What's going on. Hmmm. We are busy over here with normal family matters like Ainsley's t-ball league, summer play dates, a family vacation (long overdue) and summer break. Wow, that sentence sounded so, so normal!
On the non-average American household side of life we embarked on an awesome week long conference on a therapy Stephen and I can put together for Baylor at home using us and volunteers, part time summer school for Baylor along with speech therapy twice a week and ABA anywhere from once to three times a week. We also started a prescription called Low Dose Naltrexone to help strengthen her gut/immune system. We also just received a hair analysis kit to see how we are doing in the heavy metals detoxing through chelation.
Honestly, we really are not as far along with chelating as I would like to be at this point. We have done 22 rounds and we need a minimum of 100! I thought we would be plugging away every weekend this summer but between her low immune system and our bouts out of town this is not going as swimmingly as I would have hoped. I am assuming we will not see much change with the hair test from our metals test before but hey, you never know. Bay still struggles with leaky gut (awesome diagnostic name isn't it?) and we know that it will not heal with metals attached to all her organs. It is a marathon, not a sprint. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Ah, I am talking to you not me. I will go on.
So in tandem with the chelating we need to change the diet. Again. I am so not excited about this. I have however, been praying for guidance and after a long wait on this subject matter I feel we should take the dive and do a diet called GAPS with a splash of SCD. If you feel the need to google go for it, but the nuts and bolts are we remove all grains and complex sugars and I start cooking like the Amish. Do not be ashamed that you just cringed, and feel free to judge but this is what the majority of people who have had kids on the spectrum used to heal their gut and transform their lives. Why not try it? God apparently thinks I need lots of challenges. Darn that changing thing. Fine fine, but I need to wait until my kids are back in school and I have some volunteers with Bay so I can live barefoot in the kitchen like a good southern housewife. Or something like that. With this new diet comes needing new kitchen gadgets. Like a really nice Vitamix that will do almost all my cooking for me. I hear it is the best thing for cooking for this diet. So if anyone works anywhere they can get a good discount, please let us know. These things cost way too much but feel as it is a necessary help for this new adventure in healing Baylor.
Stephen and I just had a new adventure in Sheffield, MA. Bottom left hand corner of MA is a compound type campus that is called The Option Institute. My fabulous MIL and niece came up to watch our girls as we took a flight to NY, a train to MA and a taxi to the middle of nowhere north to learn a therapy that focuses on the social issues children on the spectrum have. Basically you set up a play therapy room where the most interesting thing is you or the volunteer and have toys up on shelves that you bring down to try and engage your child in. This is a very loving, very nurturing and non-judgmental mindset that you bring to join your child in their world and slowly get them to join yours. It is called Son-Rise and we are looking forward to starting this as soon as our room is finished and we can figure out a slow start until school starts in the fall. We met people from 23 states and 25 countries. We have family now around the world. Nothing puts you and your child in the heart of complete strangers or they in yours like autism does. We look forward to praying over their children and watching them grow. That was an amazing experience.
Yeah, so that is about it for right now. That is about all we can handle at the moment, Lord willing. Baylor has been doing very well lately. We are battling some new but hopefully brief side effects that should subside soon but otherwise she is communicating with us still and repeating a lot so we know she is trying the best she can. She is still only 3 but sometimes I think she is 13. Not because she is high maintenance or anything. Ainsley is the best big we could ever want and is so awesome to have around more this summer. I miss that lovely when she is in school First grade this fall. I am in awe of my blessings.
Please keep us in your prayers as we keep the pace on Baylor's Journey. We love you and appreciate your support in every way you send it.
Happy Summer 2013 ~ Team Baylor
