... and a sense of humor too.

I should have put this in yesterday's blog, but I was so excited about the bike that it just didn't get there.

First - a history lesson.

Dominic has been for months yelling out "Sarah Bye" and "Jonny Bye" when his ST and OT arrive and park in front of the house.  To the point that it gives them a complex. 

Yesterday, as soon as Jonny opened his car door, Dominic was saying "Jonny Bye" repeatedly.  Until Jonny got to the door and which point, apparently he said "ha ha, just kidding, Jonny Hi"

#whatjusthappened?

Tales from home based therapy - bikes!!!

Daddy put the training wheels on Dominick's bike today. Dominic is in heaven. Mr. Jonny came over to do OT this evening and they went straight for the bike while there was still sunlight. Check it out.

This first video is the one I shot of him getting his bearings in our neighbor's driveway

And this second video is the one that Jonny took as Dominic was riding up the street.  

1.  

Clearly, he needs some practice coordinating and in making his gaze steady so he doesn't fall down.  That will come rapidly, we suspect.   

Then they came inside and got to work with handwriting. The whole time Dominic was asking to ride his bike, so we had him write Jonny a little letter asking to ride his bike. It's kind of hard to read but I do believe he gets his message across. Jonny said that if I had told him a year ago he would be getting a letter from Dominic ask him to write his bike within a year he would have told me I was crazy.

Well, crap, I was talking about this YEARS ago.

TMR is running the most amazing series talking about some current science around vaccines and autism.  Three of them are out.  Go read them.

Part 1.
Part 2
Part 3

Now, lets review. 

I had bronchitis at roughly 8 months pregnant and went on antibiotics.  I've always assumed that prenatal exposure to antibiotics contributed to Dominic's environmental load and helped fill the gun.  I think i was wrong. I think it was my cytokine storm from the actual bronchitis that contributed. 

Stay with me here.

The regression event for Dominic was influenza.  Before the flu, he was speaking in sentences.  After the flu, over the course of about 2 weeks all his verbals faded.  The influenza would have triggered a cytokine storm just like a vaccine would have.

WHAT?!?!?!

Okay.  So what else triggers cytokine storms?  Does mold?  Do physical injuries? Do parasitic infections? does heavy metal toxicity?   Does anything that causes a fever??   That family history of autoimmune illness - well those autoimmune diseases also trigger cytokine storms, but against the body not against the intruder - right??

what if the cytokine storm - from illness, vaccine, autoimmune issue, mold.... is THE piece.  What if we take all those environmental things we know contribute and back them up to the response they created in the body - is that response an oversurge of IL-6?  And if so - we have an across the board causation, EVEN for those babies who were "born with it" if their mother had an IL-6 cytokine storm during pregnancy. 

Alternatively - what if the IL-6 surge causes enough damage the the body can't fight off / detox  Mold, parasites, heavy metals, viruses and bacteria and thats why when we treat toxicity of those forms kids with autism get better?  It it going to be a balancing act between fucntionality and avoiding exposure to environmental triggers? 

As far back as 2011 I was talking about cytokines with the DAN's office and getting nowhere.   And Dr Bradstreet was talking about it at Autism one that year too...

I have no idea what this means as far as healing goes, but to have causation becoming clearer is AMAZING to me.  And look - its NOT an autism gene. Its an autism cytokine. 

Chuck e cheeses

Well we did it. We took Dominic to Chuck E cheese. We would not of done is had there not been a birthday party for a certain small child that we know, and much to my surprise Dominic was in heaven.

When we arrived we said hello to the birthday boy, sitting above with Dominic. He's two. Then, we turned Dominic loose and let him play. He thought that was fabulous.

We actually allowed to Dominic to eat Chuck E. Cheese's pizza. It's incredibly weird to me to let him do that and have him not have a reaction . I still dosed him with a big handful of activated charcoal afterwards but we had zero apparent reaction to the actual gluten and dairy exposure.

He had such a good time that he was still talking about it this morning. We might have to consider Chuck e Cheese for his birthday.

(pardon the Devil Dog eyes)

Lend a paw

Dominic's Speech therapist, Sarah, has this awesome visual schedule that she has Dominic fill out with her at the beginning of each session.  At the bottom is the reward.  He writes that part.  Today, he wrote the below.  All three adults in the room Could NOT figure out what he was asking for.

When the time for his first reward break came, Sarah handed him her ipad.  He proceeded to go to youtube and search "Lend a Paw". 

Turns out its a specific Mickey Mouse short film thats one of the "features" on a dvd he watches every so often.

and he knew the name of it.  We didn't.  And he wrote it for us and we still had no idea what he was asking for.  But he knew.

Lots going on in this kiddo's head....

Cool Moment

Yesterday was ridiculously busy and it ended up that our roommate was the one at home when Dominic got dropped off from the bus.  From him, this is how that went.

Tim:  Hi Dominic
D:  Where's Mom?
Tim:  She's on her way home
D:  Okay.


He asked a WH question!!!!!  HUGE. So incredibly huge.

Swimming, Fun!

We have not had access to a pool as a family, so while Dominic swam 4 days a week at the Y the last few years at camp we haven't had the opportunity to watch him do it.

Yesterday, we were invited to an end of summer party at the country club where Rod works. It was an employee and family appreciation party.  It was 62 and Dominic didn't care one bit.  He was in the water pretty much immediately.

He is swimming, very ungracefully, but swimming nonetheless.  I showed him how to float on an innertube and he thought that was the most awesome thing ever.  I tried to catch on video his trick of entering the float feet first from the bottom, but never pulled it off.  This will have to do. 

We changed the routine up significantly last night - new pajamas (he blew the knee out if his oldones) AND i switched the head of his bed to the other side.  NO ISSUES from him with these changes.  Thats huge.  As we were doing bedtime, he looked at me and said "Swimming, FUN". 

This morning, he got up, looked at me and said "swimming, fun".

So - we might need a family pool membership next summer.  We'll see.  Sunshine and I don't get along so well.

Flares of Cognition

I'm not even going to call them glimmers.  They're flares.  We are holding steady on minimal sup's and occasional (well, we did 1 last weekend at the end of the HH protocol....) footbaths.  We are in the 4 week time period of assimilation and continued healing from the hermetic homeopathy protocol.  We are doing Nothing new in any forum.

Here're the interesting things we've seen this week that indicate to me that Dominic's cognitively shifting in a pretty intense way.


The Dog Crate

This requires backstory.  Kama, our nearly 2 year old standard poodle, has tummy issues every so often (okay every 3-4 weeks).  The vet can't find an issue, and suggested a food change so all the dogs are grain free now.  Kama is still having tummy issues - specifically, he has diarrhea at night in his crate which is in Dominic's room. 

this morning, I got up at 5:45, expecting to change clothes and get on the treadmill.  Dominic heard me get up, came into the bathroom and told me "Kama Poop".   Well, Kama was in the crate, and the poop was actually in the corner of Dominic's room.  Dominic heard Kama need to go out in the night, got up, let him out of his crate, but didn't let him out of his room.  Then he put him back in his crate and went back to bed. WHAT???

Then, as I was on my knees scrubbing carpet and walls at 5:50am with Daddy scrubbing the dog in the shower, Dominic proceeded to carry the crate outside and ask me to clean it. WHAT???

We made a decision that Kama isn't going to sleep in Dominic's room anymore, his crate will live in the Laundry room, but Kama will not be crated at night, in an attempt to avoid the whole hands and knees scrubbing poop routine.  So I put Kama's crate and laundered bedding in the laundry room.  Tonight, we told Dominic to go get ready to take a shower. One of his routine steps is that he crates the dogs at this time.  We heard the basement door alarm chime (all our doors chime for safety reasons) and looked at each other in confusion.  Then we hear "Mommy, crate".  Dominic had gone outside looking for Kama's crate so he could get it set back up.  I said "Its in the Laundry room and thats where Kama will sleep tonight" and without issue he put the dog in the crate in the laundry room. WHAT?????



Dumbo Mouse

This also requires a back story.  Dominic's speech therapist, Miss Sarah, uses youtube time on her ipad for a break during therapy and a reward at the end.   As she was closing down her ipad tonight, she did a double take and showed me what was there.

The Words Dumbo Mouse were typed in the search bar.  She didn't type them in, Dominic did.  WHAT????  IF he can type that, he's reading, we just need to finish completing the connection between his speech center and his mouth. Its coming. 


Olives
Dominic Loves olives.  Alot.  We took our Roommate Tim to the grocery store the other evening and I brought him along. It was an out of routine trip and he was really unhappy about it.  While we were there he wanted olives, so I got some.  Not like they'll go to waste.  The next evening, we used them as a reinforcer during Occupational therapy.  Not unusual.  What was unusual was him dumping the liquid out and putting the half emptied jar in the pantry.  I moved it to the fridge later.  The next day he went to the pantry and couldn't find them.  I was blown away he remembered where he  put them.  Thats a new feature.  


hose clean up
He spontaneously drug the garden hose to the deck the other day without being asked.  It was a double take moment.  We watched him do it from inside.  Bizarre.

 

Hermetic homeopathy, round 1, in the books

I got overwhelmed and neglected to do my weekly updates on how hermetic homeopathy was going the last few weeks, and yesterday was the last day of round 1.

In general, I can say this

1.  We had minimal aggravations, and they were primarily during the first half of the protocol and were verbal stimming.  There was no aggression, no meltdowns, no GI disturbances.

2. I think it was excellent to do the HH protocol which resets the energy bodies to redevelop at the same time that we introduced brain balance exercises which reset the physical body connections.   They were very synergistic.  Our OT said that Dominic achieved progress with the Brain Balance stuff faster than he's ever seen a child do so and my suspicion is that is because he was also adjusting the energetic piece.  Energy comes before Form. 

3.  I am so pleased that Dominic did NOT show any backsliding as a result of significantly reducing his supplements and removing ioncleanse footbaths for the duration of the protocol.  I was actually nervous he'd see big backslides.   he did get a pimple (i know, puberty is fast approaching) the last week, so first thing today we did a footbath to help his body get the toxins out.  It was BLACK so there was massive liver congestion that built up.  The interesting part is that it built up without causing a recurrence of self injurious behavior or visual stimming.

4.  Both his OT and his ST have told me that this last month, he's done the best work they've ever seen from him.   The compliance and focus I've seen him giving them is blowing me away.

5. The transition to middle school has been smooth as silk.  There is no school today for a teacher work day and this morning Dominic got up and said to me "Friday, School?" (thats another thing, he's becoming cognizant of the days of the week), and I said "no, its a day off", to which he said "Monday, school?", to which I said "Nope, Tuesday school".  So his conceptualizations are skyrocketing.

Here are some of the comments his teacher has emailed me the last week.  Remember, she is new to him, and this is only the end of the second full week of school

Somehow I got the impression that writing is so challenging for Dominic, it isn’t so much a part of his curriculum, but he did pretty well today, even with a pen on paper. Pen works better than pencil, because he can make marks using lighter pressure. Dominic completed several worksheets requiring CVC single word responses. He needed help, but was able to do the writing by himself. 

Dominic has done really well, especially, communicating his wants and needs – he is clearer and clearer about this. Of course the things he wants are the scooter and the computer – no surprise there. So we make him do some work/learning first and it becomes a motivation.

Yesterday, he continued to work on single-digit addition and subtraction, as well as ccvc and cvc words. I had him do some writing on a magna board – he REALLY likes that – and he was able to spell many one-syllable words, as well as a Disney title (sorry, I don’t remember precisely which one!)

So whats next for us?

There are 2 more rounds of Hermetic Homeopathy that we will do, but we need to wait at least a month if not longer between each round to allow the homeopathy to continue working.  so we may start round 2 over Christmas break, we might do it earlier.  I'm not sure.

In the mean time, we will detox him with the Ioncleanse on a *much* less aggressive schedule than we used before, we will remain on Restore, ChelateMate, and hepatrophin PMG, and we will continue our 2x a month chiropractic work.   I am hesitant to add back in biomed supplements right now, I kind of want to see what holding the course with minimal supports does.

Mom goes to USAAA

So, I'm way behind.  I had a whirlwind trip to Louisville, KY almost 2 weeks ago to the United States Autism and Aspergers Association conference.  It was a very different tone that most conferences I go to, but we had a great time. 

Just a few pictures...

Best team ever!!!!

Yes, that is me with Dr Temple Grandin.  Yes, every cell in her body was screaming at me to go away, hence the super awkward pose. 

Even the horses were dressed for the conference!!

Tales from home based therapy -

When your kid reads a sentence that his therapist wrote that says

"I like to jump on the _____", fills in the word Trampoline, they take a break from handwriting and do this: