Note to Self

The achievement of anything that you desire must be considered success, whether it is a trophy or money or relationships, or things. But if you will let your standard of success be your achievement of joy—everything else will fall easily into place. For in the finding of joy, you are finding vibrational alignment with the resources of the Universe.

*my emphasis

Excerpted from a workshop in “The Law of Attraction, The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham” on Saturday, July 1st, 2006

Potholes

So, we are in the new library. I am checking out a book when Liberty begins to giggle. The giggle turns into a belly laugh and he is just so tickled about something he can't stop. A couple of nice people that work at the library smile and ask me if someone is in a good mood today. Kindness - I need that. The other older lady looks at Liberty sternly and says, "Sshhh...you need to settle down now. Be quiet." He laughs harder. She seems very irritated as I tell Liberty to be quiet. Yeah, sure mom. She makes a remark about him probably having way too much sugar today. I look at her and say, "He doesn't eat sugar." She says, "Oh, well...." She continues to almost reprimand Liberty, and I say, "My son has autism. He probably does not understand a word you are saying." That shuts her up. All she can say is, "Oh, I'm sorry." But, it is that PITY that gets me, and that urge to hustle us out of the sacred library, where, I might add, there is NO ONE because they are getting ready to close. Why not just let him be, for God's sake?

I am tempted to launch into the mechanics of autism, the gut-brain connection, the yeast...nah, it would be lost on her. Why should I have to explain anyway? Why? I usually don't tell people Liberty has autism until something like this happens or someone persistently tries to get him to answer them.

Mrs. StraightLace represents the general public, I'm afraid. She sees just another child with no manners, another one who does not fit in. Liberty looks "normal" and is so tall for a five year old people do expect more of him. But, try to talk to him and he breaks out into a 2-year-old's gibberish, at which people look at him strangely and back away. They back away from my good-looking little boy who was born perfect and who became brain damaged by a vaccine and my heart breaks over and over again. I am reminded of the nightmare I live everyday and I still can't believe it happened to us. To our family. To our precious child.

A good day has now turned into a bad one. I feel how much we are strangers in our world. We don't fit. He doesn't fit. All of the fears rise up like demons, all of that gunk you think you've risen above and moved on from. I'm in tears as I leave the library for home.

When is a giggle just a giggle and not yeast-related for God's sake? I forget what a normal 5-year-old boy does besides talk. I am not sure what he understands anymore. I am not sure of anything. When I do try to talk to him, all he does is fiddle with my seams obsessively and make noises. He still tries to drag me everywhere. So much for progress with signs. His school thinks he has made progress. Oh, please. I should have had someone in this house helping me every day. I should have gone the ABA way two years ago. Should have been more aggressive.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Again.

I am suddenly reminded of how mentally and physically exhausted I am. Maybe that is why I spend time in nostalgia. Maybe it's not related to midlife, but instead just a remembrance of a life gone by. I remember what life was like before all of this; what I was like.

This morning, I was cooking a favorite old recipe of chili beans that my mother used to make for us, that happens to be one of Liberty's staples. I was cooking it ahead to freeze like I always do for some of his meals. The smell of it cooking reminded me of a time when Lib was just a baby. It was autumn and we lived in the old fifties style house with the giant kitchen and the playroom that adjoined it where I could keep my eye on him as I cooked. Such a sweet time. The time before all of the trouble started. He was just my little son and we had wonderful days together then, back when he still nursed and took naps and ate everything that I cooked for supper. It was such a short time as we got the diagnosis at 20 months of age. That memory is now brown around the edges. Everything is in sepia tones. Precious days, gone now.

I will never forget the day that baby was labeled "disabled" by the government. Life became surreal then.

I saw another mom in the library on her way out that I used to know. She, with her two adorable normal children. Me, with my adorable but strangely behaving child. I avoided her like the plague. She would not have recognized me. When she knew me, I was about the size of a toothpick, wearing fashionable clothing. Now, with the extra 30 lbs, the extra wrinkles, the sloppy clothes...I'm sure she would not have even known me now. It would have been too painful to see the shock in her eyes. I'm just a tired mom of an autistic child who can't seem to quite put herself back together again. I think the only ones who really get that are other moms just like me. For those of you reading this, my hat's off to you, too. It's a tough road, but we keep on going for our kids.

I apologize for this being so depressing, but at the same time I'm not deleting it. I allow myself some wallowing time. Because this is the reality of it. It's great to see people who are "fighters" and doing all this stuff for their kids and I appreciate that. I have my own techniques for staying above the pain. But, I also appreciate it when someone .... one of US ... tells it like it really is. I need to acknowledge this part of the trip, too. I have to acknowledge it, so I can feel it and then let it go.

Oh well, it's just another pothole in the road. I will climb out of it. I will spend time finding thoughts that feel better and better to me until I find relief, and once again, I will be back in the driver's seat, talking to other moms, recording what I see each day, giving supplements, trying to help my child function in this world the best that he can. Being hopeful. Having faith. I will look through the lenses of what my child IS doing rather than what he is not doing, I will somehow put it all in perspective again.

But tonight, I'm hanging it all up like a tired, ratty old bathrobe. I will be reading a book, or doing a puzzle and placing my attention on anything...anything other than autism.

We must get rid of these combination vaccinations!

Kids vaccine linked to fever, seizures By MIKE STOBBE,AP Medical Writer Wed Feb 27, 8:28 PM ETATLANTA -

Children suffered higher rates of fever-related convulsions when they got a Merck & Co.combination vaccine instead of two separate shots, according to a new study presented Wednesday. The results prompted a federal advisory panel on vaccines to water down their preference for the combovaccine ProQuad, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella as well as chickenpox.In the study of children ages 12 months through 23 months, the rate of seizures was twice as high in toddlers who got ProQuad, compared with those who got one shot for chickenpox and one for the three other diseases. The risk translates to about one extra case of convulsion for every 2,000 doses of ProQuad given said Dr. Nicola Klein, who lead the federally funded study. She presented the data at a meeting of the AdvisoryCommittee on Immunization Practices. The study focused on children who develop fevers and then go into convulsions — an occurrence that frightens parents but usually has no lingering consequences. There were no deaths in the new study.

ProQuad was licensed in 2005. It's been in extremely short supply since last year, when Merck suspended production because of manufacturing problems. The company expects to resume ProQuad production next year. The panel had previously taken a position that they preferred doctors give children as few needlesticks as possible, and that ProQuad is preferable to giving separate shots. It voted Wednesday to amend that, to say they're no longer voicing a preference for ProQuad over the separate shots. "Safety, shortages, delivery issues — lots of reasons not to state such a strong preference," said member panel Patsy Stinchfield, an infectious disease expert at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. Merck officials said their own research, though preliminary, also showed a doubling of the risk in children within five to 12 days of vaccination. However, the occurrence was low — about 5 cases in 10,000, Merck officials said. They said there was five times more chickenpox antigen, the key ingredient, in the ProQuad shot than in the stand-alone chickenpox shot. But they said it's not clear that would explain the difference in seizure rates. For some reason, the difference disappears when comparing rates for 30 days, Merck officials added. Klein's research checked seizure rates only at seven to 10 days after vaccination, and looked at about 43,000 kids who got ProQuad and 315,000 who got the two other shots together. It found fever-related seizures occurred at a rate of 9 per 10,000 children vaccinated with ProQuad, compared with 4 per 10,000 for those who got separate shots.

Klein is co-director of Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, Calif., one of seven sites in the study. Her work was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ProQuad costs $124 per dose, about the same as the two other shots combined.

Curiouser and Curiouser

When you are treating a child biomedically, and at the same time trying other modalities such at therapeutic listening and trying to distinguish what is working and what is not,( i.e. where in the heck the strange behaviors are coming from) you begin to feel like you're talking to these guys all of the time. If THIS is the advising committee in my head, I'm in trouble. I'm afraid this is exactly what it feels like, folks. That's me at the head of the table, by the way. The one filtering and sorting through all of the various opinions of the voices in my head. Can you see the concentration on my face, thinking, "What the heck IS this..."

A Mad Tea Party, indeed. Time to wake up the doormouse and have him tell us a story.

I had posted before about testing Liberty for PANDAS which involves basically having Strep titers drawn. PANDAS stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus. Geez Louise. That's enough to scare anybody. Apparently, some kids get some odd symptoms right after a Strep infection. They develop things like tics and obsessive behavior, apparently from elevated Strep antibodies.

On our last appointment, I mentioned to Dr. Bock that Liberty had developed what I felt was an obsession with the seams in his shirts, and the seams in anyone else's clothing. He also had a high pitched barky sound he began to make on occasion, and then recently he began covering his ears (at no sound detectable), extreme sensitivity to light and some new eye blinking which could be seen as a tic. Also, I have posted before about Lib (and me) not sleeping through the night. If you go to the website on PANDAS you will find many of these behaviors including "sleep disturbance" could fit this syndrome.

Oh yes, but today I am reminded once again, that things are not always what they seem!

First of all, after finally getting a hold of a human being at the doctor's office and wrangling with the lab here to fax the results again, I got an answer on the PANDAS - the second part of the test we were waiting for called the "DNASE" was negative!

Meanwhile, Liberty has been in a Therapeutic Listening program since last March. There are a few different kinds of programs out there, this one is through a company called Vital Links. Basically, it involves putting on a special pair of headphones and listening to CDs tailored to the child's needs and all of this being overseen by an occupational therapist. In this particular program, Liberty listens to a CD for 2 weeks (twice a day for 30 mins) for 5-7 days, then switches to another CD for another 2 weeks, and alternates for a period of 12 weeks. Then we stop for two weeks and evaluate any progress or lack of it. The CDs they use in the program are incredible. I mean, who knew you could tailor sound for things like body coordination and social skills? Some of the CDs are Mozart, some are jazzy, some are nature sounds and they are all done in a special recording studio.

Anyway, Therapeutic Listening helps a child with auditory processing problems as well as visual processing problems and I always felt APD was a big factor with Liberty.

Having said all of that, I never dreamed that his symptoms were probably being produced by his Therapeutic Listening. When I saw him begin to cover his ears, I decided to stop the listening program for a little while until I figured out what was going on. Apparently, that was not the right thing to do. It did eventually occur to me that something could be going on with the Therapeutic Listening because the last time we took a break, he developed toe walking and spinning, but when he began again, the symptoms promptly went away and his therapists and teachers remarked on how well he was doing.

Now, I had put in a call to my OT but could never get her to return my call. So in the past two weeks of trying to phone her and get her input, I was spinning in circles with the new possible PANDAS diagnosis, and also wondering if the Diflucan which we are still on might be causing something. Or, if perhaps there was something in his 10 supplements that was the culprit. So, I stopped those and began them over again slowly. Then I wondered if stopping those suddenly did something to mess him up. See where the mind goes? Round and round in a circle game.

When I finally got a hold of my OT, do you know what she said? She said she "spilled a Coke on my phone number" and forgot to call me. Now, she has our records on file. Do you think she might have looked up my phone number? Asked the secretary? We went to see her in the office almost every day last summer. I was left speechless. I cannot imagine saying that to anyone!

When I described to her what was happening to Liberty, including the fiddling with his seams, she casually said, "Oh yes, that is quite common. Remember me telling you about the tactile problems that can develop?" No, I really did not log that into my memory if she did tell me. She said that, many times these symptoms mean that what we are doing is working. She said that he is being bombarded with sensory stimulation. She said that a newborn baby hears sounds all at once and has to learn to differentiate his mother's voice and other sounds that are important and let the others fade to the background. She said Lib is covering his ears because he has this new sensitivity because he is probably processing like he has not done before. The air conditioning that I tune out could be suddenly deafening to him, according to her. She told me to try lowering my voice, changing the bass and treble on the tv, etc. She is great at explaining it all to me but getting in touch with her, for some reason, is difficult. There is only one other person in town qualified to administer the program and she has a waiting list three miles long.

Then I thought, perhaps his CDs helped his body awareness and that is why he suddenly is potty training. His therapists thinks so. Oh did I not shout that one out? LIB IS POTTY TRAINING HIMSELF! One day, he used the potty at school repeatedly and then he did at home. I had him in underwear all weekend, traveling here and there in the car, with only one or two accidents at home. It really is phenomenal. I have to look back in my notes...was it only one week or so ago? Now, he is doing this like he's done it forever.

But, wait, how much of these symptoms and/or progress can be attributed to the antifungal, Diflucan - look at what phenomenal success Jenny McCarthy had with her son and getting rid of yeast. Look at the unbelievable yeast die-off Liberty went through.

Also, there is the MB-12 shots we restarted at the correct dose.

Can anyone really know how it's all playing out?

This is tough work. I feel like a detective and I truly understand now why the logo for autism is a puzzle piece. What is so exhausting about it is, you have to really scrutinize and take notes. When the doctor asks you if you see a correlation between sleeping through the night and the antibiotics his pediatrician just put him on for a blossoming ear infection, you have to be able to say yes or no. I mean, I have pretty great intuition, but not when I'm exhausted. Notes help.

I also now have developed very painful TMJ. Not suprising. A little stored anger and tension.

This afternoon, I spoke with the nurse today from Dr. Bock's office. She told me that oftentimes, covering the ears and being suddenly sensitive to light and sound, etc. can mean that detoxification from metals is happening. Again, one more possibility thrown into the ring.

So, it could be ANYTHING.

Perhaps I need to get a psychic involved in the works, add her to the TEAM of Super Sleuths.

No, wait, they are more expensive than the DAN! doctors.

Hey y'all, Wanna Rally?

Well, Jenny McCarthy is organizing a rally in front of the CDC in June!! Here is the link to sign up to participate. Atlanta is only about 5 hours from us, but don't know if we can make it. This would be one of those chances of a lifetime to at least feel like your voice was heard, like you said your piece, and to participate with many like-minded others, parents and other affected family members, friends, and researchers. I think we will give it our best shot to go, after all Jenny is begging for a turnout and she deserves it. WE DESERVE IT.

http://www.talkaboutcuringautism.org/jenny/cdc-rally/index.htm

On another note (only remotely related by Jim Carey, Jenny's partner) the author of the book A New Earth will be on Oprah next week, and Jim and Jenny are going to be on today to talk about the new world that is now coming into being. If you have not read any of Tolle's books, do yourself a favor:

http://www.eckharttolle.com/

Oprah is actually teaching an online class you can sign up for with Tolle in March. Details here

http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml

These are just two of the many events happening today that are pointing indeed to some new, exciting, healthy changes, expansion in consciousness, (let's hope), and the birth of a whole new kind of world.

What It Could Be Like to Have Autism

This was sent to me by a new friend I met through my blog. The website credit is below. I thought it was particularly beautiful and insightful.

An essay written by a 16 year old with Autism (the exact transcription)

What I hear is quiet, and relaxing. The warmth of the surroundings is welcoming. The farm is like a little peace of heaven. When I am on the farm I can be me. I can run fast, far, and free. I can climb like a monkey and fish like a man. No one has to know how different I am. On the farm you can be anything.

I sleep in bed with the moonlight shining in. It is golden and bright. It brings with it the protection of a worn, well tattered, well loved old, faded blanket. It shines like a light that is coming to carry me away. It hits the side of the red brick house with purpose and furasity. Moonlight is welcome to visit me anytime. The warmth it brings makes me feel protected and normal. The beams come visit me just like anyone else. I can pretend to be just another kid who sees the same moon, only with autistic eyes.

I love the water. Any kind, even the murky, dirty, grotesque slimy water of the creek. The creek exists on its own and accepts the fact that its beauty lies within it, unseen by the eye of men. I can associate with this. My inside is deep, dark and murky. I share secrets with the water. I feel accepted by the creek for the creature that I am. No judgement does take place between us.

Stillness and peacefulness surround me. Old, worn, well traveled brick streets that have seen a lot welcome me to the weekend getaway. They have seen much before me, and will see much after me. As I walk streets, I hold dear the knowledge that I am just a heavy weight traveling to and from. My destination and purpose matter not. I am just passing threw like socks on their way to the washing machine. Each sock is washed the same whether on the right foot or the left.

Wild and free, overgrown and untamed, the soft green field is alive. It does as it wishes, it does not meet expectations placed on it. I am nothing that the field is and it is everything that I want to be. I don't, I can't, I won't. I can only pretend to be the delightful and mindful Joey.

Yes, I am different. I struggle to be me, the average american teen. I am not, have not, and will never be, such a form filled, cutout mold filling teen. This is not to say that I do not want to fit in. I do, I just have to pretend. My isolated world is terrifying. When I am on the farm, I escape the reality of my world and blend into the big picture, invisible, and for a short while incognito. I can be whomever, Tom, Dick, or Harry. The farm offers without judgement a place to escape to a world I desperately want to belong to.

http://www.webpediatrics.com/autism.html

Carly Fleischman

In case you missed ABC news tonight, Carly is a teenaged girl with autism who suddenly began speaking via her computer. This really blows me away. You can go to the site and see how many people asked her questions. We are so desperate to know what life is like for a person with autism. I wonder what my son understands. It is so frustrating not knowing.
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4312070

The Human Camera

This story was on Good Morning America about Stephen Wiltshire. I do not know the details of his autism, but his drawing ability is incredible. He draws in detail from memory. Watch as he draws buildings from Rome after flying over the city.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAfaM_CBvP8&feature=related

The Land of Noddin' Off

Ah, sleep! That necessary part of life. The thing that keeps your hormones balanced and what my beloved Dr. Oz says is one of the secrets to aging well. I am afraid to take his "What's Your Real Age?" test. I think it might show that I have aged 10 years in the last few months.

I have not gotten a full night's sleep in over two weeks. The crows feet around my eyes are beginning to resemble tire tracks.

Little Lib is either going through some kind of stage, or we are getting more serious side-effects to his antifungal. We are past the die-off, which I feel is some measure of success, but other behaviors are worrisome, such as the sudden sensitivity to sound (microwave oven, cell phone ringing, etc.) and also sensitivity to light. How about going to bed at 8 and popping back up and down from 12 to 4? This includes going around the house and flushing all of the toilets when he wakes up (but then he runs from the sound).

Also, now instead of just the seams of his shirts and pants bothering him, he has taken to ripping all of his clothes off in bed, and unless I check him constantly which is something I am not up for doing at the wee small hours of the morning. He will wet the bed as well, then I am up either changing the bed or throwing a towel over the wet spot if I have run out of linens at around 3 AM and stumbling back to sleep only to discover a spilled sippy cup in the bed. I tried giving him 3 mg of melatonin and it had the opposite effect - he buzzed around the house like a firefly.

I have been on my last dangling nerve for some time now and that one is fraying around the edges.

I do spy some hope as of yesterday, however. (And, yes of course I have calls into his doctor at Rhinebeck - I always have calls into Rhinebeck!) Liberty came down with a cold which made him want to sleep, and I think we might have finally straightened out his sleep cycle. He was only up once briefly and he slept through the night until 7 AM. I am sure you all heard the angels singing - it was a beautiful hallelujah chorus.

And, I have discovered the beauty and power of naps. Yes, naps! Glorious little cat naps that recharge my battery. When Liberty took a nap in the past three days, I took one, even if it was only for an hour, and I found that I had so much more energy for the rest of the day and was much less irritable (I am sure to the delight of all within my energy field). I have a lot to do during each day and have been frequently overwhelmed by trying to come up with schedules for myself, to no avail. But, ironically, taking time out to recharge ME has given me more energy and therefore seemingly more time to do things that I need to do. Working at night used to be hard. I would want to go to bed when Liberty did, I was just so worn out. Now, I am much more efficient and can get a lot done at night before I go to bed without being so ragged out that I just fall into bed at midnight.

And, something came into alignment today, like a vertebrae sliding easily back into its spinal groove. Today, I really had a new start. I got Liberty to school on time. I went out and walked a mile and a half in 25 minutes. I came home and worked out and cranked the music up loud. I forgot how powerful music is to change your mood and to motivate. I, of all people, should know this. I danced for years when I was younger (no not in a bar), ballet, tap, and jazz, and was a certified dance exercise instructor later in life. Dancing and music are what make me sublimely happy. Now, if you could be a fly on the wall in my house in the morning, you would probably burst out laughing at the site of an out of shape 48-year-old woman lifting weights to David Bowie's Rebel Rebel. It's probably not pretty, but I don't care. I had FUN this morning. I even got into some really old music of "my era" - God how that ages me - like Michael McDonald's "What a Fool Believes" and "How Long" by Ace or "Crazy Love" by Poco...yep, the 70s. I'm sorry, but there has been some clerical mistake on my drivers license because I know I am still in my twenties. At least that is how it feels (to my mind, not my creaky body).

Maybe that is how it always feels. Things that happened in the 70s and 80s seemed like yesterday to me. But I digress...

Since walking and working out, I have done yoga, written this blog, made fake Ritz crackers for Liberty (I'll get back to you on those), and am gearing up for another blissful little nap interlude where I shall, "fall into the arms of Morpheus" as my wonderful father likes to say, for about an hour before my little darling gets off the bus. [Truly, I could do a whole blog piece on the sayings of my father and his contribution to my appreciation for so much in life - love ya Dad - he reads my blog].

I have to end this post by telling you about something funny Liberty did, because, in the midst of all of this awfully draining stuff, he does things that just crack me up.

By now you have read the post about the pretzels he loved that I had to take away because they contained yeast. Well, yesterday, I put his TV and DVD back in his room so he could watch his movies in his bed while he was sick. He was so delighted he clapped his hands and hugged me. I left him in his room watching Kipper the Dog, and went into my office to work. Then, I see something out of the corner of my eye...it's Liberty hoisting our giant garbage can which is one of those cylindrical things made by Umbro, down the hall. He carried that thing all the way to his bedroom and then made a gesture for his father to stick his hand in the garbage can. This is the last place he saw the pretzel bag, people. Apparently, he got it in his head, that those pretzels he loved would go great as a snack in the bedroom while watching TV.

Non-verbal gets pretty funny sometimes.

Catchin' Up

I had a phone appointment with Lib's doctor last week and went over all that has been happening with the antifungal, Diflucan. Dr. Bock wants Lib to stay on it as we have seen gains. He told me to cut back the dose if his reactions increase. He also told me to try giving it to him at different times during the day to see if we can get him to sleep. Last week, he only slept ONE NIGHT through the night, and then this weekend, he was up each night from 1:00 to 4:30 AM. Thankfully, last night he slept through the night and I had given him the Diflucan around 9 AM yesterday. So, I hope that the sleeping issue is now solved because I look and feel like road kill.

It's funny what the world looks like when you finally get a decent night's sleep. Liberty did not sleep for most of his life, so going backwards is hard. I don't know how I ever made it through all of those years of getting so little and constantly interrupted sleep.

Dr. Bock said he wants to make sure we get the yeast issue solved so we can get to the Valtrex which is to take down inflammation in his body. This is the whole point of doing the antifungal. Valtrex will make yeast go crazy. It's a funny thing, I never would have pegged Liberty as having a yeast problem, but, I am a believer now.

There is an excellent article I received this morning through one of my Yahoo groups I belong to, written by Dr. Amy Yasko on the viral connection to autism. Turns out that Streptococcus can also be a culprit in creating leaky gut syndrome. I never knew that. You can read her paper here: http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/UAynRybbJZrQ9qxn5GSFjrrN9i9R1GbyK2VCaLzMrkwmY2EzJkPk9BFWomLw49DRxXksRt6VqHL5jMMpJIahs3r_pGOlUmm5ylUfeQ/Twisted%20Tale%20of%20Thimerosal%20and%20Virus%20Paper.pdf

Speaking of Strep, I told Dr. Bock that Liberty had suddenly developed a perseverative behavior with seams in his shirts and seams in the clothing of others. I also asked him if the Diflucan increases urine output, because there were a few days that the teachers told me they went through a huge amount of diapers. He said there is a syndrome that can develop from the Streptococcal virus and he sent me a prescription for something called an ASO titer. You might have heard of something called PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections) http://intramural.nimh.nih.gov/pdn/web.htm . Not only did Lib develop the obsession with the shirt seams, he also had increased daytime urination, a lot of blinking, and then the problem sleeping - all listed as symptoms of PANDAS. So, we have to get this test to see if he had a strep infection that went untreated in the past few months. If not, I guess we can attribute the symptoms to the Diflucan.

If anyone knows anything about this whole PANDAS syndrome, please let me know. I do remember sometime in November, having a feeling that swept across my consciousness ever so briefly, that I should have had a Strep test done at the doctor's office. I think Lib might have had a cough or a cold or something. I was so proud that he has not needed a doctor since July, that it never crossed my mind to get his throat checked out, and no one at the school had Strep, to my knowledge. Last year, his teacher would tell me whenever another child in the class came down with it, so I would be sure and ask for a Strep test at the doctor's office. This PANDAS thing has me a little nervous. We don't need any NEW symptoms, for God's sake.

In the midst of all of this chaos with the Diflucan, Liberty is doing some really great things such as picking up new signs at lightning speed and signing spontaneously, giving the best eye contact ever, increasingly differentiated sounds and vocalizations, riding a bike on his own for the first time, stacking Leggos for the first time, using the potty and flushign the toilet, feeding himself with a spoon, and eating new foods. This is absolutely huge progress in a very short amount of time.

So, because of this, I did not put up a fight to stop the Diflucan, and I trust Dr. Bock to know what he is doing. I think we had the trouble we had at first because we started him off at 1 teaspoon a day right out of the gate instead of starting with 1/4 teaspoon and gradually building up. The other error I made was giving him the charcoal which really constipated him. My advice to anyone who is starting the antifungal treatment is to start out slowly and to ONLY give the charcoal if the symptoms are really bad, and then just a little bit mixed in with some unsweetened applesauce. It only takes a little bit for a small child and not two to three capsules like I had given him. Poor kid! And, to also keep the child's bowels moving every single day without fail because the dying yeast give off toxins and they need to get out of the body as soon as possible.

ANYHOO, here is some advice I could entitle, "Don't Let This Happen To You." When you go on this antifungal thing, it is important to not give your child YEAST! ha ha. Now, anyone could figure this out, but I was SO intent on finding new foods and textures for Lib to eat, that I continued to try to give him some gf/cf pretzels. Pretzels - think, "baked goods." On the label, "yeast" was listed last in very teen tiny writing. Well, what do you think happened? My son LOVED THE PRETZELS. The teachers were so proud. My husband even invented a sign for them which my son readily picked up. The thing is, he became rather obsessed with the pretzels which should have been my first clue. What can I say, when you are sleep deprived, you miss things.

So, when it finally dawned on me what was happening (and his symptoms were really pronounced on the Diflucan as you might imagine), I got a call from Lib's teacher at almost that very instant when the lightbulb in my head went off, who had called to tell me that they just discovered that the sign my husband came up with meant "vagina" in American Sign Language and they wanted to know if they should continue...so that was the end of the pretzels and thankfully the end of that sign. It's a diamond shape if you're wondering, let's don't go there.

So, Liberty looks in the garbage can every day now, the last place where he saw the pretzel bag.

Poor love. We replaced the pretzels with something called "Pirates Booty" which is puffed rice and corn rolled in spinach and broccoli powder, which I thought were totally nasty but Liberty actually ate them.

The other thing I have done is to go almost completely sugar free. I have begun using Xylitol in all of our recipes and I really like it a lot. I became enamoured with the stuff when I found out all its benefits. Turns out it is an antibacterial and can prevent tooth and gum decay. It also purportedly balances hormones and blood sugar. I'm trying it myself, taking a teaspoon a day.

Meanwhile, Lib's eating his graham crackers as a snack, and of course they are not as good without the brown sugar, but the xylitol still makes them sweet and the main thing is that Lib eats them!

So, all in all, I guess you could say I've been successful finally with the antifungal and with a diet that will support the destruction of yeast: Gluten free, casein free, yeast free, and sugar free. Not an easy task by any means, but we're doing it and surviving.

Are there any awards given out for this? I think we should have badges we can collect and display, like when I was a Girl Scout and got a badge for "Hospitality" or "Fire Safety" or whatever. Can we have some for Antifungals? Metals? Gluten/casein-free diet?

Don't cha think we deserve some kind of recognition for this hard work??!!

Mardi Gras til you drop

And you thought New Orleans had this whole Mardi Gras thing sewed up? Our town has a parade at night, seen here, one today, and one tomorrow at the beach. Next week, it's cajun music, red beans and rice under a tent in the beach parking lot. Before this, there have been dances and formal balls throughout the entire month of January. I mean, any excuse for a party around here, they grab it. I don't blame 'em.

My husband and I took little Lib to the parade downtown today. Just about all of the floats were pirate ships complete with shooting cannons and rock n roll music; and at either end of the boat were large jugs full of margaritas or beer. You gotta love a ship full of middle-aged women dressed in togas who call themselves the Krewe of Aphrodite or something like that. People go nuts for the beads and moon pies they throw. Even the cops and firemen were throwing them. We gathered quite a collection that Lib has been playing with all day. He had a ball riding on his dad's shoulders and digging the crowd. He especially liked the bubble machine and the baton twirlers. Right before it was over, he had had enough noise.

Funny kid. The cannon balls and noise of the crowd do not bother him, but a flushing toilet does.

Speaking of toilets...I am probably the only person I know who can get herself stuck in a port-o-potty. Something happened to the latch and I locked myself in. Talk about panic. Then, in trying to open the latch, I cut my fingers all up. I imagined having to call someone with a blowtorch to carve me out, making the front page of the newspaper, crowd gathered 'round.

I finally got out of that thing by the Grace of God. This phenomenon seems to run in my family - I believe it is caused by something called the "Lucy gene."

Never a dull moment in these parts.

More on the continuing saga of the anti-yeast affair later - one reason why I haven't posted much recently.