Catching Up

Yikes! Someone left a comment on one of my posts and it made me remember that I haven't updated the blog since the end of April. What is it with me and blogging? Some people do it everyday. I really need to get in the habit of doing that b/c this also serves as a diary of how things are going with Noah.

So... where did I leave off? Okay, last time, I was talking about how Noah spent a week at Children's Hospital. It turns out he had an MRSA staph infection in his leg muscle. He had three abscesses pop up and one that had to be lanced. Oh yeah... seeing that whole lancing thing quickly vetoed any fancy idea I had in my head that I could be a doctor or nurse. It was gross with a capital G. Anyway, they said that Noah's skin is basically a breeding ground for staph infections. Everytime he scratches his skin, he risks getting a staph infection. They said it lives on his skin and then uses the open skin as a portal to infect his muscle and blood. And since it's MRSA, it's resistant to most antibiotics - and anytime he's in the hospital he'll have to be quarantines. So, that's what happened. We were stuck in a little room at the hospital for a week. And since Noah couldn't leave, I couldn't leave. Okay.... do you have any idea what it's like to keep a child with autism locked up in a strange room 24/7 for a week? Well... actually... Noah is unlike any autistic kid I've ever met and he was fine with it. But mama wasn't so happy. I felt like a caged bird and about drove myself crazy. This is why I'm such a law abiding citizen. Prison would drive me insane.

Well, back to the antibiotics. There's only a few that can deal with MRSA and they're all gross and nasty tasting - and you have to give them 4 times a day. Well, the pretty little 26 year old doctor didn't believe me when I said Noah won't take anything orally. Of course, she didn't try and give it to him - she had several nurses and a gal up from the Social Work department try and prove me wrong. I'm sure the doctor didn't want to risk Noah spitting Clandimyocin in her face. (Sidenote: .. why is it that most people think mom's are crazy? Don't I know my kid? If I say he won't take medicine, I mean HE WON'T TAKE MEDICINE. ) Anyway, guess what? That's right, he wouldn't take it. Which was vindication for me but also meant that he had to stay in the hospital on an IV drip for 5 days. So that wasn't really great. A big fat hospital bill because Noah is stubborn. Not so good.

No one mentioned that clandimyocin causes clostridia, which is something that Noah had before and took over 2 years to get rid off. He started having diarrhea in the hospital and then continued to have it after he was discharged, but started throwing up as well. He wouldn't eat, wouldn't drink. The day after discharge, we were back in the hospital for dehydration and then back to the doctor's the next day. They put him back on antibiotics to stop the clostridia.

This is what gets me..... you give a kid antibiotics to stop a staph infection. Those antibiotics cause profuse diarrhea so you give more antibiotics to stop the diarrhea. What side effect will those antibiotics have? Is it just a cycle that continues on and on?

So we called Noah's homeopath.

He took down the symptoms and gave him the alcohol remedy. It stopped all his yeasty behaviors (spinning in circles, shrieking, hitting his head, uncontrollable laughter, waking up in the middle of the night) and his diarrhea within 3 days. Can you believe it???!! We had spent 2 years before trying to deal with it all and a little homeopathic remedy that cost $10 nipped it in the bud.

Well.. .the saga continues.... after that we noticed an abscess the size of an egg pop up on Noah's leg. I was so depressed thinking he'd end up in the hospital again, so we called Dr. Ullman, our homeopath, and he gave us the Pyrogren remedy. Within 3 days, the abscess was completely gone. Even though we've been doing homeopathy for several months, I've spent nearly 34 years with regular medicine ingrained in my brain and in the back of my head I always thought, "this homeopathy is a bit weird. I don't understand it". Well, I STILL don't understand it, but am totally believing it. I mean, I saw that "egg" disappear with my own eyes. The same thing that landed Noah in the hospital for a week and left us with a $25,000 hospital bill (don't worry, we're fighting insurance) went completely away with a $10 bottle of Pyrogen remedy.

Okay, so after the abscess, things are well for about 2 weeks, then we all come down with strep - AGAIN. I'm serious, we've all been sick since December. We're like a bunch of dominoes... one of us gets it and then the other and then the other. I called Dr Ullman who said that you don't mess around with strep b/c it can be serious and you don't have time to fool around trying to find the right remedy. So Noah went on Omnicef, which is the only antibiotic he'll actually take, and it cleared it up. But.... it caused yeasty behaviors and diarrhea AGAIN. I'll spare you all the grossness of posting the pictures of the mess I found in the closet. But... note to self... don't decide to start potty-training after Noah has a round of antibiotics. Another note to self... whoever said that potty-training is easiet by letting the child run around naked will get a big fat cleaning bill from me).

This brings up to today. The weekend was pretty bad. Noah was just sick to to his stomach all weekend and he was shrieking like a banshee. It was exactly how he acted when he was doing chelation. We did the alcohol remedy that worked so great after he was in the hospital, but it's taken a few days to work this time. He didn't shriek as much yesterday and actually slept through the night last night. He was still having diarrhea up until last night, so we'll see how it goes today. Once he starts to get back to his old self, we can start the sulphur remedy again. This is his "constitutional" remedy that is meant to help him improve over all. We did notice some great results when we started back in February, but then he got sick so we had to stop.
I really hope we can start in the next few weeks b/c I want him to floor his teachers when school starts again at the end of August. I think I'll save what happened at our last ARD meeting for later. Let's just say that I really want him to go in there and knock their socks off. There's one lady at the school who really gets my goat. She has the lowest expectations for Noah. I just want to shake her. Ugh. But I won't get into it now.

And that's basically what's been going on. We do have some exciting things on the horizon, though. We're on CD #4 of The Listening Program. It rocks!!! I really think Noah's receptive understanding is improving. We also start Pediatric Occupational Therapy tomorrow and our insurance is paying for 30 visits FREE. Yea! Praise God. And we go to Austin on the 15th for our first session with Soma at HALO. And, of course, we're hoping to start the sulphur remedy next week. So, we're really excited about this summer and hope to see some great things.

I'll keep you all in touch.

Take care,
Noah's Mom

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