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I hope everyone had a very merry christmas! ours was pretty good. I should check the blog from a year ago and see just when our crazy stretch of illnesses began cause I fear we have begun. Last week Tyler was vomiting on Wednesady, then Steve on Friday and then this past week, I was vomitting on Christmas night and then Ben on Saturday and then yesterday I caught a cold. Is this a prelude to another bad winter? I really hope not!
In terms of christmas day, the boys did great, Tyler again attempd to open presents and was never once overwhelmed by any of the chaos. I attached a couple of pics from christmas.
Christmas night after the boys went to bed but before the vomiting began I was going through old pictures on the computer and came accross a few of these ones of Tyler and a very intersting video. The one pic of the newborn baby is Tyler. It's the pediatrician's hand. We were very concerned about the rash on Tyler's body which we were told was common in newborns, however, Tyler's never went away. Picture all the way up until we began the gfcf diet had him very rashy. It's amazing how the diet cleared that up. We often wonder what supplements are workign which ones aren't workign, which pieces of biomedical help, etc. in an effort to do whatever we can to keep costs low, but I'm certain the gfcf diet has been extremely helpful. As for the video, hopefully I can get it posted soon, but it was an eye opener for me.
I was watching a video from August 2007, so the boys were about 17 months old. The video was really of Ben, dancing and playing with a ride on horse, he is such a ham. However in the video, you see Tyler playing, then you see him run by the camera and towards me and say Ma-Ma, Ma-Ma and run up and hug me. It was amazing.. I watched that portion of the video repeatedly. I don't remember Tyler babbling, I don't remember him being "with it". I just remember always worrying something was wrong. I told my aunt of my discovery and she said she remembers talking to me about it. She said she remembers we were thinking, maybe he'll come out of it, maybe it's just a sensory issue, maybe...I can't tell you how many questionnaires I've filled out saying that he didn't regress, but clearly in this video he was saying ma ma, intentionally..s miling and running to hug me. 1 month later, 18 month vaccinations given while Tyler was sick and on antibiotics, tyler lethargic for 2 - 3 days and vomitting... was that it? The moment that could have changed things? Don't get me wrong, Iw as worried about Tyler and there was definetyl something wrong with him very early on but clearly the 12 month and 18 month vaccinations caused him significant hardship and now after watching that video, I realize regression. Maybe I just didn't want to admit it at the time. The good news here.. children who have regressed at some point, seem to have better success with biomedical improvements, at least from what i've read so looking at the positive side and since i can't take anything back, I guess that's all I can do. I can say that I could not stop crying when I saw that video, I wanted to go back to that moment and embrace it, and hold him and never let go and not get those 18 month vaccinatiosn and continue our path to a recovery for him and who nkows if things would be different now. It also made me have empathy for all of our dear friends and those I do not even know, who had normal/typically developing c hildren and then suddently lost them to the world of autism. Devastating, I can't imagine. My heart aches for them cause TYler had lots of issues but just seeing this video and glimpse of normal made me cry..can't imagine having a whole year of a normal child and then suddenly have them dissapear into their own world.
Anyway, on a lighter note.. the boys were amazingly good yesterday and we keep pushing the envelope with Tyler and getting out as a family and doing "normal" things. We did a major shopping trip to sams club yesterday and both boys were awesome. We went to pay at Mcdonalds first to wear them out a bit and Ben was on cloud 9 playing with the other kids and Tyler tolerated the chaos very well, seemed to not care and enjoyed just running in circles in all of the chaos. They were so good. We decidd to start runnign more normal type errands and visits with both boys as I think Tyler is ready.
Happy New Year Everyone.
