A question for doctors, specialists, and Autism Speaks research teams.

               This morning I was sitting in the van with my son in the autism center parking lot waiting to go in. Another mom and her child about my son’s age, three, were walking around outside waiting to go in as well. Her son was exactly what my son was a year ago and I had almost forgotten what that was like. He was repeating steps over and over again and his control over his body was what you would call a bit clumsy. Every single tiny distraction grabbed him and he would have to stop to inspect it no matter what. I could look at his mom and feel the exhaustion from it because I remember it so well. Exhausting repetition and having to do all of the thinking for her child, right along with trying to keep things moving in the right direction. Just going into the building gave her numerous distractions to get him past.

                A year ago my son didn’t speak at all, barely would pay any attention to other people, his emotions seemed to be flat lined, other than frustration. Nothing worked to get through to him and just getting through the day was completely exhausting and often heartbreaking. Life has changed drastically since then. We moved because there was no support and the family I thought I had in the area at the time stopped being a part of life. My son’s father is no longer in our lives for a few different reasons but I would be lying if I said autism wasn’t too hard for him.

                My son completely regressed after a large round of vaccines from advanced at 18 months to regressing back to 6 months old at 2 years old. Before I lose anyone on that comment, please bear with me until the end.  Many people debate the vaccine effect and I understand that but keep reading.  A heavy dose of vaccines at one time can overwhelm an immune system leading to the immune system attacking the body it’s supposed to protect. As I understand that this can have a neurological effect. At 2.5 we had him diagnosed with autism and the outlook was he needed 40 hours of therapy a week. Physical, speech, and behavioral therapy was recommended at the time and we were told that is the only way he will make progress. I wasn’t on board with 40 hours of therapy for a 2 year old because that is a grown adults full time job hours and I felt it was to dang much. Not only that but the therapies we had available were not ideal for him. He hated it all from day one and his frustration level was overflowing. Not a day passed he didn’t have multiple meltdowns, not one day. Also not one day passed I wasn’t terribly judged for doing what I felt was right and consistently told I was holding him back by not doing what the specialists said I had to do.

                We are told autism is genetic with some kind of environmental key that pulls the trigger on the autism gene, of course no one knows what that is and according to the insane research of an autism mom, it’s everything. A year ago I felt my son would possibly never speak or say I love you. I felt he would never function at the rate he was before autism again. I had strong hope he would but realistically where he was at, he seemed so far gone it would be years of therapy. He has never had more than one hour of speech therapy. He never went to physical therapy and only now has he been at the autism center for just over a month at 15 hours a week but his progress began drastically 6 months ago.

                He speaks and is working hard at communication with success. He interacts with everyone and his personality has been blasting through. This morning I gave him his daily high five before going into the center and told him work hard, like I always do. This morning he also gave me my daily high five only followed it with “OK mom” and off he went. He didn’t repeat my words or ignore them, he responded just like a child would, or would want to. I say want to because I believe he always wanted to and couldn’t.

                Here is my point; I have read numerous stories of kids “coming” out of autism and kids making a ton of “progress.” When I think about all the things that have changed in the past 6 months that I felt I wouldn’t see happen for years I have one question for scientists and doctors…..why does it seem my child is healing from something I was told is a genetic difference? A genetic difference that has risen 75% in the past 5 years. My son is still autistic and still has many challenges to face but compared to a year ago he is not the same boy or even close to it. Without the therapies and what I used to call the rescue mission attack he has made an enormous amount of progress on his own. In fact even more mind blowing is we no longer do a daily probiotic, he is not on a special diet, and I have not been doing one thing to force this progress or address a health issue.

                To end today I ask the specialists, doctors, Autism Speaks research teams, and whoever else is trying to help us understand autism….is my son making progress or can we add healing to that question and if so what the hell is going on? Spontaneous progress at an unexplainable rate was never mentioned to me when we received our diagnosis.