Alpine 5K!

Last year I signed up to walk in the Alpine 5K fundraiser / awareness walk. And when I set the webpage up, I decided that I wanted to create a team, and that the team should raise $1000. So I set up a team, and the program said my part was going to be $1000. I was dismayed, I didn't want to spend that much time trying to raise money... I didn't have the spare time to begin with.

Well. Thanks to a bunch of people in my life - from work, to friends, to family to random internet forum buddies, I raised over $2k. The majority of it in donations under $40. And I won first place for parent fundraisers. I think I was third or so overall.

Ya'll know I'm not competitive AT ALL (stop laughing. really. Its not attractive...) So... this year, the walk will be April 16. And this year, I decided to beat last year - so I've set a goal of $2500. I'd love to have a slew of people walk with us, and I've decided to do what I did last year again - if you show up to walk on Dominic's team - you get to wear a button with his ADORABLE face on it. Don't worry if you're not a power walker - last year we finished DEAD last because we were walking at Dominic's pace and he has short legs.

I think I'll come up with something fun for out of towners too, who can't walk, but who do donate more than X amount. Don't know yet what that will be or what X amount will be, but it'll be something fun.

Over the course of the next couple of months, I'll be sending assorted emails out asking for support, but there's nothing to stop you from going out right now and sponsoring me. It'll reduce the nagging emails later. Promise ;).

So - there's a new widget over there in the sidebar for this very purpose.

Summary of Dominic since Jan 2010 Neurologist Appt (aka my note to the doctor)

ABA Therapy
Dominic has done 15hrs a week of ABA at Alpine Autism Center the entire year, Except June and July when he did 30 per week. Additionally he’s had a 1 on 1 para in D11 since August and they are working off the ABBLS curriculum for another 10hrs per week.

GI
When we saw you last, Dominic’s gut was still shredded by H1N1. It took us until June to get it healed up to the point that he was not having diarrhea daily, and what finally did the trick was the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy we started mid-May. His gut has been stable since, we’ve even had to add prunes off and on due to constipation.

Immune system
Seems to be much more stable than in the past. We are seeing him get mild colds where we will be knocked on our backs for a week. His gut is not reacting at all to immune challenges. We are not seeing speech regression with illness either.

Behaviors
Have varied throughout the year, had a couple of flares related to springtime allergies and a major yeast flare in the fall. He is having minimal behavioral issues currently. See graph on next page.

Speech
Making steady positive progress. We’re to the point where we’re able to work on some pronunciation now as well. We’re seeing regular use of 3 word sentences, with lots of single word vocabulary growth. Please see speech graphs below. We are not currently seeing a private speech therapist, just one at D11.

OT
We stopped private OT in August when we started school back up because Dominic was just so tired after being at D11 in the morning and Alpine in the afternoon that he would not focus. We’ve had the school and Alpine continue his OT exercises.


Best interventions of 2010

HBOT –
We starting mild chamber hyperbaric oxygen therapy (1.3 ATA) in early May and saw immediate, huge gains in his speech. Please see monthly averages of his speech from Alpine (this is based upon 3 hrs of therapy per day). We noticed a huge increase in night sweats initially with HBOT (presumably from the resulting detox) that we added in infrared sauna treatments right before the HBOT session to encourage additional detox. We no longer see night sweats, but still do the sauna/HBOT combination. Not sure what he detoxed out, but it was intense for a few months. We’ve completed around 130 dives and are getting ready to go into maintenance mode (once a week)


Quericitin / Neuroprotek
(Neuroprotek includes Quercitin with a couple of other anti inflammatories). Both of these are TNF-alpha inhibitors, and we’re seeing really nice shifts in behavior, focus, and speech with them.

Speech Charts



And a new category... Average number of behaviors tracked each day by Alpine...

I'm Melting, I'm Melting....

So, our general routine on days when we have HBOT (which for the remainder of this month is 6 days a week, we've been on intensive now for about a month) is that I pick Dominic up at Alpine, drive to HBOT, use the bathroom, jump in the FIR Sauna at 5 for 20 minutes, use the bathroom again, then get into the HBOT chamber for an hour.

Up to this week, the HBOT chamber was a comfortable room temperature. In previous rounds of HBOT (remember, this is our 3rd round of 40), we would regularly have sessions where Dominic for whatever reason got very sweaty (frequently as a result of being a wiggleworm) and the inside of the chamber would get a good amount of condensation on it.

So yesterday - and today both - we followed our routine to the letter. And the chamber got unbearably hot. With him being ridiculously still. We're talking, getting out of the chamber with both of our hair being wet. Today (mind you, its been arctic in CO), I actually texted Mr B to turn on the AC about 15 minutes into our chamber time, and when he came into the room his eyes got all wide at how RED my face was. It was insane.

Today Dominic hit a new record at Alpine for verbal attempts. In December, he was averaging 240ish a day. Today, he hit 382. I believe this is the first time he's been over 300, an my did he shatter it. It will be interesting to see how he does tomorrow, I'm wondering if we haven't shattered a detox ceiling or something. I heard him say, repeatedly "Take it off, sock, Please" while in the Sauna today - first time I've heard the phrase "take it off" come out of his mouth.

So good things.

Unfortunately, the end of January is the end of our intensive HBOT sessions - solely for financial reasons we will be going to a once a week maintenance. Unless I can make it rain money.

This and that

Today Dominic is back to his new regular routine of school in the morning, therapy in the afternoon, HBOT, then playing at the gym while I get some exercise. It’s a long day, but the HBOT will only be for the remainder of January, then we’ll be going back to just once a week as maintenance.

His first day back at Alpine was yesterday and he did AWESOME. He had no behaviors in second session and only 2 in the first session (both were avoidance behaviors during circle). His verbal attempts were 301, which is higher than they were in December. This is suprising because he generally does some backsliding with breaks.

We’ve been going to the gym regularly and Dominic seems to really enjoy the play area. When I pick him up, the daycare monitors are telling me he’s interacting with the other kids, and doesn’t seem to have any behavior issues going on. This is a good thing

We have just sent off another round of the NutraEval test. It’ll be interesting to see what changes we see since July. We did not wean off of any supplements this time.

We’ve got our yearly appointment with the neurologist the end of this month. I’m going to be very interested in hearing his observations on the improvements that Dominic made in 2010 specifically relating to the hyperbaric sessions.

Dominic made some progress with his self help skills over the holidays – he’s now wiping after the bathroom independently, and helping wash his hair.

I put together the list of supplements that Dominic took in 2010 for our doctors office to write us a tax letter. Over the course of the year, Dominic took 39 different prescribed supplements. That’s a LOT. Granted, a number of them we tried for a short time and discarded, but still, WOW.