Recovering Noah

What do you do when two of your kids want to go trick-or-treating, but you know without a doubt that your third child will refuse to wear a costume? And doesn't like to walk in public? Well.... ya gotta get a little creative! Sim turned an old washing machine box into The Mystery Machine Van and we all went as the Scooby-Doo Gang. Nandi (aka "Little Diva") insisted on being Daphne because " Mommmmmy! You look just like Velma! " I refused to spend $24.99 on a red "Daphne" wig... but I think she looks really beautiful with her dark hair. The green scarf around her neck was fashioned out a pair of old green tights. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle! Shaggy... meet your father. Eli met up with a friend from school (aka Darth Vader) and I had to take a pic because "Hooray! Eli has friends!!". That's actually a big deal if you've been following our blog for awhile. And do you like the soul patch? Kudos to you, Mr. Sharpie Marker. The wig is one ...

I finally got around to charging my camera so you could all see the different equipment we use with Noah. Some of it we use everyday, and others we just use here and there (i.e. when we remember!) Where possible, I've written where you can get each piece and how much it cost. I hope these posts aren't coming across all showy or anything. I generally put the cost of each therapy so that others can see how much it might cost them should they decide to try the therapy with their child. Plus, I hate reading about a therapy and getting all excited only to find out that it's completely unattainable for us because it costs, like, $400 an hour or something. Been there done that. And even though we still spend a couple of hundred dollars a month, it's gone way way down from where it was when I felt like "I" had to cure Noah in 3 months time or else. First up, which you'll find in the picture above, are stability balls. I love these! They're my favorite. We use ...

Photo by liveandlearn.net.au Brain gym is something that I'd heard about off and on during the years we were doing biomedical treatment with Noah. It seemed interesting, but wasn't really our cup of tea at the time. Noah stopped talking and started having infantile spasms the day after he received his DpT shot... and all his urine and fecal tests were showing that he had heavy metals in his body... and since I couldn't understand how doing a few exercises would help him recover from autism and get all the metals out, I just filed all the Brain Gym info into the part of my mind that was reserved for all the stuff that seemed like a neat idea but would never work for Noah. Basically, it went into the same pile that included homeopathy, chiropractors, natural medicine, RPM, and cranial sacral therapy. Oh, hindsight. You certainly are 20/20! Actually, I didn't even consider Brain Gym for Noah until about 4 ...

Okay, this is the blog post that is officially going to label me as a quack. I just know it. (Oh and have you noticed that this is my second blog posts in 24 hours? I know. I know!) This is probably going to be one of the hardest posts to write. Actually, I think letting you all know what we're doing with Noah is hard in general. Because I don't want to look like a fool. I have this fear of people saying, "Oh my gosh, you're investing in hogwash. You are so wasting your money!" But this is what's working for Noah. It is. And it's hard because I'm a facts person. I'm one of those nerdy types who loves research and facts and figures. Five, six, seven years ago you could've asked me anything about autism and various treatments and I would've been able to rattle off tons of statistics off the tops of my heads. I could've told you who was who in the autism world. Where each doctor went to school. All the clinical trials that had been done...

This is Soma. She has a last name, but I can't pronounce it. But if I google it, I can tell you that her full name is Soma Mukhopadhyay. But we just call her Miss Soma... otherwise known in our house as "The Autism Whisperer". RPM stands for Rapid Prompting Method and it's Soma's baby. She developed it as a way to help her severely autistic son, Tito, and realized that it could be used with other children who have autism. To make a long story short, she now lives in Austin and RPM is done at her clinic - called HALO . You can go to HALO's website to find out all the info you need about RPM - what it is, what it does, how it can help your child. You can even see videos of children in RPM sessions. It'll blow you away! But here's what RPM has done for us and for Noah. It gave us hope and it gave Noah a voice. You can find my very first blog post about RPM (written three years ago) HERE . The second post I wrote about RPM was written a few months later an...

We've used TONS of practitioners in the past - not only locally, but all over the U.S. But we never did manage to use a doctor living in Hawaii. Darn! Anyway, over the years we've weeded down Noah's therapies significantly. I'll be blogging about each one over the next few days. Each one is a therapist that we've been using for at least a year or so and they're the ones that I consider essential to Noah's daily life. In other words, they're the ones I go to bed praying about each night and begging God to please let them each live to be 150 and not retire early. Thank you so much, amen. Today, we'll start with Noah's chiropractor. 1. Dr. Rosenthal This is Dr. Rosenthal . He's Noah's chiropractor. And he's really good. (And, no, I didn't take that picture. Come on, now! I swiped it off his website.) I love chiropractors. They do so much more than just back adjustments. And, honestly, this is just my opinion, I think they're rea...

I'm so overdue for a post on what therapies we do with Noah. Partly because I have it in my head exactly how I want it to look and it'll take a lot of time and partly because it'll involve posting pictures and I absolutely despise posting pictures on Blogger. But if I don't sit down and do it then I'll never get around to it. So, I think it'd be easier to break it down into parts... .and who knows how often those parts will be posted... but it's a start. Now, I want to issue a disclaimer on all of this. I don't have any medical evidence that it works. For all I know, we could be spending our money and doing exercise and giving such and such remedy and driving to Austin here and there and it might not be making a bit of difference. (Although I believe it is making a difference.) The point is, though, that it's not hurting Noah. There was a time, several years ago, when on the advice of medical doctors, we were holding Noah down each day and syringing ...

At your service, little king... Motherhood..... It's back breaking work!

Nandi has been desperate to ride a bicycle ever since Ei learned to ride last summer. (His training wheels came off this past summer!) Anyway, Nandi tries and tries but she just can't keep her left leg on the pedal. A wonderful organization named AMBUCS donated a big wheel trike to Nandi last year that had foot plates with velco straps, but, unfortunately, it was too low to the ground for her to use her upper body to steer it. (Nandi has some balance issues, too, because her whole body is sort of thrown to her right side.) But.... all that changed today when my parents stopped by a flea market in the little town next over and saw a Thistle Tri-lo. Oh my gosh.... these things are made in Glasgow. How it ended up in a small town in East Texas is beyond me. They brought it over this morning and Nandi LOVES it. It's perfect for her. And I'm going to get Noah on it during the day when she's in school and pedal with him hand over hand. He needs to build up the strength ...

Because God definitely has a sense of humor! You know how I've been praying and praying and praying for Noah to get better? Specifically that his brain and body would start making connections - because if I've told you a 1,000 times then I'll tell you 1,001 that I truly believe Noah's brain is that of an 8 year old boy. It's just that his body won't obey his brain and it's more like that of a 12 month old. Well, I am now excited to tell you that I'm the proud mother of an almost 9 year old child who is going through the Terrible Two's ! It sounds crazy to be elated over that, doesn't it? But I am so elated. Well, I'm tired, too, because two-year old's are exhausting and exasperating at most times, but it's this weird sort of euphoria that I'm going through. I wanna cry and laugh and dance all at the same time. It's kind of like those pictures you see of villagers who are out dancing in the streets in the middle of the rain......

Ahhh , here I sit. August 17 th and it's my 37 th birthday - and let me tell you... this year has been a year of reflection. I think I finally started to understand myself this past year. Sounds silly, maybe. I mean how can you live 36 years and not understand yourself... but it's like things just started making sense. My wants, my needs, my personality, my parenting skills, what I can handle and can't handle, letting go, dreaming big.... all of it just started to click this past year. And I don't have all the answers.... I think that's obvious. But I'm starting to feel a bit at peace with myself and who I am. I still worry, though. A LOT. Especially about the kids. Especially about Noah. And I still sometimes mourn the life I thought I was supposed to have... but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. And that's why I thought that on my 37 th birthday I'd write a letter to myself at thirty. Because thirty was a very difficult year in my life. ...