch of foods again (a bunch of which were good for Isabel by then, with the exception of wheat and dairy).  In fact, I had her double check wheat, barley, rye, and dairy, just to be sure.  They were all still bad for Isabel.

By this point, I had read a bunch of studies regarding the effects of gluten and casein on children with Autism.  So, while Isabel was having her reflexology treatment, I told my healer about these studies.  And I told her that she was right in telling me, when Isabel was just a baby, that Isabel’s body didn’t like gluten and casein.  It had been years since Isabel had been a baby, however, so my healer didn’t remember having told me that.  She reminded me that she sees a lot of clients and that she can’t possibly remember everything.  And then she asked me, “What in the world is gluten anyway?  And what’s casein?”

“Wheat and dairy,” I answered.

“Oh, Isabel can’t handle wheat or dairy right now,” she said.

“Yeah.  She’s never been able to.  And you, whether you remember it or not, have always known it,” I smiled.

She had absolutely no idea how big of a deal this was.

In addition to following this healer’s dietary suggestions, I also started doing a simple massage on the area of Isabel’s liver at bedtime every night (a massage this healer had shown me how to do).  And within just a few months, Isabel had done a complete about face.  Not only did her entire temperament change, but her language (both receptive and expressive) improved dramatically as well.  She went from simple imitations to full-fledged conversations.  And by the time she turned five, not only could she tell you what her birth date was, but she could tell you exactly which items she wanted for her birthday and what colors they should be.

Isabel never has gotten much therapy (other than the minimal amount of speech and occupational therapy that she’s received at school, and about two months of in home therapy right before we moved to Montana and lost the state insurance coverage) and she hasn’t yet had to take any psychiatric medication.  She started kindergarten in a self-contained classroom designed specifically for children with high-functioning Autism, and ended the year in a regular education classroom full time.  She’s in the first grade now, and the school is actually afraid to test her again for fear that she might lose her eligibility for special education services altogether.

The only thing she still struggles with is social communication.  She probably always will though.  After all, she does have Autism.  She’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but she is waaaayyy better than she used to be.  With the exception of some social deficits, and the fact that she has no stranger danger (she’s such a little love that she’d go home with some hairy guy from the gas station if you weren’t looking), you’d never know that she had Autism to the extent that she didn’t speak functionally until she was nearly four and a half years old.

It’s kind of funny actually, because we were in Arizona for the worst of Isabel’s early behaviors.  My family and friends here in Montana never really saw Isabel like that for any length of time.  In fact, it’s hard for them to even imagine it.  I’ve had many, many people say to me since we’ve been back in Montana, “Isabel has Autism?  Really, are you sure?”

I’ve told my healer this story.  In fact, I’ve given her a copy of this same basic blogpost.  She refuses to accept credit for Isabel’s healing, however, insisting instead that my daughter has unusual healing abilities of her own, and that she has actually healed herself.  But I have to wonder if my healer doesn’t simply sense that my expectations are awfully high, since I’m taking Cale to her now.  I’ve told her there’s no pressure in seeing Cale.  But let’s face it.  My heart is in very real danger here. Cale’s been off of gluten and casein for the past three years now.  And even though this diet has been nothing short of a miracle for Isabel, it hasn’t done shit for Cale.

When this healer first tested foods for Cale, the results made no sense to me at all.  She tested all of the gluten/casein free breads (white rice bread, brown rice bread, tapioca bread, amaranth bread, kamut bread, corn bread – homemade without the wheat in it, etc.) that we could possibly think of.  And finally she tested “any kind of bread” as its own category.  He can have no bread at all.  No grains.  And no fruits or vegetables either.  And remember, she doesn’t know why.  We were both baffled.  And then she said to me, "Sugar is bad too.  In fact, sugar is pure poison for Cale."

"What the hell am I going to feed him?" I asked.  And she sent me home with two books, both about some old psychic named Edgar Cayce.

“I don’t know why,” she told me, “but there’s something in these that you need to know.”

Since she’s a friend of mine, I tried hard not to roll my eyes at her.  And since she’s a friend of mine, I decided to try and stomach a few pages of one of these books.  This man healed literally thousands of people, people with very complex diseases and disabilities, during the course of his lifetime.  But that wasn’t what did it for me, I’m afraid.  Do you know what did it for me?  In this book, there’s a remedy for how to enlarge your breasts.  Yes.  That was definitely something that I needed to know!  I’ll let you know if it works.

After this, I devoured both of the books.  This psychic was the first to place the root cause of digestion problems in the bones of the spine, specifically in the neck (dorsal 7, or something, is the one that’s out in Cale’s neck, but my healer says there’s one out in his lower back as well).  This led me to another book, which led me to another book, which led me to the book “One Cause, Many Ailments, The Leaky Gut Syndrome” by John O.A. Pagano, DC.

The piece of the puzzle that I was missing was yeast.  It’s the only thing that explains no breads and no fruits or vegetables (sugar of any kind feeds yeast).  There are better ways of healing the gut besides cancelling out vegetables though.

So here’s the whole puzzle that I know of so far (and I could be so totally wrong about all of this – just keep that in mind).  The bones in the spine are out, which pinches off or in some other way restricts the nerves that feed signals to the digestive system.  The digestive system doesn’t develop and/or function properly as a result and the results of that can vary, but may include an unusual build-up of yeast in the intestines. 

The yeast is the reason that nutrients (of all kinds) don't get absorbed properly, which I would assume could affect development (among other things) all by itself.  But it's also the reason that gluten and/or casein in particular don't get broken down properly in the first place AND the reason they “leak” into the bloodstream.  The yeast has roots, which poke through the walls of the intestines as the yeast takes root.  The partially digested gluten and/or casein proteins (along with other toxins that would, in a healthy system, be eliminated) leak straight through the yeast and its roots, directly into the bloodstream.  These partially digested gluten and/or casein proteins are then carried, by the bloodstream, into the brain.  They then mix with the dopamine in the brain, and this creates the opiate that affects development and causes an intensification of Autistic (neurological) symptoms, and causes my kids to crave gluten and casein.  But, come to think of it, they’ve always craved sugar as well.

 “It’s yeast!” I said to my healer during our next appointment.

“Oh,” she said, “Of course!”

“I think my kids have Leaky Gut Syndrome!” I continued.

“That’s exactly what they have,” she said, “but they're also geniuses.”

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I thought, “Leaky Gut Syndrome.  Now we’re finally getting somewhere.”

“Listen,” she said, “I meditated on this last night, and I’ve decided to stop charging you (she charges $50. per hour).”

Silence… as I thought, “Oh shit!  She’s going to try to get out of working with my kids!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well,” she answered, “for two reasons.  You are very, very lucky to have these two (Isabel and Cale) in your life.”

She must've seen the look on my face, because she said, “I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, but you are.  You’re very lucky to get to be with them, and I’m very lucky to get to help them.  The other reason I don’t want to charge you anymore is because you and Shane are already burdened enough.  I cannot imagine how hard it is to be raising these beautiful children, and I don’t ever want money to stop you from bringing them to me.”

I cried.  How could I not?  But I’m paying her anyway, just in case.

Part Two - "You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet"

“Our mystical power lies in knowing that any situation can be seen through different eyes, and that our choice to see a situation differently is an invitation for miracles to enter.”

Marianne Williamson

It’s seven o’clock in the morning.  Shane’s out of town, it’s the weekend, and my kids wanted to stay up late last night watching movies.  So we did.  After they all went to sleep, I watched a couple of my own movies.  And I think I finally fell asleep sometime around 2:30am.  I have a hard time going to sleep at night.  I’ve always been a bit of a night owl, and I personally think that early mornings were invented by the devil.

I woke up to Cale’s screaming and ran into his bedroom.  He was lying on his bed, screaming that blood curdling, ear drum shattering scream, the one that radiates through his windows so clearly that it actually causes the neighbors’ dogs to start barking.  As usual, he sounded like he was dying.  But, since he screams like this ALL the time (and never does actually die), I simply went over and tried to pick him up to give him a hug.

As I leaned over his bed, he threw his legs into the air and kicked me in the chest, with both feet, three times.  I’m afraid I’m not as quick to defend myself at 7am as I usually am.  You really should see the bruises on me these days.  I had no idea that bruises consisted of so many different shades of color.  Anyway, it just sort of slipped out of my mouth.  I shouted, “Oh, screw this Cale!”

The ONLY good thing about having a non-verbal child is that when you do actually cuss, they can’t repeat what you say.  There was a time when I would’ve beaten myself up all day long for saying something like this to one of my children.  But now, I’m almost completely immune to guilt.  It’s quite incredible actually.  I’ve recently had people tell me that my children are probably Autistic because I had them via elected c-section, and I’ve actually managed to respond with, “Oh.  Okay, that’s cool.”

I think that, as a parent, it’s wise to prepare myself for these kinds of theories, because these kinds of theories (the ones that seem to make Autism the fault of the parents) are everywhere.  Not everyone has children, however, and not everyone knows what this kind of “information” can do to a parent when it’s delivered insensitively.  So I think it’s wise to be prepared, because I also don’t want to let my own sensitivity snap my mind shut to information that people might have to offer.

Let me talk about this c-section theory for a moment here, just so I don’t leave it hanging out all raw and out of context like this.  It has more to do with certain bones in the spine being out of alignment (which may or may not have been pulled out of alignment by the way in which doctors pull babies out of their mama’s tummies during c-sections).  These bones are quite tiny and, once out of alignment, are very difficult to get back into place again (requiring many spinal adjustments to get them back in).  The problem, however, is that people don’t even know that this is what’s going on.  And the doctors won’t tell you to take your kids to a pediatric chiropractor (mine never have anyway). 

These bones that are out of alignment in the spine, sit behind nerves that affect vital organ systems such as the liver and intestines, causing malfunction in these systems.  One of the possible malfunctions is a rather complex theory called “Leaky Gut Syndrome.”   

I thought I already knew all about Leaky Gut Syndrome, but I didn’t.  I knew about the gut not being able to properly break down gluten and casein (gluten and casein are the proteins found in wheat, barley, rye, and dairy products), and that these partially digested proteins “leak” through the lining of the gut wall directly into the bloodstream.  Once in bloodstream, these partially digested proteins are carried into the brain.  They then mix with the dopamine in brain, and the resulting chemical is an opiate.  It’s not unlike giving a child drugs, drugs that not only turn them into little addicts, but that also affect development and intensify Autistic (neurological) symptoms, the severity of which depending upon how badly the gut is affected (how much undigested gluten and casein actually “leaks” into the bloodstream).  

I knew all of this was happening in my daughter several years ago, because I watched her literally crave toast and chocolate milk like a little drug addict.  In fact, for several years she ate nothing what-so-ever besides toast, wheat cereals, crackers, cookies, and chocolate milk, all while getting skinnier and skinnier and crazier and crazier.  She was tested for Celiac multiple times (they even did an endoscopy of the upper intestinal tract), but because there was no immune system response or damage to the upper intestinal tract, they concluded that not only did she not have Celiac, but that nothing else was wrong either other than a little acid reflux, which they immediately put her on medication for.  When I suggested that they check her lower intestines, the G.I. told me that, in his high and mighty opinion, there wasn’t any reason to. 

As I far as I know, conventional doctors won’t tell you about, or even discuss, the Leaky Gut Syndrome theory, because if they did the pharmaceutical companies might cease to make their billions of dollars every year.  I was never much of a conspiracy theorist before I had my kids.  And it’s not that I think they’re organized enough to have created an actual conspiracy to suppress these kinds of theories, I just think there’s a lot of greed involved in the medical community.  “Just follow the money trail” is what my husband always says.  It absolutely affects medical development.  I find it quite fascinating that pharmaceutical drugs, not actual cures, have been our doctors’ only answers.

It wasn’t until I removed gluten and casein from Isabel’s diet that she quit tantruming, began talking, began gaining weight, and began to develop normally.  To this very day, however, if I’m not watching, she’ll sneak a bag of Oreos into the bathroom and eat the entire thing.  My oldest son, Alden, can eat about three Oreos before he gets slightly nauseous and doesn’t want anymore.  Isabel, however, will eat the entire bag and then BEG for more.

As it turns out, removing gluten/casein is only one piece of the puzzle.  For the past three years now, Cale has been on a gluten/casein free diet, and it hasn’t done a damn thing for him.  You cannot imagine what it’s done to me to do the exact same things with both of my Autistic kids, and watch one improve so dramatically as result, while the other stays exactly the same.  Like I said, however, I’ve only had one piece of the puzzle.     

Where was I anyway?  Oh yeah, I’ve locked Cale in his bedroom so that he can’t start destroying the house, and I’ve tried to go back to sleep.  But since then, I’ve heard every single item in his bedroom hit the walls and the floor with a crash.  Don’t worry, Shane (God bless him) has screwed all of the big furniture to the walls so that Cale can’t pull them over onto himself.

I can’t go back to sleep with all this noise, so here I am writing about Leaky Gut Syndrome.  But where was I to begin with?  Oh yeah – the faith led journey of love and miraculous natural healing.  Shit.

I prayed for an Autism cure (please read part one of this series before you read on, otherwise you’re going to think I’m a total nut job – but I guess that doesn’t matter – do whatever you’d like).  The next day I bought a book on natural healing, bought vitamin B6 pills (which Cale threw up), and then read the story “A Bad Case of Stripes” to my daughter.

The day after that, I was driving down Broadwater Avenue and I saw the bill board sign of a healer that I used to see when we lived in Montana before.  I hadn’t seen her in years, and I had no idea she’d moved to that location.  It was a complete coincidence, so I started taking Cale to this healer immediately.

During Cale’s first appointment, she told me exactly which bones are out of place in Cale’s spine.  She also informed me that she probably won’t be able to get these bones back into place through his feet (she does reflexology and, in doing this on me, she’s always been able to get my spine to go into back into place, but I guess that the bones that are out in Cale’s spine are too difficult to move via the feet). We discussed the possibility of a chiropractor, but she doesn’t think Cale can sit still long enough or relax enough for a chiropractic treatment to be effective at this time.  The other thing that happened during that first appointment was that this healer became very concerned about how toxic my son’s little body is.

I think that an important thing to understand about intuitive healers is that they can often tell you things that are wrong, but they cannot often tell you WHY.  This is because they don’t know why.  They only know that it is.  This goes against everything in me, I’m afraid.  I really like for things to make sense.  However, I had prayed for God’s will and this was what was in front of me, so I went with it.  She couldn’t tell me why Cale’s body is toxic (whether it’s due to the improper breakdown of nutrition, or due to all the psychiatric medication he’s been on for the past year and a half).  All she could tell me was that it is.

“Do you know that he has headaches?  Do you know that his head hurts all the time?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. 

I do know that.  I can’t tell you how, but I do.  She told me how to start detoxing his body (castor oil packs over his liver and lower abdomen every night for three nights on, three nights off, etc.).  Do you think I’m crazy yet?  What I actually am is desperate.  I do the castor oil packs while he’s asleep at night, and the next day he is a good mood for the entire day.  It’s amazing.  However, if you overdo them (do them every night for too many nights in a row) you detox the body too fast and this produces bad skin rashes.  We found this out the hard way.

During our second appointment, this healer said to me, “I’ve discovered what Cale’s problem is!  I know exactly what his problem is!”

A flash of fresh hot hope rose to the surface of my skin, almost as if my blood had caught fire, and I tried, somewhat successfully, to suppress all the excitement and desperation in my voice, “Oh yeah?!  What?!!”

“He’s a genius!” she exclaimed.

The hope drained instantly, leaving nothing but a small smoldering pool in the bottom of my stomach to make me nauseous.  The doctors say he has the brains of an infant (an eighteen month old to be exact).  But the healer says he has the brains of a genius.  I thought back to the children’s story I’d read to Isabel, and reminded myself of the possibility that someone is whatever someone else sees him/her as.  And I decided, for just a moment, not to snap my mind shut.

“Wow,” I replied, rather unenthusiastically, “a genius huh?”

“Yes,” she said, “The problem is that all of the information, every detail of everything that goes on around him, enters his brain at the exact same time.  It’s very overwhelming.”

Now, I hadn’t told this healer anything at all about the sensory issues, or anything else, that comes along with Autism.  And she had made it perfectly clear when she agreed to see Cale that she didn’t have any experience with or knowledge about Autism.

“Sensory information does, in fact, enter his brain at an overwhelming rate,” I said.

“Everything else does too,” she replied.3.3..3.5.5….5.52.52

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Sorry about that.  The little genius is up now, trying to participate in the production of my blogpost.  He likes to giggle while watching me type, but then he wants to type too.  Where was I?  Oh yeah.  Everything enters his brain at the same time.

“I think that if his body can get healed up, he could be the next Beethoven or Mozart.  In fact, I think he might have the ability to blow both of them straight out of the water.  Does he like music?”

“Uh-huh,” I answered, still unenthusiastically.

“And I think he might be telepathic,” she said.

Now, this stretched my already struggling open-mindedness a little too far.  I was seriously trying not to vomit by that point.  But then, when I put Cale to bed later that night, I looked him in the eyes and thought (I didn’t say it, I only thought it), “If you can read mommy’s mind Cale, point to your nose.”

He didn’t point to his nose.  But he did reach up and put his finger on my nose.  And then he said, “No… no… noo.” 

“Oh, ALRIGHT,” I said to God, and I decided to keep taking him to the crazy healer for a while longer.  If nothing else, it’s a good exercise for finding out just how open minded I can get.  But I’ll have to tell you more about later I’m afraid, because the telepathic genius will be destroying my house soon if I don’t attend to him.