. . A People the Lord Has Blessed . .

A couple weeks ago, as I dropped Annabelle off at her special preschool, I noticed some very questionable men walking past her school. I know this goes without being said, but while we would love to home school, Annabelle is receiving the therapies she needs where she is at. We hope to home school in the near future.

This was not the first time I'd seen questionable looking people around her school. You see, Annabelle goes to a tiny school in a tiny town out in the country. While it's definitely not the WORST neighborhood, I wouldn't consider the BEST. The town barely consists of more than one road and a lot of run down homes that border the other side of the fence that edges the school playgrounds. One of the times when I noticed strange people walking around this crazy looking town, I whipped my car around and went back to the school to sit in the parking lot for a little while. . . just so I could guard those doors :)

Well things have changed. I am no longer bound by the fear that you I was once bound by. I still have my worries, but I am not crippled. This last time when I noticed the strange men I thought about turning my car around, but I kept going. Before I turned back onto the highway God sent me a little picture text, so to speak. In the picture there was a storm raging around Annabelle. Strong winds were blowing past her, objects and animals where whizzing around her. But there in the middle of all that chaos was little Annabelle playing. She had no idea what was going on around her. She just sat there playing in total peace and enjoying herself.

Then I heard a still small voice say, "No worries. I've got this one."

 Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.

Isaiah 61:9

The NO MORE PAPER towels Challenge

Have you ever gone through a roll of paper towels in a couple of days or a week??? Or maybe I should ask, " Do you have small children?" 

Maybe you have seen the commercial where the young hip mom scolds her mother for cleaning the counter with a "germ covered" sponge  and ends her lecture by handing her mother a disinfecting Clorox wipe.

Well to be honest with you. . . .  for the last couple of years I have been ashamed of myself for going through so many paper products. Just the thought of how many virgin trees are being chopped down to make paper towels, disinfecting wipes, diapers, and toilet paper.

 Now let me make myself clear, I am NOT a tree hugger. However, trees are a part of God's beautiful creation and I LOVE to look at them. How about we chop down Mt. Rainier and make it into something useful =P I think it's totally reasonable to chop down a tree to heat your home, but to wipe your crumby counter?? seriously??? To be honest, it usually takes more than one paper towel to get peanut butter off those chubby little fingers (not mine) and chubby cheeks (again, not mine) :)

For the last couple of months we have been on a mission to simplify our lives and our finances. We have made multiple trips to thrift stores to unload all of our extra stuff! We went from twenty towels to seven. I can't even tell you how many baking dishes and utensils I turned loose of. We hit every area of our home; the kitchen, to our kids' bedrooms, and the bathrooms. Several times I had to ask myself, " Have I used this at all this year? Will I next month?"  Our reward has been less hassle, less stress, and more organization.

Last month we switched to cloth diapers. Don't worry cloth diapers have come a long way.

Last week I purchased some recycled paper towels and I'll be honest, I'm not going to pay that much for paper towels every month. We are not trading old expenses for new ones here!

So I had this idea. I'm sure moms have been doing it for thousands of years. We will not buy another roll of paper towels! We will use pieces of old clothing and towels to clean crumby counters and cloth napkins to wipe peanut butter mouths! Join me?

For every house in the U.S. to have one 2-pack of 140-sheet virgin paper towels, 720,000 trees have to be chopped down. Now isn't that just wasteful? Aren't we supposed to be frugal??

Proverbs 13:22

 A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children,
but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.

A User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule

This is an article that our doctor handed us today. I thought you might enjoy reading it.

A User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule

by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD

Vaccination is a controversial subject, and many parents worry about subjecting their children to them. Readers of my article "Mercury on the Mind," about vaccines and dental amalgams, have asked what vaccines I would recommend their children receive. This article addresses that question.

In the Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule put out by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), 12 vaccines are given to children before they reach the age of two. Providers inject them against hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus (lockjaw), pertussis (whooping cough), polio, pneumococcal infections, Hemophilus influenzae type b infections, measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), chickenpox, and influenza (the flu).

Infectious disease was the leading cause of death in children 100 years ago, with diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, and pertussis accounting for most them. Today the leading causes of death in children less than five years of age are accidents, genetic abnormalities, developmental disorders, sudden infant death syndrome, and cancer. A basic tenet of modern medicine is that vaccines are the reason. There is growing evidence that this is so, but perhaps not quite in the way conventional medical wisdom would have it.

A 15-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the CDC decides which vaccines should be on the Childhood Immunization Schedule. It calls for one vaccine, against hepatitis B, to be given on the day of birth; 7 vaccines at two months; 6 more (including booster shots) at four months; and as many as 8 vaccines on the six month well-baby visit. Before a child reaches the age of two he or she will have received 32 vaccinations on this schedule, including four doses each of vaccines for Hemophilus influenzae type b infections, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis – all of them given during the first 12 months of life. Seven vaccines injected into a 13 lb. two-month old infant are equivalent to 70 doses in a 130 lb. adult.

The schedule states, "Your child can safely receive all vaccines recommended for a particular age during one visit." Public health officials, however, have not proven that it is indeed safe to inject this many vaccines into infants. What's more, they cannot explain why, concurrent with an increasing number of vaccinations, there has been an explosion of neurologic and immune system disorders in our nation’s children.

Fifty years ago, when the immunization schedule contained only four vaccines (for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and smallpox), autism was virtually unknown. First discovered in 1943, this most devastating malady in what is now a spectrum of pervasive developmental disorders afflicted less than 1 in 10,000 children. Today, one in every 68 American families has an autistic child. Other, less severe developmental disorders, rarely seen before the vaccine era, have also reached epidemic proportions. Four million American children have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. One in six American children are now classified as "Learning Disabled."

Our children are also experiencing an epidemic of autoimmune disorders – Type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and bowel disorders. There has been a 17-fold increase in Type I diabetes, from 1 in 7,100 children in the 1950s to 1 in 400 now. Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis afflicts 300,000 American children. Twenty-five years ago this disease was so rare that public health officials did not keep any statistics on it. There has been a 4-fold increase in asthma, and bowel disorders in children are much more common now than they were 50 years ago.

Health officials consider a vaccine to be safe if no bad reactions – like seizures, intestinal obstruction, or anaphylaxis – occur acutely. The CDC has not done any studies to assess the long-term effects of its immunization schedule. To do that one must conduct a randomized controlled trial, the lynchpin of evidenced-based medicine, where one group of children is vaccinated on the CDC’s schedule and a control group is not vaccinated. Investigators then follow the two groups for a number of years (not just three to four weeks, as has been done in vaccine safety studies). Concerns that vaccinations in infants cause chronic neurologic and immune system disorders would be put to rest, and their safety certified, if the number of children who develop these diseases is the same in both groups. No such studies have been done, so vaccine proponents cannot say that vaccines are indeed as safe as they think they are. (One proponent, interviewed by Dan Rather on 60 Minutes, who has financial ties to the vaccine industry that he did not disclose, claims that vaccines "have a better safety record than vitamins." He neglected to mention that the U.S. government has paid out more than $1.5 billion in its Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to families of children who have been injured or killed by vaccines.)

There is a growing body of evidence that implicates vaccines as a causative factor in the deteriorating health of children. The hypothesis that vaccines cause neurologic and immune system disorders is a legitimate one – vaccines given in multiple doses, close together, to very young children following the CDC’s Immunization Schedule. This hypothesis should be tested by a large-scale, long-term randomized controlled trial.

Rather than obediently following the government’s schedule, there is now sufficient evidence, grounded in good science, to justify adopting a more user-friendly vaccination schedule, one which is in the best interests of the individual as opposed to what planners judge best for society as a whole.

New knowledge in neuroimmunology (the study of how the brain’s immune system works) raises serious questions about the wisdom of injecting vaccines in children less than two years of age.

The brain has its own specialized immune system, separate from that of the rest of the body. When a person is vaccinated, its specialized immune cells, the microglia, become activated (the blood-brain barrier notwithstanding). Multiple vaccinations spaced close together over-stimulate the microglia, causing them to release a variety of toxic elements – cytokines, chemokines, excitotoxins, proteases, complement, free radicals – that damage brain cells and their synaptic connections. Researchers call the damage caused by these toxic substances "bystander injury." (Pediatricians and other professional colleagues who question this should read these two reviews by the neurosurgeon Russell L. Blaylock: "Interaction of Cytokines, Excitotoxins, Reactive Nitrogen and Oxygen Species in Autism Spectrum Disorders," in the Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association [JANA 2003;6(4):21–35], with 167 references. And "Chronic Microglial Activation and Excitotoxicity Secondary to Excessive Immune Stimulation: Possible Factors in Gulf War Syndrome and Autism," in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons [JAPS 2004;9(2):46–52], posted online, with 54 references.)

In humans, the most rapid period of brain development begins in the third trimester and continues over the first two years of extra uterine life. (By then brain development is 80 percent complete.) Until randomized controlled trials demonstrate the safety of giving vaccines during this time of life, it would be prudent not to give any vaccinations to children until they are two years old. From a risk-benefit perspective, there is growing evidence that the risk of neurologic and autoimmune diseases from vaccinations outweigh the benefits of avoiding the childhood infections that they prevent. An exception is hepatitis B vaccine for infants whose mothers test positive for this disease.

A user-friendly vaccination schedule prohibits any vaccines that contain thimerosal, which is 50 percent mercury. Flu vaccines contain thimerosal, which is reason enough to avoid them. (See my article "Mercury on the Mind" for more on this subject.)

One should also avoid vaccines that contain live viruses. This includes the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine; chickenpox (varicella) vaccine, and the live-virus polio (Sabin) vaccine. This stricture would not apply to the smallpox vaccine (also a live-virus one), if a terrorist-instigated outbreak of smallpox should occur.

Finally, a user-friendly vaccination schedule requires that vaccinations, after the age of two, be given no more than once every six months, one at a time, in order to allow the immune system sufficient time to recover and stabilize between shots.

Which vaccines should be put on this schedule (among those that do not contain live viruses or thimerosal) is not entirely clear. The top four would be the pertussis (acelluar – aP – not whole cell), diphtheria (D), and tetanus (T) vaccines – given separately (not together, as is usually the case); and the Salk polio vaccine, with an inactivated (dead) virus, one that is cultured in human cells, not monkey kidney cells. Perhaps it should only contain these four vaccines. A good case can be made (for example, see Gary Null’s Vaccines: A Second Opinion) for avoiding the three other newer vaccines on the CDC’s schedule – the hepatitis B, pneumococcal conjugate (PCV7), and Hemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccines.

Your pediatrician will not like this schedule. They are taught in medical school and residency training that childhood immunizations are essential to public health. As one pediatrician puts it, "Achieving adequate and timely vaccination of young children is the single most valuable thing a doctor can do for a patient." They do not question what their professors teach them, nor are they inclined to critically examine studies in Pediatrics and the New England Journal of Medicine that tell them vaccines are safe.

There were 482,000 cases of measles in the U.S in 1962, the year before a vaccine for this disease became available. Now, with all fifty states requiring that children be vaccinated against measles in order to attend school, there were only 56 cases of measles in a population of 290 million people in 2003.

These facts are well known and proudly cited by vaccine proponents. What is less known, and doctors are not taught, is that the death rate for measles declined 97.7 percent during the first 60 years of the 20^th century. The mortality rate was 133 deaths per million people in the U.S. in 1900, and had dropped to 0.3 deaths per million by 1960. Measles caused less than 100 deaths a year in the U.S. before there was a vaccine for this disease (in 1963). The same thing happened with diphtheria and pertussis. Mortality rates dropped more than 90 percent in the early 20^th century before vaccines for these diseases were introduced. This was due to better nutrition (with rapid delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables to cities and refrigeration), cleaner water, and improved sanitation (removing trash from the streets and better sewage systems), not to vaccines. The World Health Organization promotes mass vaccination, but knowing these facts states, "The best vaccine against common infectious diseases is an adequate diet" – fortified, one might add, with vitamin A.

Since the measles vaccine came into widespread use in this country this disease has virtually disappeared, and it has prevented 100 deaths a year. But now, instead, several thousand normally developing children become autistic after receiving their MMR shot. Termed "regressive autism," it accounts for about 30 percent of the 10,000 to 20,000 children who are diagnosed with autism in this country each year.

To put to rest concerns that MMR vaccination might cause autism (in a small percentage of children), the New England Journal of Medicine, in 2002, published a population-based study from Denmark, where its authors concluded, "This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism." The NEJM did not disclose that the "Statens Serum Institut," where three of the authors work, is a for-profit vaccine manufacturer, Denmark’s largest, or that four other authors have financial ties to this company. Only one of the eight authors is not associated with this institute, and the CDC employs him. The study compares the prevalence of autism in 440,000 MMR vaccinated and 97,000 unvaccinated children in Denmark born in the 1990s. A statistical slight-of-hand in age adjustment makes the study show no causal effect; but when unmasked and reformatted, the data actually shows a statistically significant association between MMR vaccine and autism (as Carol Stott and her coauthors make clear in "MMR and Autism in Perspective: the Denmark Story," in the Fall 2004 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, posted online).

Pediatrics and the Journal of the American Medical Association also have published studies like this supporting U.S. vaccine policy, written by authors with similar, undisclosed conflicts of interest. Looking elsewhere, however, one comes across a number of disquieting facts about vaccines. Investigators have found, for example, live measles virus in the cerebral spinal fluid in children who become autistic after MMR vaccination. Antibodies to measles virus are elevated in children with autism but not in normal kids, suggesting that virus-induced autoimmunity may play a causal role. A study published in Neurology this year implicates hepatitis B vaccine as a causative factor in multiple sclerosis.

A communitarian ethic increasingly governs health care in the U.S. It places a greater value on the health of the community, on society as a whole, than on the health of particular individuals. Public health officials have put together a vaccination schedule designed to eliminate infectious diseases to which the population is prey. These officials recognize that these vaccines will harm a small percentage of (genetically susceptible) individuals, but it is for the common good. The communitarian code posits that it is morally acceptable, if necessary, to sacrifice a few for the good of the many. Or as one observer more bluntly puts it, "Individual sheep can be sheared and slaughtered if it is for the welfare of their flock."

In this framework, health care providers become agents of the state charged with injecting vaccines into people that the central planners deem necessary. Physicians who remain true to their Hippocratic Oath and place the interests of their patient above that of the herd are considered to be out of step with the times, if not an anachronism.

Like central planners everywhere, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) promulgates a self-serving, one-size-fits-all vaccine policy. Members of this committee have ties to vaccine makers, such that the CDC must grant them waivers from statutory conflict of interest rules. Even so, and with little evidence to show that it is safe to subject young children to the ACIP’s crowded immunization schedule, states nevertheless dutifully make its vaccine recommendations compulsory.

All 50 states require children to be immunized against measles, diphtheria, Hemophilus influenzae type b, polio, and rubella in order to enroll in day care and/or public school. Forty-nine states also require vaccination against tetanus; 47, against hepatitis B and mumps; and 43 states now require vaccination against chickenpox. In order to shield themselves from any liability for making vaccinations compulsory, all states provide a medical exemption and 47, a religious exemption. Nineteen states allow a philosophical exemption. Some require only a letter from a parent and others, from a physician or church leader. (To see the exemptions allowed in your state, their wording and requirements, click here.) Parents, of course, can refuse vaccination; but if they want to enroll their child in public school they will need to obtain one of these exemptions.

Doctors who conclude that the risks of the government’s immunization schedule outweigh its benefits are placed in a difficult position. If they counsel parents not to have their children follow it, health care plans, which track vaccine compliance as a measure of "quality," will find them wanting. And if their patient should contract and develop complications from the disease the vaccine would have prevented they may find themselves confronting a lawsuit. If a child becomes autistic following a vaccination, however, the doctor is protected from any liability because the government requires it and the child’s parents, if they had chosen to do so, could have obtained an exemption. (Anti-vaccine advocates call developing autism, asthma, and Type I diabetes after vaccinations "vaccination roulette.")

Parents should have the freedom to select whatever vaccination schedule they want their children to follow, especially since health care providers and the government (except via its Vaccine Injury Compensation Program) cannot be held accountable for any adverse outcomes that might occur. But if parents elect to not follow the CDC’s immunization schedule, delaying some vaccinations, refusing others, or avoiding them altogether, then they must accept the risk that their child might contract the disease that the vaccine against it most likely would have prevented.

One consideration, which vaccine proponents do not address, is this: Could contracting childhood diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox play a constructive role in the maturation of a person’s immune system? Or, to put it another way, does removing natural infection from human experience have any adverse consequences?

Our species’ immune system – a one-trillion-cell army that patrols our (100-trillion-cell) body – serves two main purposes. It destroys foreign invaders – viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens. And it destroys aberrant cells in the body that run amuck and cause cancer. Behind the barricades of skin and mucosa, our innate immune system (composed of phagocytes, natural killer cells, and the 20-protein complement system), which all animals have, is the body’s first line of defense. It reacts to invaders lightening fast and indiscriminately, but it is not very good at eliminating viruses and cancerous cells. Vertebrates have evolved a second line of defense – the adaptive immune system. It targets specific viruses and bacteria and has better artillery for eliminating cancerous cells. This system matures during childhood, and it has a cellular (Th1) and humoral (Th2) component (Th = helper T cell).

The viruses that cause measles, mumps, and chickenpox have infected countless generations of humans, akin to a rite of passage for each member of our species. Contracting these diseases strengthens both parts of the adaptive immune system (Th1 and Th2 ). Mothers who have had measles, mumps, and chickenpox transfer antibodies against them to their babies in utero, which protect them during the first year of life from contracting these infections. Vaccinations do not have the same effect on the immune system as naturally acquired diseases do. They stimulate predominantly the Th2 part of this system and not Th1. (Over-stimulation of Th2 causes autoimmune diseases.) The cellular Th1 side thwarts cancer, and if it does not become fully developed in childhood a person can be more prone to have cancer as an adult. Women who had mumps during childhood, for example, are found to be less likely to have ovarian cancer than women who did not have this infection. (This study was published in Cancer.) Could the fact that cancer has become a leading cause of death in children be a result of vaccinations? Only a randomized controlled trial can conclusively answer this question

With rare exception, a well-nourished child who contracts measles will recover smoothly from the infection. Fifty years ago almost all children in the U.S. had measles. And after contracting this disease, one has life-long immunity to it. The protection provided by vaccination is temporary. Adults who contract measles (when the protective effects of the vaccine wears off) are much more likely to have neurological, testicular, and ovarian complications. Likewise, rubella is a benign disease in children, but if a woman acquires it during pregnancy fetal malformations may develop. One can argue, heretical as such an argument may be, that it would be better to let children have measles, at an age when the infection helps the adaptive immune system mature in a balanced Th1/Th2 fashion and complications from this disease are minimal, rather than vaccinate them against this disease (especially considering the risks of vaccination).

Pertussis and Diphtheria are a different matter. These diseases are more virulent. Children who contract whooping cough (pertussis) can be incapacitated for more than a month. Polio can be devastating in susceptible individuals. And no one wants to get tetanus (lockjaw). A user-friendly vaccination schedule would include vaccines against these diseases.

Whatever vaccination schedule one chooses, mothers should breast-feed their child for as long as possible – a year or more. Failing that, add Omega-3 fatty acids, especially DHA (docosahexanoic acid), to the child’s formula.

In summary, this is a vaccination schedule that I would recommend:

1. No vaccinations until a child is two years old.
2. No vaccines that contain thimerosal (mercury).
3. No live virus vaccines (except for smallpox, should it recur).
4. These vaccines, to be given one at a time, every six months, beginning at age 2:
1. Pertussis (acellular, not whole cell)
2. Diphtheria
3. Tetanus
4. Polio (the Salk vaccine, cultured in human cells)

American children are the most highly vaccinated kids in the world. This schedule is an alternative to the one that rules our "vaccine nation" (as the Village Voice terms it). In contrast to the CDC’s immunization schedule, it is user-friendly.

December 10, 2004

Donald Miller (send him mail) is a cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle and a member of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness and writes articles on a variety of subjects for LewRockwell.com, including bioterrorism. His web site is www.donaldmiller.com.

Blessed

Today was Annabelle's second day of preschool and she loved it!! She couldn't wait to get out the door this morning. Yesterday she was copy helper and today she was the snack helper. I got a note from her teacher saying that she was so excited about everything she got to do in class. Today the note said that she was interacting very well and trying to say a lot of words.  . . . . and of course, she loves to ride the bus. . Yes, my three year old rides the bus! *scary*

Annabelle has been doing really well. A couple of months ago, we were having a bad 5 days. Annabelle had been refusing to eat anything.  Dad arrived here on the weekend to be with the Wapato church and saw how distressed we (her and I) were. He prayed for her in the kitchen, then surprised me by having everyone pray for her at church. He prayed specifically about her appetite.

Well, ever since then, not only has she constantly been tearing through the kitchen looking for more food, but she has been sleeping in her own bed almost every night. I still check on her every morning to see if she is still breathing. I couldn't believe it! The doctors were starting to wonder if she still had a problem with reflux, because she would wake-up every night about 2am, crying.. . The crying would usually continue in our bed. She still does this once in a while, but not every night.

We are really excited for her doctor's appointment Monday. She will finally get to see a DAN doctor. These doctors focus on treating children with developmental issues in a naturalistic way.  He was recommended to us by a woman here in town, whose son is fully recovered from autism. He is 8 and writes his own blog.  Before they put him on the GFCF diet and several supplements, he did not make eye contact or notice anyone in the room. He also did not speak. She said that they believe God healed their son by showing them what to do and leading them to the right people. Anyway, autism or not, we are still really excited to finally see him. Typically when you take your child to the doctor, they only see the doctor for about 5 minutes, so you never feel like they really have an accurate picture of your child. DAN (Defeat Autism Now) doctors spend a total of two hours with your child!

We are so thankful that Annabelle is surrounded by people who love and care for her. Caleb and I were just discussing today, how she has an amazing family and two churches that love her to death. She is such a happy child. That girl has some spunk in her! She is so bossy and I love it! Caleb said she gets it from me. I am so glad she comes from a family that knows how to love. We may be crazy at times, but we sure do know how to love. When taking a parenting class, Caleb and I were told that we should light up every time our children enter the room. . that they will take notice of it. . I thought, you know what? Thats what my parents have always done with us, and they do it 100 times more for my children. I am so thankful my children have that. If they seem a little on the spoiled side, its because they are. In every family gathering they are our little entertainers. . they are front and center. . there is nothing like the love of children. . I can't wait for them to have more cousins, because things are gonna get even more exciting around here.

Welcome To Holland

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by Emily Perl Kingsley
©©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley.
All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe
the experience of raising a child with a disability
to try to help people who have not shared
that unique experience to understand it,
to imagine how it would feel.

It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby,
it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy.
You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans.
The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice.
You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.
You pack your bags and off you go.
Several hours later, the plane lands.
The stewardess comes in and says,
"Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland??
I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy.
All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan.
They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you
to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place,
full ofpestilence, famine and disease.

It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books.
And you must learn a whole new language.
And you will meet a whole new group of people
you would never have met.

It's just a different place.
It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.
But after you've been there for a while
and you catch your breath, you look around....
and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....
and Holland has tulips.

                                                         Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...
and they're all bragging about
what a wonderful time they had there.
And for the rest of your life, you will say
"Yes, that's where I was supposed to go.
That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...

because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life
mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy,
you may never be free to
enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ...
about Holland.

******

Thinking Out Of The Box

            Several years ago, our church presented my dad with  a gift on his birthday. It was a plaque with a little gold box attached to the front of it. On top of the box was a little gold stick-figured man. The little man was leaning forward and resting his chin in his hands ( you may have seen it in a Sky Mall catalog). The plaque read "Thinking out of the box". This message was significant, because my Dad had been preaching about "thinking out of the box".

 The other day I was listening to a woman, Donna Gates (age 60), speak about the women of this generation. She said that the women of this generation are not willing to blindly follow and do whatever their doctors or experts say. The women of this generation are willing to go, find, and do whatever it takes to heal their children.

One day  while in our pediatrician's office, I asked the nurse practitioner if Annabelle's extreme lack of nutrition might have anything to do with her developmental delays (If you read the first post you would know that Annabelle has always eaten very little, if any).

            She scrunched up her nose and said, "No. Those thing are usually permanent from birth. Food doesn't really have anything to do with it."

            Interesting. . . . .  Isn't that why we put DHA in infant formula, infant cereals and prenatal vitamins????

Imagine the possibilities, if one doctor over the last 3 years would have advised us to give Annabelle Cod Liver Oil, or any other supplements for that matter. . . instead of implying that she was simply spoiled and picky.  Now that we know Annabelle has a Sensory Integration Disorder, and possibley STILL has reflux . . Is it possible that she would have developed at a steadier rate???

            Her brain was essentially starving.

           The following is an excerpt from generationrescue.org.

Childhood Neurological Disorders (NDs) are typically diagnosed by professionals with psychology and psychiatry backgrounds. Parents are often told that their child's diagnosis is the result of genes and is psychological in nature. Typical "psychological" manifestations of these NDs in children may include delayed speech, lack of eye contact,  impaired or non-present social skills, shyness, perseverative behavior (doing the same thing over and over), delayed gross or fine motor skills, sensory integration issues (sound and touch sensitivity, etc.), not responding to one's name, inflexibility with transitions, and major, often unexplained changes in mood.

 Yet, the physical or medical issues that our children often share are rarely noted or discussed. Typical physical manifestations of chldren with NDs may include food allergies and eczema, general gastrointestinal distress, constipation and diarrhea, immune disregulation, and sleep disturbances.

Typically, proper testing would also reveal high levels of environmental toxins relative to neurotypical children.


What has happened to our children? We believe our children's bodies are overwhelmed by a combination of heavy metals (mercury, lead aluminum), live viruses (particular from their vacccines), and bacteria. These toxins serve to slow or shut down normal biochemical pathways in the  body and lead to the physical and mental manifestations we call NDs. Perhaps the best description of what happens to our children that we have read is Autism: A Twisted Tale of Virus and Thimerosal, by Dr. Amy Yasko.


Biomedical intervention for NDs is based on the belief that the psychological symptoms of NDs are a product of the physical issues the child is experiencing and that addressing the physical issues will lead to an improvement in those psychological symptoms. (We were very pleased to read the recent cover story in Discover Magazine that clearly spells out that autism is "not just in the head" but may actually originate in the gut and environmental toxins.)


The ultimate goal of biomedical treatment is to remove environmental toxins from your child's body and repair  the damage that has been done.

Neurological Disorders in children are growing at a rate  well in excess of population growth and are not the result of better diagnostic criteria.


And yet, the popular press is constantly spreading the same tired myths about autism and other NDs. Namely:
- There is no known cure.
- Recovered children are almost never acknowledged despite their growing numbers.


I will be posting about nutrition, cleansing, Annabelle's symptoms and progress, and any formal diagnosis. I personally have gleaned so much from other mothers who have posted their child's symptoms and what has helped them. While there is a huge list of symptoms for autism, Annabelle only has a few of them. As for the physical symptoms associated with children on the autism spectrum, Annabelle has all of them. Doctors do not talk to you about these physical symptoms and you won't find them on the conventional list of symptoms. 

As a parent, you are your child's advocate. Don't be afraid to look outside of the box. 


Diagnosis: We are still on that long wait to see the neurologist.  

Update: We have an appointment with a DAN (Defeat Autism Now) doctor on the 15th of March! So excited! These doctors test the children for allergies, sensitivities, and toxins.  Three weeks!

Resilience

When asked to name the blog, the first thing that came to my mind was "resilience". Somewhere in my memory this word was waiting to be used. The only time I remember seeing the word was when I read a book written by Elizabeth Edwards titled "Resilience". Maybe I associate that word with strong women, such as Elizabeth Edwards, or maybe I associate it with the difficult circumstances that have forced her to be strong. . . infidelity and terminal cancer to name a few. When I did a search on the word this was the result...

re·sil·ience

1.

the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.

2.

ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy.

When I read this definition, I wanted it to be prophetic. . . .

You see, since March 6, 2007, every day has been exciting, strange, crazy, scary, or just plain frustrating. On that day my first child was born - Annabelle Karen Flowers, 4lb.2oz. and 17 inches long. Annabelle was and still is, very beautiful. All of our nurses kept going into the NICU to check on her. She had the cutest red lips. Women get their lips injected to look like Annabelle on the day she was born :)

Annabelle was very healthy aside from her low weight. They kept her in the NICU for 8 days because she was not able to keep her body temperature up. Finally, after what seemed like forever, we were able to take Annabelle home. The entire time she was in that nursery, I would not let myself cry. . . even when I had to endure the stress tests (putting her in her car seat and watching her heart rate drop). I told myself that I would not cry, because I must be strong for her! There was not enough time to cry. I promised myself that I would wait until this was all over. So, as I had promised, the day she was released my parents drove us home, and after they left I locked the door and sobbed for about 10 minutes . . then we took a nap :)

Unfortunately for my husband, we had to keep the apartment HOT. Annabelle was wrapped in several blankets and we slept with the lights on. The NICU nurses warned me over and over, "If she gets cold, she is coming right back to the NICU. We see babies come back all the time". I was terrified of taking her back to that place where I couldn't even hold or feed her if I wanted to... where they fed her formula that she was highly allergic to when I wasn't around.

During Annabelle's first month, her weight doubled to eight pounds. She had horrible reflux. Everything came right out her nose making it next to impossible for her to breathe. She slept sitting up so she would not suffocate. Over all, everything was O.K.

People constantly said, "She is so good. She is the best baby. She never cries!"
On reflection, her constant quietness should have been our first signal that something wasn't quite right. . . she was our first . . how were we supposed to know?

At 4 months Annabelle began to rock her head back and forth. Caleb, myself, and everyone else, thought she was dancing. After all, it was more pronounced when there was music around. She also started to do some sort of high pitched hum.

At 6 months, we relocated. For 18 months, we were unable to find a local doctor who was accepting new patients. . . unbelievable, right? We took her to the emergency room several times. The E.R. doctors told us that we should make an appointment with her primary care physician, but good luck on finding one. . even they knew that nobody was taking up new patients. . . one doctor said, "since there aren't any doctors accepting patients, we'll probably see you back her in a few days". During this time, Annabelle was chronically sick. She coughed till she vomited for four months.

At 12 months, Annabelle weighed in at a whopping 14 pounds. Her doctor (our original doctor in Puyallup, WA) flipped! He refused to believe that she would not eat. At this time, she was still only eating 2 to 4 oz. of formula every 3 hours. He told us, "Put butter on everything. . put cream on everything . . give her whole milk!" I reminded him, "Remember when she had milk before, she was projectile?" He said, "Well now she is a year old. . all babies are allergic to milk".

Desperate to get as many calories in her as I could, I began to give her whole milk, sometimes with an ounce of cream. I would spend my entire day in front of the computer with Anna next to me in her high chair, while I put peanut butter on those little star puffs and fed them to her. It was all she would eat. I tried everything . . I tried every kind of baby food, constantly . . . I tried pureeing our table food . . we tried pizza, ice cream and pudding. Nothing! She would clamp her lips together really tight and turn her head. I would try to force the spoon in and she would spit it out.

Her stools became very hard and large . . she would bleed and scream. . this continued till she was two.

Now Annabelle is almost 3 years old. She still barely eats a thing. She has continued to rock her head and she is still not talking. She has tubes in her ears, but continues to have chronic ear infections. She has a lot of repetitive behaviors.

I listen to the stories of moms who have been in my situation and come out with their child intact and communicating. One of my biggest dreams for her is that she will be able to sing like me. For now I would settle for just being able to hear what's on her mind.

We are on a long wait list to see a pediatric neurologist. For now, we are going to blog about our experience, our journey. I am reading and learning so many things about diet and toxins in our environment. I believe the Lord brings people and literature into our lives to teach us. I hope that you will find all of these things interesting and learn from our experience. We are also believing for a complete healing for Annabelle. Maybe not the miraculous, instant variety. But possibly by meeting the right people, reading the right material, and eating the right diet, all in God's perfect timing.

While Annabelle will always be perfect to us just how God made her, as parents, our main concern is her overall health and comfort. For this reason, we believe in taking a 'whole body' approach to her wellness. That is, developmental delays and social oddities can be the result of a "starving brain". A "starving brain" may be caused by food allergies, food sensitivities, vitamin deficiencies and environmental toxins.

We look forward to sharing our trials and triumphs with you, and would love feedback and advice.