Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Anyone Curious About George?

Waunita Hot Springs Pool, CO
It has been over a year since I have updated George's Blog. Time sure does fly!  A lot has happened in George's world as you will see below.

Highlights:
  • 2 "worst" nightmare scenarios with George, thankfully they turned out well.
  • Moving...ah...need I say more.  Still organizing!
  • Huge progress with George and eating!
  • New health information, 2 new changes and results!
  • Progress working with our therapy center, Enrichment Alternatives in Springfield
  • A generous donation from Bear Paw Creek for Autism Awareness month! 
  • Our FIRST family vacation with all the kids to Colorado, June 2017! Waunita Hot Springs Ranch
  • Approval of our first waiver for George which will allow me to self-direct his services and pay my helpers more!  Should be up and running by the end of July. Partnership of Hope
  • Better connections with potty training, thanks to alarm system and chiropractic care.          DryBuddy alarm system
  • George continues to grow in his interactive play and is currently working with 6 different individuals throughout the month.  I'm using all my training from Natural Play Therapy!
In November of 2016 we moved back across the highway to our new home that my husband rebuilt after our original home burned down in December of 2014.  We still have things to finish up, but we are there and it is a much safer environment for George.

Two days before our move, two of my worst nightmares occurred: George escaped from the house, was found 'playing' in a ditch by the highway and CPS greeted me the next morning.  Thankfully, George was not hurt and I guess CPS could tell I was a 'fit mother' and never opened a case.  I was not home and that made it even harder getting a call while on my way home!

I am continuing to look for fence grants.  I have been denied 5 times by one organization in which that is their specialty but they just don't have enough funds to help everyone.  I was denied through another organization as well, but I will keep at it.  A fence that he cannot climb and we can see through is over $5,000.

George gained a self help skill!  He went from high anxiety and flinging any food put before him to self-spoon feeding, beginning to chew and looking for more food on the table!  He only has smoothies now when I am in a hurry or traveling and it reduces my stress to do so!  I still do some blending because I can get a huge variety of food in him that way but he is spoon feeding himself everything, and enjoying it!

I attribute George's feeding progress to 3 things:  More helpers to help with consistency including feeding therapy every week from our Speech therapist, chelation therapy and chiropractic care.  We have done 40 rounds of chelation therapy.  This is removing heavy metals slowly and safely from his body and brain.  It takes 100-300 rounds to free most children of their autism symptoms.  A round is typically 3 days and nights (dose every 3 hours round the clock), then you take a 4 day break.  So 52 rounds would be 1 year.  We had to take a break when we moved but I am gearing up to start again.  This is the only way to chelate that I would recommend.  It is called Andrew Cutler Chelation.  There is lots of information on the web and some very helpful private Facebook groups.  This is a pretty good link if anyone wants more information. Cutler Success Stories.  I highly recommend the book Fight Autism and Win.  It lays out very simply how to chelate safely.  I am chelating myself as well.

It was while chelating that George started to be more comfortable with being spoon fed and seeing food in front of him.  It was not until we started chiropractic care that his brain was finally able to help his body make the connections and do the motor planning involved to actually spoon feed himself.

I had done some chiropractic with George in the past using different practitioners.  Then in January of 2017 I was forced to seek care myself due to my right hand going numb and shooting electrical charges up my arm. My regular chiropractor was closed and I had to get in ASAP so one of my wonderful caregivers referred me to Dr. Isaac Murphy in Carthage, MO.

As he was helping me I decided to have him check George out.  I kinda noticed his spine was looking odd to me but it wasn't until my occupational therapist mentioned his spine that I thought I must have seen something.  After evaluating him he wanted me to get some X-rays.  Come to find out George has scoliosis which explained a lot.

This is his before X-Ray as if we are looking through him from the front.  You can see how his spine is curved to his left side. He has always favored his left side.  The spine grows to the stronger side is what I remember Dr. Murphy saying in layman's terms.  All the black fuzzy stuff is gas.  Both radiologist and Dr. Murphy commented on how much gas build up he had in his belly.  Poor guy.  So his spine has affected his digestion, food absorption and all kinds of brain connections.

I really wasn't expecting to see a lot of other changes in him with chiropractic care after everything else I had tried.  However, he is already showing improvements.  He gets adjusted twice a week and he hops right up on the table.  That was another big change, no more videos/music and coaxing to get him to lay still.  He gets adjusted like a big boy and you can tell that he knows it is helping him.

You can visually tell his spine is straighter and it was after George started chiropractic care with Dr. Murphy, that he began to feed himself.  He is also relating better with people, more curious and beginning to follow one step directions such as "come here", "wash hands" etc... I said beginning, so not every time, but this is huge in our world for me to say lets wash hands and he comes to the sink to do it!  Super celebration!  We have had better connections with potty training as well.  He will go most times when we put him on the potty and he actually pulled his OT (occupational therapist) to the toilet last week and went!!!!!  Wow, looking forward to more of that.

 Dr. Murphy has been amazing working with me to help get to the root of George's issues.  He takes time and really explains anything you want to know.  He also consults with other colleagues about George, particularly one out in California that does chiropractic neurology that works with kiddos like George all day.  He has sure been a blessing!  If you are in the area,  I highly recommend him.  Click the link above and it will take you to his Facebook page, he has a webpage as well. You may even see a picture of George there.

I have been blessed to have found Kari Done and Enrichment Alternatives in Springfield for our Occupational Therapy and Speech. We go once a week and work on our 'homework' throughout the week since we live 45 minutes away.  All of the people we have worked with there have been excellent.  They are there to help the whole family as we adjust to life with our special kiddos and help us to learn about other resources that may be helpful to us.  George happily trots in the door when we arrive.

George picking his activity for Occupational Therapy
One of my goals for this summer is getting George an outdoor play-set to work on his gross motor muscles.  My friend, Janet Stephens, from Bear Paw Creek donated a percent of her April profits for Autism Awareness month to George's Trust Fund.  So we are half way to our goal.  There is more information under the Fundraiser button with a picture of the play-set.  A big thank you to Janet for thinking of us and supporting us!

I will wrap up this blog with what will probably be the highlight of our year, our first family vacation with all our boys, 15, 13 and 9. The last vacation we took our older boys were 3 1/2 and 13 months old.

We went with my brother in law, sister in law and my niece to Colorado.  I finally felt George and I could handle it and he did very well.  He was a great little traveler.  He peed on many different toilets and fed himself in different locations, thanks to ITunes.  Yeah, I know everything we are doing is helping George to be the best he can be.  Seeing him smile, learn new skills and enjoy himself just fills me with joy!  He is such a huge blessing to me.


Waunita Hot Springs Ranch, CO - George riding Danny. June 2017