Recovering Noah

This may very well go down in history as the most boring blog post ever. It's just occurred to me, though, that I haven't updated in weeks, so I thought I'd sit down really quickly and type out a brief update. And I know I'm not known for my brevity, but I'll try to keep it brief. I chose to write this during the very hectic 30 minutes before school starts, so I have no choice. And who chooses to blog during the morning rush?? Clearly, I need to work on tightening a few loose screws. Okay... 1. I have received some really lovely comments in the past couple of weeks and I am sorry I haven't written back. I'm not trying to be rude. I've just been completely overwhelmed these past few weeks. I really appreciate comments, even though I'm a complete cow when it comes to writing back. I'll try to do better. And Jenna, hi! Nice to meet you. I PROMISE I'll write back. Pinky swear. 2. Noah is doing a new therapy AND diet, which is...

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 ...