Update from Care Page: Overwhelmed

This post has been copied from our care page from March 29th, 2010

So, I have been doing a lot of reading. The "Autism speaks" website has this "100 Day Kit" that has an overwhelming amount of good information. If anyone is interested in reading some of the things we will all be going through, and what we can expect here is a good place to start: 100 Day Survival Kit
It is really scary, because all though we have been told they feel Brady's case is mild, and they expect that he will do well with the early intervention...no one really has a crystal ball. Steve has a hard time thinking about his son and the things they were supposed to do. Like teach him to play football, and go fishing. I tell him that hopefully most likely he will still be able to do all those things...but no one really knows. Autism is believed to be caused from a swelling of the central nervous system...an overgrowth of the brains of these kids. FIRST let me just say I know that the study that linked vaccines and autism was dis proven...but we still think this happened as a result of his 1 month immunizations. Not from any one ingredient in the vaccine, but from Brady's brains reaction to the vaccine. He was too young to handle the insult of the toxins in the vaccine. For about 3 weeks to a month after Brady's one month old shots, he would scream and scream these blood curdling cries of what could only be excruciating pain. It is something Steve and I will never forget. He also had a really bad local reaction at the injection site that lasted about 6 months after that shot. After that we decided to hold off on the rest of his shots until his blood/brain barrier was stronger when he got a little older. We planned to start back up with his shots and get him caught up at the age of 2, which his family MD agreed would be OK...but when he still wasn't talking at 2 we decided we wanted to still wait. He can't tell me "mommy, my head hurts" if he were to react again. I am NOT saying parents should not vaccinate, I think most definitely they should, and that is the dilemma we face now. Up till now Brady has not been in daycare and there was very little risk of exposure to infection from deadly or crippling diseases. But NOW with him needing to go to a center based program Steve and I are worried about what to do!! Brady has already lost skills he used to have, like waving bye bye...he does not do that as often as he used to. The babbling is now getting better again but for a while that decreased too. What if he loses more of what he already has? They need to figure out for sure what does this and how to stop it! There is a study out there of infants of older siblings with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) which brings to the for front the scary possibility that Hayden could also start losing communication and social interaction skills at any time, the way Brady did. I can see why they say that parents of kids with autism have the highest stress levels of any other parents of children with disabilities. All the what if's, and will my child ever do this? Or will they be able to do that? Will they go to college? Will they get married? Will they be able to even live on their own? SCARY! Fear and uncertainty for all the hopes and dreams we had for our boys. All of the unknown possibilities bring tears to my eyes.

Disclaimer: The information on this blog is NOT intended to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified licensed healthcare provider. Any recommendations are for educational purposes only and are believed to be effective. However, since USE of any information provided herein by others is beyond the control of Michelle Bacon, RN, no expressed or implied guarantee as to the effectiveness of this information can be given nor liability taken.