A1, Day 2

At 7am I got a knock on my door and it was Kerri Rivera.  Cue the squeals and hugs.  I am so amazingly happy to finally meet and hug her in person. Its rare for someone to have a drive and purpose in life that is so unselfish.  She gives so much of herself, its amazing. 

We hit breakfast, met up with a handful of other folks, including Andreas Kalker (of the Parasite protocol), and the rest of the Moderators from facebook arrived fresh in from New York.   Food was meh, but company was fantastic.  The silverware is bizarre here.

I slipped off with my new friend from Slovenia, Sasha, to hear the congressional panel 

 

Rep's Issa, Posey, Burton, and Weldon were in attendance.  It was almost comical the number of standing ovations that the audience gave. Seriously, we must've stood up and clapped at least 20 times.  Biggest applause was split between retired Rep Burton who has been our champion for over a decade and who as a grandson with Autism, and Rep Issa, who is really high ranking and surprised many with his attendance.  These were the biggest points: (1) Meet your congressperson, ideally in person, in their home office, with the request for them to sign onto the vaccinated/unvaccinated study (HR- 1757). (2) Ask for a case file to be opened by your congressional rep's office (but I didn't catch exactly what for). (3) Ask your rep to ask particular questions, say, of CDC (give them a specific example or two) (4) Express to your rep your unhappiness with the federal response to autism, which no one can argue with.

Then I met back up with Kerri, Andreas, the mods for lunch.  And big news!!! Kerri's book has arrived.  HOT off the presses!  And I had her sign the very first one out of the box to me.   This book is going to change everything.   It'll be available to download at CDAutism.org  within the week.

We went into an intense CD think tank this afternoon as a group (Kerri, Andreas, and the Mods), with one of the head MAPS (medical academy of pediatric special needs) doctors, Dr Anju Usman for the afternoon.  We covered a ton of ground and i promise the notes will be forthcoming after we get home.   If we were even within a days drive of Chicago, we would see Dr Usman in a heartbeat.  Not only is she incredibly sharp, compassionate, and driven, she LISTENED to the moms there.  REally honestly looked at us as equals in treating our kids.  So amazing.   It is our great hope that she will take this protocol and spread it to other doctors.

After the think tank, a handful of us wandered the vendors, had RevitaPop (mB12 lollie's), saw MamaMAC from TMR's presentation, and then went out to mexican food for dinner (which involved a table of 13 and a sing along with a crazy mariachi singer).  I rushed back to catch my salon night appointment, got my hair flat ironed out (it took 2 people to do it) and a chair massage.  I did go downstairs to Karaoke night but took one look at the pulsing lights and loud music and decided bed sounded better..

I have pictures of the day, but my connection is being cranky, so those'll need to wait until I'm home for adding into the blog post.