Scared and a Little Bit Terrified

Not for me, for a friend. A friend that I left behind in Texas though we still stay in touch on the phone. I called her today after not having heard from her since right before Christmas. She has three little ones four and under and one on the way!! She keeps herself quite busy. Still it was strange to have not heard from her.

I found when I called her today she has been coming to grips with the fact that her second oldest may be autistic.

This child is an absolute sweetheart - he will come up to you with his arms outstretched for you to hold him at perfectly undesignated times. He is 2 days younger than my Little Guy and has always been slower. Not in his affection or love, or sweetness or babyness, but he never started talking, except for "...and beyond." whenever he would hear Buzz Lightyear say "To infinity...". He also carried Buzz and Woody around everywhere, and it didn't have to be a specific Buzz or Woody either, just any would do. When he came over to our house he would adopt our Buzz and Woody until he went home to his again.

She started taking him to speech therapy and he began to say a few words "1,2,3,go!", "Bye-bye", "Ok". In perfect English, but nothing revolutionary. The speech teachers aren't allowed to diagnose and she doesn't want to take him to a neurologist because she doesn't want him labeled. After awhile though, she asked them though she knew they couldn't diagnose if they could just give her their opinion, had they ever seen a child like that that wasn't autistic? They said no, they hadn't. That or PDD (Persuasive Development Disorder), which is just a lesser form.

My heart aches for her, her sense of motherhood, her sense of being able to do anything for him. She's a very strong woman. Who else could handle 3 kids under 4 and one on the way and still be sane, and wonderful at the same time?

She is researching her heart out on the internet to find something to help him. She has found that autistic children don't process protein normally. The way they do process it, it ends up in their bloodstream sending opates to their brain. It is as if the child is drugged out the whole time. She said they do autopsies on older autistic people and they say that their brain is formed differently. Don't you think your brain would form differently if it was being fed drugs 24/7?

She has found a special diet that is helpful to autistic children, one that is calcium and gluten free. She has talked to someone in her town who has a child that also showed autistic tendencies. They put him on this diet for 6 months and the people at his school can't even tell he's autistic. The parents can, because they know what they've been through, but others can't.

Finding gluten and calcium free foods that are enjoyable for a child to eat has been difficult and the most stressful for her right now. So far he's doing really well on some - gluten free waffles, gluten free spaghetti noodles, plain tomato sauce, and deer meat. I can see that it breaks her heart to have to feed him such tasteless foods, even if he is enjoying them.

Another thing she has found is that a lot of people believe their children became autistic from vaccines. She said that 1 in every 165 children is autistic. Isn't that statistic a little high? Her children have all been vaccinated and she is starting to wonder herself. She wonders if maybe there is something in their blood that reacts with the vaccines.

My heart goes out to her, and I feel scared, and terrified, and very, very proud of her for how she's handling everything all at the same time. I am sad I am not near her so I could support her in every way possible. For now being an ear to listen will have to do. Please keep her, and her son, and her family in your prayers.

I don't know how long I will keep this post up because this is not a public blog in my own life and I feel strange writing about friends without their knowledge. But you guys have become my support, after my Savior, my Hubby and my family, and I wanted to share it with you so that you know what is going on in my heart. Also so that you could send your best wishes her way and keep her in your thoughts, because I know that she will feel it, no matter how modest it may be.