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Happy Thanksgiving

Hope Abounds

I have returned to le blog and will be posting to catch up but first, the book my sister's excellent essay appears in has not only just recently been released, but is already in its third printing!  The timing could not be better. We are living in some ecologically scary times.  The question was asked of these authors, "In a time of environmental crisis, how can we live right now?"  Their answers produced this book.  For me, it not only changed some of my perceptions, but I found it to be a healing balm for the age in which we are now living.

You can check it out at Amazon !  Back soon!

Back Soon

Jimmy Buffett - Trip Around the Sun

Trips Around the Sun

Happy Birthday to my fellow Lionesse, Pamela, my true blue pal I met on the tennis courts at UWF in 1986, found out we had the same birthday and became fast friends. 

Happy Birthday to my father, 93 years young, whose official birthday was August 8.  We had dinner and a cake, a few presents but there shall be extended celebrating this Saturday and we pray there is caramel cake involved.

Happy Birthday to my Aunt Mary Nelle, 91, my father's sister, whose birthday is actually Saturday.  We hope you have a wonderful time where you are celebrating.  We tried to get together with Aunt Mary and my cousin but bad weather pre-empted the drive.

Happy Belated Birthday to my sweet niece, Jennifer, whose birthday was over-shadowed this year by sad events.  Better days are ahead and your family gathers around you in a circle of support and Love.

And Happy Birthday to Me!

Summer's Growing Old

Before long, I will be standing on the curb of our street panting excitedly, a big goofy grin on my face, awaiting the (long-anticipated) arrival of the big yellow school bus.  True to form, however, after Liberty gets on the bus, I will walk back inside and get that empty feeling, look around his room,  give his giant Pooh Bear a squeeze and shed a tear or two.  It never fails.  I am so happy to be getting that child back into a school routine and I know he misses school, too, but at the same time, we have had our summer days where we did not have to get up on time, and sometimes just hung out at home, Lib playing games with toys in all corners of the house and me cooking while I Love Lucy is on, working a jigsaw, transcribing medical notes here and there, doing some reading, short trips to the grocery.   There is something quite lovely about the summer in that respect.  We did miss our beach severely this year; but God willing we will be able to at least go over there again soon (maybe even tomorrow!) --a story for another time.  

Having endured what I have now deemed the "2-martini haircut" today in which my sweet boy morphed into Mr. Hyde's younger brother - hideous kicking, screaming, biting my shoulder;  a full blown tantrum, I would say that I am more than ready for school to begin.
Not once did Robert the Archangel of Hairdressers complain or get upset.  He just said he felt like that this morning before he had his coffee.   He is a GEM of a person. 

And so, eventually, (within about half an hour or so 5 minutes), the empty silence will become the bless-ed, bless-ed silence.   The sacred temple of silence.  

Ahhhhh.  To sigh all of those unsighed sighs...

These days, I crave peace and quiet and time to myself, something I rarely get in the summertime except when we are at the pool and no one is there with an annoying radio, and I can just hang out in nature and watch the lazy clouds slip by and the occasional hawk on the wing.  Liberty learning to swim has been a major gift to me, not only because I know he won't drown in the water, but because I can sit in a chair or swim to the deep end, or you know, just relax, close my eyes,  let the sun bake on my skin for a minute or two.  I have not been able to do this for 7 years.

Speaking of swimming, here is a tip from a blog I just happened upon:  Take equal parts of Epsom salt and warm water and put in spray bottle.  If you cannot get your child in a bath right away, just spray it on the skin.  Simple, but brilliant.  I keep Epsom salts over at my father's house so Lib can get into his bath right after we swim.   But, how nice to have a spray bottle handy, too!  You can make your Epsom salt cream from  here too.  Chlorine can really effect some kids, I know it does Lib, and so it's important to detox it out as much as possible. 

Tomorrow is the birthday of Yours Truly.  My sis from NY flies in on Thursday.  My niece drives over on Friday, and on Saturday there shall be partying.

After the fun has been had, the child launched, and we shift into autumn, in the coming weeks I will report on my son's continuing success with high-potency probiotics, the ongoing tweaking of supplements to give certain things at the appropriate times which about drove me bonkers, and the introduction of curcumin again.  Some exciting things are happening but it's too early for me to spill about it, so stay tuned!

White Sage and Rodney Yee

I have an old Rodney Yee Yoga tape, circa 1998 called, "AM/PM Yoga."  Actally, Patricia Walden instructs the evening yoga part, but Rodney does the morning yoga segment. I have used this for years for stretching my back, and for flexibility.  It does not take much time and he moves you through a series of yoga poses and stretches to wind up in meditation pose.  Plus it is filmed on the beach in Hawaii and Rodney has a flawless beautiful yoga body. What's not to love?

I burn some white sage to clear the area and my mind and put my purple yoga mat and strap on the floor.

This morning, guess who loves the whole deal?  Liberty watched me while he sat in the rocking chair.  He kept putting my hands back in meditation pose when it was over and cried when he thought I was getting up to turn it off.  So, I started it again.  It has his rapt attention right now.  There is a soft singing voice, a harp and Tibetan bells in the background.  He is now lying on my purple yoga mat and just turned the volume up.

Roll Around Heaven

I just had to post about a book I recently read, Roll Around Heaven.  The author is Jessica Maxwell.  This woman is a hilarious writer.  I loved this book.  In fact, I am going to read it again.  It is the story of a woman who had no spiritual beliefs, in fact was turned off to God and religion at an early age, who basically has an incredible spiritual awakening after her father passes away.  It reminds me a lot of things that happened to me when I moved to Virginia in the 1980s when I also had a huge "accidental" spiritual awakening.  I laughed my way through this book.  The interesting thing about Jessica is that she was an adventure writer before she wrote this, traveling to places like Argentina to learn and write about fly fishing or golf or even salmon spawning somewhere.  What a cool profession!   The book is really a chronicle of her many adventures with people she meets but it actually starts off with her conversations with Lory Misel, a pig farmer in Oregon who came to speak to her writing class she was teaching who turns out to be an authentic spiritual master that blew her mind.  She winds up going to his house every Thursday just to talk about God and spiritual matters which she calls "Thursdays with Lory."  Her best friend describes her story as "Lucille Ball trips over God."

Meanwhile, back on the home front, Liberty is doing incredibly well (knocking on wood 3 times).  Finally treating him properly with natural antifungals, probiotics and even possibly a new item, LDN cream (low-dose naltrexone) has really seemed to turn this child around.  He is suddenly doing age-appropriate things and is more present.  And, finally, the constipation that he has suffered with for so long appears to be clearing up.  I have started juicing and also making smoothies just to get some fruits and vegetables in him lately and that seems to be working, too.

So, some good things happening.  We are also gearing up for school starting August 23 but before then, we have lots of birthdays to celebrate:  My father will turn 93 Sunday, his sister and my aunt will be 91 this month and  yours truly will be, well let's just say I am having a birthday, too.  No need to discuss my age before breakfast.  And my sister from NY is coming down, too and that means there will be lots of fun and laughter.  It's Party Time.

Check out the book, you'll be glad you did!

WIPEOUT Liberty's New Favorite Song

Now if we can get him to do this on the drums...

Food as Medicine

I have been grappling with Liberty's symptoms again.  We are still dealing with yeast, can you believe that?  Three years now and it's basically because I did not understand anything about it and no one else did either. I thought you take antifungals, limit sugar and you're done.  But that is not true.   He was put on Diflucan for 5 straight months and as soon as he was taken off, the yeast returned.  His doctor at the time did not do any testing for oxalates which are the byproducts of yeast and content of certain foods.

My new DAN/neurologist performed an OAT test (organic acids test) that showed high arabinose, a byproduct of Candida along with very high oxalates.  Oxalic acid is also a byproduct of yeast.  Oxalates are the things that cause kidney stones.  They are not good to have.  They can circulate through the blood through a leaky gut and cause irritability.  Oxalates can rob calcium from the body.  Great Plains Labs where we get our OAT done has a whole printout on the role of oxalates in autistic symptoms.  So, to get the oxalates down, we were given a list of foods high in oxalates.  But it is not just food that can cause it; as I said it can come from chronic fungal overgrowth. Couple that with inadequate probiotic intake and you have a recipe for misery and ill health.  A stool test my son took at the same time showed he had ZERO Lactobacillus, a friendly probiotic needed for digestion, in his GI tract.

Here is a little bit about oxalates I copied from a great naturopathic website: A significant number of children on the autism spectrum have excessive urine oxalate levels. It is theorized that these oxalate crystals can accumulate in and damage body organs, including the gut, brain, skin, heart, tendons, kidneys, bones, and eyes. Oxalates are also known to bind with heavy metals, forming complexes that may be deposited in body tissues.  Symptoms of oxalate damage include digestive pain, toe walking, eye poking, skin lesions, urinary pain or frequency, bed wetting, and sandy stools.

Lib has had sandy stools, the bed wetting, and I have seen some eye poking, occasionally.  I have seen crying and posturing that looks like his abdomen hurts.  Fungal overgrowth also can cause constipation. 

Last night, I began reading a book I was given at least a year ago.  It is written by a nutritionist and it has some recipes in the back, but I did not pay it much attention.  My track record with dietitians and nutritionists is not very good.  Most of the ones I am familiar with in my own life only focused on calories and not quality of foods.  Judy Converse's book is called Special Needs Kids Eat Right.  And let me tell you, Liberty's problems are all right there on the page.   I cried, thinking that I needed her years ago when this whole damned thing began.  My son stopped eating after all of the vaccinations he was given at 13 months of age.   Lack of nutrition is not good for a developing brain.  I did not know what to do at the time.  Pediatricians were no help here, and they still aren't.  We have one we go to only when I need someone to look in Lib's ears or swab his throat.  Anything I bring up he just brushes away conveniently as "an autism thing."  It feels bad to be swept aside from their radar because they don't know what to do. 

In her book, Judy Converse says that one of the reasons we see supplements work for a little while and then see behaviors and reactions crop up even though they are on the very supplements in which their lab work says they are deficient, is because their guts are not working to begin with.  If there is still dysbiosis, all of the supplements in the world will be of no help.  Some kids have bacterial overgrowth (usually Clostridia or Klebsiella) along with the fungal invasion.  She says that nutrition through food is the key.   Natural antifungals and antibacterials, low oxalate foods, offending allergens, all of that needs to be identified and dealt with first AND to make sure kids are getting adequate nutrition from the food they do eat in the form of enough calories from quality food.

Did I mention that Judy recovered her own child using her knowledge of nutrition?  Her article below is eye-opening.  The things she went through with doctors and the absurd things said to her, well, we can all relate to as parents of children with special needs.  I urge you to read her article below.

I can say that my son's diet is so limited I am sure he is not getting adequate nutrition.  I have focused so long on being careful he is gluten and casein free, even though his allergy tests all came back NEGATIVE, and he does not have a lot he likes to eat anymore.  Many of the gluten-free products are full of fructose and MSG in its many forms (natural flavors, maltodextrin, yeast extract to name a few).    I have no one here monitoring his weight or looking at a growth chart or any of these things.  And, he is so picky.  I know it is a vicious cycle because if I could get a handle on the dysbiosis and get some good nutrition in him, his appetite would increase as his picky behaviors reduce.  I know she is right because I saw this happen for a limited time on prescription antifungals.  But the problem with those, long-term anyway, is that they can make the yeast return with a vengeance when they are stopped and you have to monitor liver function tests.  My son's liver just does not need to be taxed anymore than it already is.  There are plenty of natural antifungals out there to use.

I have begun Liberty on Candex and am adding in natural antifungals like Oregon grape, olive leaf extract, garlic, lomatium, etc.  I will update on the blog how he is doing.  It is trial and error as I find a rhythm with this. Oh, how I wish Judy lived in my town! 

I am thinking of ordering this cookbook when I get some more money.  Another wonderful blogger friend sent me the link to it.

The article by Judy Converse can be read at the link below.  I am going to be looking more and more at my son's diet in the coming days.  I hope this post helps someone because I finally figured out, we cannot just patch our kids up with supplements, and, even though we think our food is depleted nutritionally because of our environment, it STILL is the best medicine as my father always told me.  He should know.  He's a very heathy almost 93-year-old!

Judy Converse's post at Age of Autism

Judy's website

Nature Soothes

It's been rough on us not being able to go to the Gulf and swim in the normally healing waters of ocean and  sound.  I have been so grateful for the pool over at my father's condominium.  Two grandkids have learned to swim in that pool.  The landscape around the pool has changed with past hurricanes.  It used to have so many tall pine trees that there was barely space to walk between them.  Now, they are far and few between but still offer an ample canopy surrounding the pool.  Liberty loves to go fairly often and I have taken to floating on my back in the pool, my neck anchoring me to the side while I gaze up into the azure sky.  How often do we lie on our backs and look at the sky anymore?  Probably rarely.  Well, I have been practicing this sky gazing more and more and I cannot tell you the joy it has brought to me.  The tops of the trees, rich with squirrel nests and large, fat crows frame the view.   The overwhelming vastness of the sky with the almost blindingly-white passing clouds reminds me of the magnificence of my planet on which I ride.  Sometimes you can spy the outline of a tiny jet liner way up tracking silently across the sky.  When it's quiet (in other words, no one comes out with their obnoxious radio), you can hear the knocking of woodpeckers, the cawing of the crows, and the faint rustling of leaves.  Since Liberty learned to swim, it has been like heaven for me.  I can relax in the water now.  I can sit in a chair if I feel like it while he rides his purple noodle like a sea  horse around the pool and regularly rearranges the buoys at the deep water line.  But I am grateful mostly I believe for just the opportunity to be outside every day if we like, to swim in the water if we choose, especially in this heat wave, and to be nurtured by the natural world.  Now, that is a healing balm.

Hints from my darling Heloise

So, okay, I'm NOT a neatnik, nor am I really a total slob, but it was getting ridiculous around here. I have had zero motivation lately and could finally take it no more. I began the time-consuming task of straightening (actually sorting; I figured out that is what most of my life is about, sorting things into categories and them matching them to where they need to go).

I used salt and cheap hair shampoo to clean the bathtub. You cannot believe how great this combination works. And, no noxious odors. I used vinegar and water for all of the mirrors. And hydrogen peroxide for the sinks, toilet and counter tops. I posted something once about the wonders of H2O2 not too long ago when I was looking for an alternative to bleach and found the site Green Living Tips, too.

It is worth posting Heloise's site. She has many recipes for household cleaners using peppermint, lavender and almond oils added to bases of water, vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. Scroll down on the home page to her "Cheap and Green Cleaning Solutions." Click on "Hints" on the left side bar for a million ways to clean everything you own! I don't know why I get such a thrill out of this but I do. I hate the chlorine bleaches and harsh cleaning solutions.

Check out Hints from Heloise here.

This is on the Atlantic side

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The dangers of CFL light bulbs!

Looking for a Good Place to Move

I just got the inside tract on some information about what me and my family have known but had not been verified by any news station:  The water around here contains five chemicals and is unsafe for anyone to swim.  This comes from a source within a national seashore along the Gulf.

The quality of the air is anyone's guess right now.  All of that oily stuff is decomposing in the intense heat.  A member of my family came home with a headache that lasted all day after being at the beach for 30 minutes on Sunday.  The EPA won't commit to saying anything except that there is more particulate matter in the air.

The news station replies curtly, "If you have a headache, go to the doctor."

The report here is for the tourists:  They will always say it is beautiful, but beware.  As much as I would love to support the economy at the beach, it would be wrong to draw tourists here and put them and  their families in danger.

After working for so long on building my son's immune system, it would be wrong for us to stay in a place with the potential for so much harm.

Anyone know of a great place to live that offers excellent services for children with autism?  Sadly, the time has come to go.

I am officially open to suggestions.

Makes me cry...the Gulf is in my soul

When the coast is clear...

Happy Birthday Liberty!!

Today is my boy's official birthday:  He's 8 years old.   He had a wonderful birthday party this weekend in which the night before at Toys R Us, he chose all of his gifts.  This time, they were age-appropriate!  He wanted Hot Wheels and this was the first time he and his father got to spend time playing with the Hot Wheels track and racing all of his cars.  He also rode a bike all around Toys R Us so we got it for him and are picking it up today!   He was so cute because he knew all of his stuff was in the car.  He stood by the trunk waiting for us to open it.  The next morning the first thing he did was try to get us to go to the trunk and open his gifts.  So, when he was finally able to get them at the party, he was thrilled.

He said, "Hi!" to my niece.  He has been so calm and focused.  Last night he put all of his crayons in his crayon box he loves and brought them to me.  I got a piece of paper out and drew a butterfly on it and he colored on it!  This sounds simple I know but my boy usually stims constantly and takes things like cars and crayons and throws them over his shoulder.  He certainly would not be into playing cars with anyone.

So, what happened?  We started the MB-12 shots recently and saw some new things immediately.  I also am treating yeast chronically with Candex.  He's a carb kid and it is HARD to do the anti-yeast diet for too long, so I just decided to treat the yeast in the background and also changed probiotic strains. And we started LDN (low dose naltrexone) but I have not given that enough to where I think it has made a visible difference yet.

But, I don't know what it is exactly or IF it is anything at all I am doing!

All I know is that my son is so happy and calm and doing such age-appropriate things that I am absolutely amazed and grateful.  I do not have that panicky feeling that I used to have all of the time when he was so much smaller.   Sure, I wish he would talk.  He has some words he says in a very high pitched voice.  I know he knows how to talk and he certainly follows instructions very well now too so I know he has language.

It's very exciting to watch him unfold and blossom after all of the hell we have been through over the last five years.

My heart is full today!

Prayer for the Gulf of Mexico