Ode to Seesha

A year and a half ago our son was diagnosed with autism and going through the worst phase of his entire life.  It was, thankfully, the final BIG storm.

Those days were long.  They were spent in my house dealing with an extremely unhappy three year old that I couldn’t control.  I couldn’t take him out.  There were actually times where I thought I’d have to send one kid away.  Ikey was being the victim of so much violence, he wasn’t even two yet.  Those were dark months in our household and I was barely hanging in there.

I had done everything I needed to do to get a therapy program started in our home and all I had left to do was wait.  It felt like it took forever to wait a few months before we were off the list and started with therapy.  I invisioned these people, riding in from the clouds on a golden chariot, coming to save my life.

When the time came I hired two women, Kim and Alesha.  They came into our home in all it’s mess and graciously spent their time with my son.

Alesha was a bit new to the Behavior Interventionist thing but I had a great feeling about her, and I was right.  In the beginning the poor girl endured much violence from my sweet Silas.  He even gave her a bit of a black eye a few weeks before her wedding…thankfully not the week OF her wedding.  Once she had her ninja reflexes down, anyone who works with Silas gets ninja reflexes, she was sailing.

This job isn’t easy.  You really have to figure out exactly how the child your working with ticks.  You need to be constatnly observing them, making sure they’ve had their sensory needs met before moving on to tasks.  You have to put up with massive melt downs (in public too) and sometimes crazy amounts of violence.  Alesha had many sessions where she just dealt with a tantrum pretty much the whole time.  I’d sit downstairs, nails dug in my chair to stop myself from interviening and saving her from the madness, listening to her soft voice calmly adressing Silas in the proper way.  She’s probably done that 80 times, maybe more.  You have to also find ways to get the child to respond to you and actually do what you say to them.  She was excellent at that.

Alesha soon became family.  She’d walk into our house with a cheery attitude and spent countless hours with Silas.  She’d see something Silas would need to work on and, if she got it in her head that he was going to get it right, he would get it right.  She wouldn’t stop till it was done.

Despite being beat upon countless times, Alesha seemed to fall in love with my little Silas and my little Ikey who, in the beginning, called her “Seesha” which kinda stuck a little bit.  Every day she came she threatened she was going to kidnap Ikey one day because he is so cute (she’s right).   She told my boys she loved them, gave them hugs and kisses, stuck around LONG after her scheduled time to just sit and chat about anything and everything with me.  Mostly about Silas’ progress which she was always so excited about.

So much of that progress I owe to her and Kim.  But today was a sad day as it was Alesha’s last.  When I found out two weeks ago that she had taken a regular 9-5 job I understood completely, but I bawled my eyes out.  And today, with tears in my eyes I gave her a big hug and sent her off for the last time.  It feels like we’ve lost a family member.  I see Alesha and Kim more than I see anyone else other than who’s in my household.

Alesha wasn’t just a therapist for Silas, she’s also a great friend, one of whom BETTER keep in touch and visit us or else I’ll freak out.

We’re going to miss that adorable cheery little bundle of love that she is.

We love you Alesha!!

this is the ONLY photo I have of her!!!

This is the Title.

I just realized I don’t have much time.  The kids are in a daycamp today as it is a Pro D day today.  Silas got to go to school twice this week.  Lame.

He was just playing an ear training game on my iphone and it’s so weird to watch him.  Perfect pitch is when someone can play a note and you can tell them what note it is, you also have to be able to sing and note that someone asks you to sing.  Silas can do that but with colours on his little xylophone so now he’s working on the real note names.  Once he learns the note names and how to read music there really be no stopping him.  It’s incredible.

He learns at such a fast pace.  Just now as he was playing he was getting about 50% of the note right.  In a matter of minutes he’s getting about 80% of the notes right.  It’s amazing to watch, a true miracle of nature.

Someone asked me the other day, when I noticed this gift of his, why it still shocks me when he does this.  I guess I dunno why, he just amazes me on a daily basis.  I don’t wanna be a braggy mommy, but I can’t help getting excited about his gifts.  Especially after such a diagnosis, you have to focus on the good.  There’s so many good things about my little Silas.  Mostly his little smile and cheery presence.

Anyway, short blog….have a fanFREAKINGtastic weekend.

cheers.

Hatchlings

Ahh my first blog via my iPhone. This is some teeny tiny writing. Oh well.

I’m at my sisters house watching her bratlettes at the moment. Good fun for all. I just spent like thirty minutes trying to get my filmy iPhone cover on perfectly because it was bubbly. I failed miserably. Perhaps I shall just give in and buy a new one and have the pros put it on. Good idea.

Anyway. A few days ago I was making a trip to my trusty compost when I opened the lid and saw a big pile of clear, round eggs. They looked like something that had come out of a frog but that wasn’t possible. So then I thought salamander. I posted the photo on Facebook and I got many responses. Turns out completely anti climactic. They’re slug eggs.

But you see, by this time I had grown some maternal feelings towards these budding new lives. I had carefully plucked them from my compost so I wouldn’t hurt them as I added more food scraps. I had high hopes of these turning into some super duper cool.

Okay so I got stuck with slugs. But I cannot help but keep them and hatch them into little bity squishy thingies.

As I googled about accomplishing such a thing, I learned that many people have per slugs. One woman went as far as to create a spa like experience for her slug friend. She even let him have small amounts of beer at night so he could get his buzz on.

K this seems pretty cool!! Hellooooo learning experience for the children!

Can u tell that I grew up in small towns where playing with the wildlife was all we had to do? Yup I remember catching bees with little cream cups and putting them in a big glass mayo jar when I was four. Then there were the countless afternoons spent behind my grandparents house where my brother and I would bring home buckets of snakes and lizards. Yes we’d find a cool spiders web and feed it any bug we could get our hands on. We helped a few spiders get rather large.

So, as you can now understand, this sorta thing gets me excited. Kinda like that treefrog I found in my yard a few weeks back. My instincts are still the same. Capture, play, find jar, make habitat, poke holes in lid, new pet.

Silas named him spitzie and Ikey took him to show and tell and then we set him free. Even though I had grown very fond of the little feller. He’s happier in the wild. I hope a cat didn’t get him.

So now I have these eggs which I peek at every morning to see how they have grown. I show my kids and they try to poke them and I say “stop it” and then they go on eating their breakfast.

I guess we all know this is really just for me.

 

Hyperbaric and Autism

So off to the DAN dr we went today.  Middle of Vancouver…that place stresses me out.  But the doctor was super nice and thorough and we have a plan!

First we need to do two tests on him.   An organic acids test where they test their urine for a crapload of different things including nutrients, candida, etc etc etc.  Then there’s a food sensitivity blood test which is a finger prick and they send the blood in.  No idea how all this works.

So after the tests we start our hyparbaric oxygen therapy which I will, from now on, refer to as HBOT.  We will have to go 5-6 times a week for a total of sixty visits.  Holy moly batman.

Then sometime in there we’re going to do a toxic element test which looks for heavy metals and such.

What does HBOT actually do to the body and why do I insist Silas get it?  Well, where do I begin?

Under regular atmosphere pressure, oxygen is only soluable in blood.  When under sea-like pressure, oxygen is soluable in all bodily fluids.  You breathe through an oxygen mask, reciving high amounts of oxygen that are then able to move to every cell of your body.  And we all know, oxygen heals.  It can reduce swelling, repair the blood/brain barrier, and stabilize cell membranes.  It can also increase the ability of the white blood cells to clean up damaged areas and, over a long period of time, create a new supply of blood vessels

For Silas, who came out of my tummy in a very traumatic way, was totally blue and had a low low heart rate for a very long time…his APGAR score was SO LOW, I forget what it was but it was like…dead low…then it shot back up.  This causes hypoxia where parts of the brain didn’t get enough oxygen at a critical time.  HBOT can get oxygen to these parts of the brain and heal them also preventing more damage.*

Here’s some stats from some recent studies.

• In a June 2006 study at the University of Virginia, 18 autistic children underwent 40 one-hour sessions of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. These researchers noted significant improvements in energy, communication, motivation, mannerism, speech, sensory and cognitive awareness and overall health.
• In the October 2006 issue of Family Practice News, a landmark study was presented on hyperbaric oxygen therapy and chronic brain injury. Daily living, socialization, communication and motor skills significantly improved for 21 brain-injured children (average age 4.5 years) who received hyperbaric oxygen therapy compared with 21 brain-injured children who received standard therapy alone.
• In a November 2000 study at Cornell University, 26 children with cerebral palsy underwent 40 one-hour sessions of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The results showed hyperbaric oxygen provided substantial improvements in motor skills, attention, language and play.

Taken from here.

They’ve also noted SIGNIFICANT changes in tantrums, which I would LOVE to see go away.

So…WOOT.

She’s also got him on Co Q10 which I just picked up on my way home.  Silas is swallowing 9 pills a day now…but I’m seeing such a difference in him.  Melatonin works WONDERS for getting him to completely pass out at night.  It’s amazing.

Sounds exciting, right?  Dr Amen also uses this therapy on his patients with autism causing noticeable changes in their brain scans.  He sends his Canadian patients to where Silas is going.  Cool huh?

I have no idea how this will all work, how we’ll pay for it and how I’ll get him there 6 days a week.  But we’ll do it.

*taken from the Canadian Hyperbaric Institute HBOT Patient Guide

They Have My Pee

After Silas’ therapist came to take him this morning Isaac and I ventured to the biomedical lab for our tests.  Ikey did a great job of peeing in a cup, making me extremely jealous of the male anatomy, and then offered to hold my cup for me while I peed.  I politely declined.  But I didn’t miss this time!!!  Those things can be tricky.

So my urine and blood are now sitting in a lab, waiting to be tested for sugar.  I have to wait 3 blooming weeks to find out the results.  Yay me.

Ikey’s test was just for a UTI because, since that horrible head bonk that made him have a seizure which put us in the ER all day, he’s not night trained anymore.  LOTS of pee.  Just making sure it’s not a UTI so then we know it was indeed a freaking concussion…oh Ikey.

Tomorrow we journey to downtown Vancouver to have our first visit at the Hyperbaric Oxygen place.  Silas will be set to undergo 60 hyparbaric treatments which will cost like 8 grand.  Anyone have 8 grand we can have?  Frick.

I want him to do this because I’ve read that it’s really helpful for kids with autism who had low oxygen at delivery.  They can get something called toxic brain and this is the treatment for it.  The fun part is that we both get to go in so I get the benefits of the treatment too…I have no idea if it’ll healthy me up but heck, it can’t do any harm.

Silas has always been hard to fool into taking supplements.  The liquid form of things just don’t work for him.  I was able to mix some fish oils into his apple sauce and stuff like that but now the kid will just swallow pills!  He’s getting massive amounts of fish oils, a liquid calcium magnesium supplement that also has zinc, high potency probiotics and his freaking expensive chewable vitamines.  K wait, they’re all freaking expensive….but who cares…this is my son we’re talking about.  They help too, a lot.  They’re all things I should be taking but can’t seem to swallow when I think of how much they cost.  Silas can have them for now.  He needs to build those brains of his.  I’m so happy he’s swallowing pills for me.  Makes life sooo much easier.  I know there’s a bunch more we need to be giving him but…little by little.

I work so much this week.  I’m happy for it because…well just read the last few paragraphs again.  I have to start impressing a new boss at work which, hopefully, shouldn’t be too hard.  I’m pretty good at laying on a sweetie pie grin so hopefully he likes those…oh and work ethic…I have that too.  Lets hope.  We’re really benefitting from this job and I don’t wanna lose it.  So much to pay for these days…ugh.

Anyway, my inlaws should be knocking on my door any moment so I should go start putting away groceries and whatnot.  Perhaps try to make my house stink less for when they arrive…

THAT Was Unexpected.

My doctors appointment today went in a totally different direction today…talk about a shocker.

I go in with this redness by my nose, I know what it is, I know what drugs I need, all is good.  I need antibiotics it runs in the family blah blah blah.

But then I asked if it was ok that I might have a mild bladder infection, then I told the doc I often think I have one…I exlained my symptoms and told him how my old doctor once had done a urine test on me and never told me it came back that I had an infection and weeks later I was sobbing in my shower with blood coming out of strange places…and i had been put on antibiotics for a different reason.

So he looks back and finds a urine test from my old doctor.  “Why Leah, you had sugar in your blood and urine”

“what does that mean?”

“diabetes”

Whaaaaaaaattttt??????

Ok so like 8 years ago this horrible doc I was seeing gave me some silly test to make me shut up about thinking I had arthritis and didn’t even check the results because in his mind I was “too young” to have arthritis even though early onset arthritis runs like a mofo in my family.  So he missed the infection ANNNNDDDD the SUGAR IN MY PEE!!!

Anyway, the doc wouldn’t let me bad mouth him…how professional…but he did say I need more tests and if it does turn out that I have diabetes then it would explain all the crazy symptoms I have all the time.

Like how my legs right now are aching…and why I often feel like I’m getting the flu but I never ever ever get it.  I feel feverish SO much it’s unreal.  Or how I feel like I need to eat a lot lately because if I skip breakfast now I start feeling weak and almost frantic and then I eat and eat and eat…even after I’ve eaten.  Not because my tummy is growly but because my whole body just feels like it needs to be fed something.

I felt that way today and so I just had a lolipop as a little test and I can’t tell whether or not it worked cuz now I could just have it all in my head…but I do feel better…but it could just be in my head.

This condition runs in my family.  Even childhood diabetes.  I expected to get it in my 70′s or 80′s but not in my 20′s.

Hmmmmm.

I really dunno what this means…if it was just by chance.  I almost want it to be because it would answer ALL of my health problems in one foul swoop.  But…who knows…

whoooooo knoooowwwwssss.

For now I’m just gunna pay more attention to how I feel when I eat things.  I hardly ever eat sugar because too much makes me feel gross.  I always eat whole grains and blah blah blah so I’m already managing it in a way.  Prob should lose a good twenty pounds and make some other modifications…who knows.

I keep saying who knows.

I’m so not looking forward to something ELSE being added to my plate…but whatever…sometimes you get to the point where you’re like “just pile it on…I’m past the point of no return anyway…sanity is overrated”.

Update

I’ve been sitting here fiddling around with my blog.  Dusting off the old bloggy shelves so-to-speak.  I was giddy about the prospect of blogging later in the day when I realized I wont have time and I got to blog NOW!!  Woot.

Since it has been ages, I thought I should give you a point form update on what’s happening in my household.  It’s been almost exactly a year since I’ve blogged here.  That’s nuts.  So here we go.

• Silas is now in kindergarten, half days (thank GOD) with two aids getting full time support.  We are SO blessed in this area, we didn’t have to fight for it at all.  The first lady is there for half the class then they have snack and the resource woman comes in then after snack he gets his next aid.
• Isaac is in PRESCHOOL and loving it to bits.  I’m so happy he’s got his own thing to do now…away from his brother.
• Both boys are in gymnastics at this really cool place.  They go at different times and I’ve seen crazy leaps forward in Silas’ strength and agility.
• I’m working on my business plan right now to open my own store.  I can’t tell you my idea but I’m sticking within the bounds of special needs and I’m SOOOOOOOOOOO excited.  Now to get my laptop fixed that has my business plan on it…things will go faster then I think.  mmmmhmmmmm
• I have a job.  I work at a pub that just got sold to some guy so I hope I still have my job…I’m a bit scared.  I serve tables a few times a week and it’s been nice to have the extra cashola.  It’s fun to get away from the kids too and not have to put them to bed…muuuuhahahahahaaaa
• I had another job all summer working for a farmer every other saturday.  I’d sell her amazing organic produce at a farmers market and then spend all my pay buying local groceries for my family.  It ROCKED.  I hope to do it again next summer.  I’m on a total local, ethical, eco kick.
• I watched Food Inc and I no longer purchase animal products that aren’t from happy animals.  I usually also know the farmers I’m buying from.  It’s super cool, WAY tastier and this way I’m not eating tortured animals that lived their lives covered in their own disease ridden feces.  Cool beans.
• Silas has come leaps and bounds.  When telling people he has autism they typically say “oh I would have NEVER noticed”  Yup, that’s my boy.  His conversation skills still leave MUCH to be desired, so do some motor skills and he’s still often seen spinning an object and will still flap his hands wildly with excitement but he’s 100% in our world, he makes eye contact like a champ, plays amazing with other children, and ya….he’s got perfect pitch too….think I’m joking??

• We have a doggy, her name is Cleo, she’s a basset hound and we love her to PIECES!  We adopted her after she was bred probably every 6 months until the age of three and then dumped like she was worthless.  She has come out of her shell so much and she’s so loving and wonderful.  She’s SUCH a blessing.  She’s staring at me with her droopy eyes right now.

she’s very tired from all the sleeping she does all day.

Anyway, I think you’re well up to date now.  All the major things anyway.  I’m going to get dressed cuz I have to take Silas to Kindergarten and take Ikey to gymnastics.

 

Typical

Oh my goodness, I rushed home as fast as I could so I could BLOG!  But then on my way home I got dizzy for some reason so then I had to make food when I got home.  I’m eating organic heirloom tomatoes with organic basil and organic blue capri goat cheese that I stuck uner the broiler for a few minutes.  NOM.  All produced by farmers I talk to and know.  Local food rocks my socks off…

Anyway, that’s not what this blog is about.

This morning I was laying in bed listening to the boys play.  Silas was bossing Isaac around and Isaac was doing everything he said.  I just let it go with a smile on my face.  Kinda like the first time he talked back to me, or when I ask him what he did at Kindergarten today and he says “I don’t know”.  It’s kind of neat when he lies to me or when he tells me a story that I know didn’t happen.

Now you might think I’m a crazy person, why the heck would a mom like this sort of thing??  I assure you, I’m not nuts.  I’m just celebrating the typical.

All of you with kids have been through all of that, you’ve hated it, been driven up the wall by it, punished your children for it but I simply cannot completely go there.  Because….he can!

Kids with autism aren’t expected to lie, boss their siblings around, talk back to you or tell outrageous stories.  Why?  Because most of them can’t talk!  4 months ago Silas had no idea how to tell me a story, 6 months ago he had no idea how or why he would boss Isaac around, a year ago there’s no way he’d tell a lie…lying doesn’t always make sense to kids with autism.

He’s expanding himself, he’s coming out of his realm of autism and joining us more and more and more in our world.  Which, in some ways makes me feel sorry for the poor guy but also wildly excited for his future!

I always said I didn’t want children who would follow the crowd, and there’s no way Silas will be one of those people.  With a typical child I’d gag at them copying their peers or trying to mold into the crowd but with Silas I sit back with a smile on my face and enjoy every stinking moment of it.

So next time your child talks back to you in the viciously horrible tone, have a little smile for me…because at least they can.

 

PS, I’m soooo happy to be back!

 

IM BACK!!

I MISSED YOU GUYS!!!

 

I know, my other blog just wasn’t working for me…I needed to come back here and do my own thing.  I’ve been missing it more and more and more.

I cannot promise I’ll blog daily but I will promise you that I am back, full of life again and hopefully no horrible things will happen that will send me spiraling down into a horrible blogger again.  If someone buys me an ipad I might be able to blog daily   I’m a busy buzzy bee.

The Informal Matriarch has returned and you’d better like it.

 

So many time this week I’ve felt like “oh I need to blog that”.  But there was something about the other blog that I just couldn’t work with.  It wasn’t who i was blogging with, it’s just that I felt like I had to censor myself even more…which is hard cuz I have no filter so my censoring is crazy enough already.

 

I MISSED THIS!

 

Lets be friends again ok?