light at the end of the tunnel
In honor of autism awareness month:
The road to autism recovery was a long, arduous journey for myself and my son, Luke. We were like trailblazers, in a sense. He was born in the early 1990s, when autism was still a distant concept; something that was touched upon briefly when I was in nursing school in the mid-eighties, and then promptly forgotten.
No one had autism back then.
But about the time Luke was born, I first started hearing the first whispering of autism at the Piggly Wiggly in our small town in north Georgia. Two women stood behind me at the check-out counter, talking behind fluttery hands.
“Did you hear about Linda Sue’s boy? You know…the ones who own the big farm on the outskirts of town. Well come to find out, her boy has autism.”
“What’s autism?” the other one asked.
The woman gave her friend a knowing look. ” You know…Rain Man.”
“Ohhh. Geez.” Her friend tightened the belt on her raincoat, as if warding off diseases, and said in a loud whisper, “I hope it’s not contagious.”
And then the bottom fell out, and autism skyrocketed.
Why? What happened?
I have my own theories as to what has caused this epidemic, but right now I want to focus on how to reverse some of the characteristics of this heart-breaking disorder.
I want to share with you the road to autism recovery, and how we traveled it.
A brief recap: My son Luke was born six weeks premature because his twin was in distress, and they had to be taken in an emergency c-section. His twin was badly damaged, and we made the painful decision to remove him from life support at four days old, and let him die in peace. The doctors were stymied as to what killed him, and had no answers. Luke was different from the time we brought him home from the hospital. He stayed sick with ear infections, and was treated with one antibiotic after another, all to no avail. Nothing could touch the raging infection in his ears. He avoided eye contact with his family, and did not cuddle or coo. When it was time to start talking, he remained mute. We had him evaluated when he was three, and the doctors agreed that he had PDD, or mild autism, as it was known back then. “The mildest of the mild,” the doctors agreed. “Well if it’s so mild, then why can’t it be something else?” I asked. “We don’t know what else to call it,” they said. “By golly, I’ll find out what else to call it!” I cried. When Luke was seven years old, I pulled up in our yard one day, mentally battered by life. I stared at the old well beside a dilapidated barn that leaned precariously over it, and a light went off in my head. I suddenly realized what killed Luke’s twin and caused his “autism.” I made an appointment with an environmental doctor, who took one look at Luke and bellowed, “He’s not autistic, he’s toxic!”
The environmental doctor did a heavy metal challenge on Luke, using DMSA as a chelator to pull the heavy metals from the soft tissues, where they had been stored. He also tested for leaky gut, malabsorption and did a spect scan, which is a brain scan that detects heavy metals.
I’m enclosing a link to the chapter of my booklet Autistic or Toxic? How I Unlocked the Mystery to My Son’s “Autism” that explains the tests and findings:
https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/141077592/write/557442545
The doctor validated my theory as to what was really wrong with Luke, and what had killed his twin, but now the uphill battle for victory over autism was about to commence, and it was a journey full of forks in the roads, and dips and curves, as we struggled to understand the mechanisms of this baffling disorder.
Stay tuned as I recount our harrowing adventures on our road to autism recovery!
Lots of love, Scarlett
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