I would to thank the person who commented on my last entry about my
daughter Caitlin turning 18 years old.
This lovely person reminded me why I blog.
This past week, I let myself get caught up in the Andrew Wakefield drama of
Autism. That is the autism that is supposed to come from the MMR vaccine.
Funny thing is...my most affected child has never had the MMR shot...so there
shoots that theory (no pun intended).
I feel very badly for the parent's who feed into the propaganda and spend so much
of their time and energy on "fixing" their children...that they forget they have children
to parent.
I have been there and done that...I was almost drawn into the whole Wakefield
farce. I thank God I have a husband who can rationalize and told me, "Jeanette, I
will believe it when I see it".
I thank God everyday that we did not see it.
I cringe that my child(ren) may have been prodded, poked, and scoped...among
other horrible things.
Guess what, our children, 4 years later from our first meeting with Dr. Wakefield,
have surpassed all expectations. All while on a Gluten-filled and Casein-filled diet.
I read every thing there is to read about Autism every day. I am amazed by the
reasoning parent's give themselves to "cure" or "recover" their children. I am amazed
that they give into the McCarthyism of today.
I blog because my husband and myself have tried our hardest to raise 6 of the most
amazing people on this planet. Children who should have failed, because they were
labeled Autistic.
I thank the people who let us look past the label and continue to try to raise responsible,
kind, respectable and smart children.
I thank those in the blogosphere who have helped me to realize that I was not the crazy
one in this journey called Autism.
I truly thank God for giving me these children to show me what unconditional love is.
Through teaching me patience, love and understanding in a world that many do not understand.
Thanks commenter...you have brought back my spark !!!!
About Me
- Mom26children
- I am the proud mother of 6 children. 5 of our children have autism. We do not feel our world has ended, but just begun. We do not chelate, intervene biochemically, give shots of any kind, practice ABA, etc. We treat them as we treat any humanbeing. We treat them with kindness and respect and expect the same from them. They are exceptional children.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
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1 comment:
I would never say that MMR or any shot caused autism in your children. I would never tell you to do biomedical on your children or whatever. We have done some biomedical, but all we do now on that front is the gf/cf diet and soy yogurt--those are keepers for us.
I saw it with my 20-year-old daughter. She was born healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy and birth, Apgars of 9/9, nursed easily within her first hour of life, had all of her early milestones. She cried and hated the nurse after her first shot. The second one was weird: she cried the moment the nurse took the needle out of her arm. I got strange looks because she did that for two sets of shots.
She began to get a bunch of weird illnesses: stomach problems, rashes, sinus problems, etc. Her medical record was thicker than mine. Once she got pink eye and we gave her mercury laced eye drops. A week later we brought her in for vomiting and a rash all over her body. By the time she was 18 months old we were already taking her to a full-blown allergist because she was sick all of the time. This is all in her medical record. Whether or not the mercury caused her autism, it did make her ill. Her health did not improve until she got her last set of booster shots!!!!!!!
She had all the vocal babble that babies have and she played games with us. Peekaboo was her favorite. That all disappeared when she had her MMR, but she did develop the green stools. She went silent. She forgot how to play. The nasty poops did not go away until we put her on a gf/cf diet.
I think there is a genetic component to autism. That explains the kids who never got the shots or families with lots of autism. But, what about the kids who have no family history of autism? Kids who sound nothing like the kids in the biographies I read back when autism was rare! Every book I ever read at that point (back in 1991) said, "My child was different from birth." Mine was not--she was a typical baby!
When I called my sister-in-law back in 1991, an SLP doing pupil appraisal for her county with 15 years experience in Special Ed, she told me, "I can't diagnose over the phone, and I have only worked with ONE child, but it sounds like your daughter might have a rare condition called autism. You need to get her assessed and see what they say." Autism like the kind my daughter developed was rare back then. I remember it.
Even though I know the vaccines had something to do with her autism, I also do not believe in racing around curing my daughter either. Right now, our focus is getting her development back on track through RDI by filling in the gaps. I love this approach because it is sane, I am focused on celebrating the little things in life, I am able to enjoy being with my daughter and doing things together with her but with an eye for spotlighting things she needs to learn to fill in a developmental gap.
Of course, that does not mean other people have to jump on that bandwagon either. It just means that this is what is working for our family at this moment in time.
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