The Journey Begins

July 7th, 2009: Dave and I met with the psychological review team at Keystone and they went over Stephen's needs and official diagnosis: Pervasive Developmental Disorder. I remember standing over his bed that week watching him sleep. He was curled up in a ball sucking on a blanket. He looked more like a 12month old than a 3yr old and it broke my heart. I wondered: would I ever really know my son?

It was around this time that I began to research and learn about 'healthy eating' and diet changes. I learned that most High Fructose Corn Syrup has some mercury in it. I learned that some forms of Red dye are made from the shells of South American Bugs. I learned that most dyes have been proven to cause allergic reactions, hives or behavior problems in children on the spectrum or ADHD. I learned that most autistic children have an overload of metal in their system and the above foods often triggered behavior because of the child's inability to deal with the food. At this point we were desperate to find answers, willing to try anything that might help Stephen. A friend helped me clean out our cupboards....we dumped Kraft Macaroni and cheese(yellow dye), Pillsbury biscuits(Red 40), Chocolate pudding (Red 40), Hot dogs(nitrates and nitrites), Hershey's syrup(HFCS) Jiffy PB(hydrogenated oils) Welchs jelly(dye), Heinz Ketchup(red 40 and/or HFCS)...the list goes on and on. It was very overwhelming to see the pile of discarded food and the empty cupboards with not much in it!

I know it sounds impossible and you may wonder what we eat :-) but we have found many ways of eating healthy that are doable and even economic and fun! Once you learn what is safe and how to eat healthy it is actually easier to plan a menu. More on that later.....

It was the beginning of a rough summer but God provided in so many ways. One of my cousins traveled over an hour to work with Stephen several days a week. Another teacher also drove a long distance to coach her and work with Stephen. A educational consultant donated almost $600 worth of teaching materials and language cards so we had material for his language program. A friend from church volunteered many hours that summer working with Stephen, cooking our suppers, babysitting and overall helping me maintain my sanity :-) Another friend helped me fill my cupboards with 'safe' foods to replace all the ones we got rid of. One thing I have always been grateful for is the overwhelming support and acceptance we felt as a family before and after his diagnosis. It was this support and God's grace that carried us through the next two years.

That fall I fought with the IU to increase his hours and finally compromised on speech therapy twice a week and one language group class. We began to try different supplements to increase his brain activity, cognition and language. It was that fall that we began to see improvements in his language. I think it was a combination of the intense summer program, weekly speech therapy and the diet changes and supplements we added. He began to label things but at this point we had all ready lost over a year of his developmental life so his frustrations and behaviors continued to be challenging as he struggled to express his needs and cope with two younger sisters.

In the next chapter I am going to talk about specific medical issues that we found related to Stephen's Autism, Ruth's Pancreatitis and Asthma and Allergies for both of them. I am going to talk about the path we went down and the dramatic changes we saw in Stephen!