Chin up!

All moms with kids on the spectrum come to the point where they see no light on the end of the tunnel. Hope is gone and you sit in the corner and cry your eyes out. Everything seems so impossible to do. You hope to get your child better all year long and here you are again: The end! And yet - NO!
After all, he is your child, you love him, he is a tough boy and he has his will. It's almost impossible to get through to him, but when you do, you know it was all worth it. The smirkes he gives you instead of saying, "I love you". The face he has when he knows he is in trouble and you can not longer be mad with him and instead you squeeze him tight and pray that some miracle will happen soon.
Days are hard most of the time, it is also hard on your marriage and the siblings too. But you pull it together, b/c you know you get the sunshine days too.

To all moms (and dads too) out there who fight this horror every day, i know how you feel. You do a great job and keep going.
To a miracle year 2010. It's going to be our year and i will fight every minute for it.
Love to you all!

Gesundheit!

I am happy to say that both boys have been healthy so far this winter season. Both in Nickys school and Philips kindergarten half the classes are missing b/c of flu, cold and even some scarlet fever. There are some rules in our house they seem to work :

• Always wash your hands right away when you come home. Wash them as long as you sing the ABC-song.
• If you are in a public area, like airport or train, take some desinfection wipes with you to use after washing your hands
  

• Drink your orange juice in the morning

• Take your gummy-bear vitamins (i don't have to push them to that rule :) )
  

• Eat your vegetables

• Wear a hat if temps drop under 45
  

• If you are cold, take a warm bath right away
  

With the first sign of a cough, sore throath or runny nose i try to get rid of it right away. Here are some first helpers with the sign of a cold:

Runny nose: Inhale steam; even better add a little menthol.
Drink hot elderberry juice for cough and sore throat.
Drink lots of fluids, f.e. teas to losen the mucus.
Take Vitamin C and Zink, even better, eat foods with this vitamins: Citrus fruits, red peppers, Kiwi, Sunflowerbread, Turkey, Cashews, Gouda-Cheese...

Bless You - Gesundheit!

Amazing healing

I have been reading a lot about homöopathic treatment and overall natural healing. I use it more and more with me and my family. Some things work, some not. If it comes to treating a cold, cough, sneezy nose and sore throath most of the treatments help.
For example for Philips cough (and he catches it like that) i use a home remmedy with onions. Just cut it in pieces, put it in a jar. Then 2-3 Tablespoons of honey over the onions, finished. Drink 1-2 teaspoons of the honey, you don't have to eat the onions :)
Actually Philip loves it, and he knows it helps him. It helps very good at night, when the cough sits deep. Try it, it's quickly made and inexpensive. And: No meds where you always feel a little guilty to give it.
I also read about the 27 different tissue salt, invented by Dr. Schüssler. He believed this natural salts are the only things we need . I bought them all (they are very inexpensive) and try them with the whole family. The great thing with this salts like all homöopathic treatments: There are no side effects, the doses are so little.
So i tried them with fever, cough, allergy. Last weekend i got a very bad lumbargo while i tried to lift Nicky in the Radio Flyer for Trick or Treating.
It was so bad i couldn't move at all and my husband had to lift me up from the couch saturday night.
I took three different salts, No. 3, 7 and 9. Every hour for 4 hours. When i got up the next morning from bed i already felt better, so i kept going with the salts and by afternoon i couldn't feel almost any pain any longer. It amazed me.
Usally if you have this kind of pain you get a shot or you take pain killers. I guess i found my remmedy for my back.
Try it, it's worth a shot!

LEAD and autism

I just got back Nickys last blood and urine lab results. Every half a year we usually test him for yeast and missing nutrials. It always gives us a view what his body can process and what's missing.
Usally the test comes up with lots of yeast problems, but also Nicky’s problems with getting rid of toxins.
When is saw our DAN two weeks ago i decided on making a heavy metal test, b/c i felt something else is going on with Nick and i wanted to find out.
So we made the test which means Nicky has to take a capsule of DMSA, that kind of sucks the toxins out of his body and shows it in an urin sample we collect for the rest of the day.
The test before we gave the capsule showed already lead levels twice as high as safe.
The result of the second test, where all urine gets collected after the capsule, showed (are you sitting?) 13 times higher than they say its safe.
WOW!
I am very proud and happy that after 5 years doing biomedical intervention i just know there is something going on with him.
BUT, I am sad that two years after doing chelation we are back on the heavy metal issue. Even I keep every possible toxins away from him, Nicky’s body has not the ability to detoxify himself. And let’s face it: It's everywhere, every day. Your air, your water, your food, the clothes you just wear.
For us moms with kids on the spectrum, we just have to detox them with meds and supplements and just hope the pollution of our world will get less.
Writing this my beautiful boy is sitting in the living room shaking his head, spinning wheels and screaming out of his lungs......
1 in 91 children is diagnosed with autism, 1 in 58 boys (!!!)......

Swine flu vaccination

Lately there have been a lot of people asking my opinion on the swine flu vaccination. Most of you know my standing on this controversy. It's a straigt NO. There are different reasons:

• One: I have a child who got probably autism by day one when he received his Hep.B. shot at the hospital


• Two: This swine flu vaccination has not been testet long enough in my opinion, if you read about cervical cancer vaccination there has been some discussion lately.


• Three( And this is the most important part of it!): Both companies who produce the serum for swine flu vaccination add a preservative called Thimerosal . Most of you never heared from it, but every mother with a child on the autism spectrum is at war with this preservative. It's simple said mercury.

Side effects of this vaccination are rarely known, b/c it's so new, no clinical studies have been made!

So see youself as a ginnie pig when you go get your shot. Your doctor will probably ask you to call in if you feel any side effects accouring. YOU are the STUDY!

Writing this makes me really mad, and i know how hard it is to watch the news in the United States and don't get sucked into the hype about vaccinations.

Think about it and decide wisly. Have a healty flu season!

Obama Announces Breaking News: $92 Million in Stimulus Funds for Autism Research

I am sitting in tears while i am writing this. Finally the government is doing more than looking the other way. I just hope they listen to us parents too in the future.

Please read along...

President Barack Obama announced a plan on Wednesday to spend $5 billion on medical and scientific research, medical supplies and upgrading laboratory capacity, as part of an overall $100 billion Recovery Act investment in science and technology. Importantly, Obama's announcement also included a commitment to funding $92 million into autism research. In his speech to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Obama said “And finally, we'll also provide the largest-ever infusion of funding into autism research. Across the country, grant recipients will have the opportunity to study genetic and environmental factors of a disease that now touches more than one in every 150 children. What we learn will hopefully lead to greater understanding, early interventions, more effective treatments and therapies to help these children live their lives and achieve their fullest potential, which is extraordinary.”

Autism Speaks played a vital role lobbying NIH for $100 million of the economic stimulus package.

View the full speech on the White House website.

Read a press release on the full stimulus package announced here

All natural food delivery and getting ready for fluseason

One of my favourite days of the weeks are absolutly tuesdays. Every week we get a box full with natural foods delivered by a natural food store. It's full with fresh veggies and fruits. Everything looks so yummy. Even Philip get's now all excited when the delivery man rings on the door. With fluseason just around the corner i want to "drug" my kids with as much possible vitamins as possible.

It starts in the morning with fresh squeezed orange juice. It goes trough the day with different fruits and veggies for supper. I mix some seabuck thorn juice in their applejuice to raise the vitamin C level in them.

I for myself drink a glass of vegetable juice very day. It's full with carrots, red beet, sauerkraut, spinach, bellpepper, cucumbers and more stuff. Sounds yummy, hum? I just put some salt and pepper ontop and it's not as bad as you think. It counts as a meal instead of lunch and fills me the whole afternoon.

I am not a fan of swineflu-vacinations, b/c i think it's a big hype and nobody knows of late side effects. So this is how we prepare for the winter. I also can see a huge difference in philip beeing more calm and concentrated.

Try it, it's fun and if your kids help you prepare fruit salad they like it even more.

First week without daddy

The first week without wolfgang comes to an end. It was ok, but we miss him dearly. Especially philip askes about him all the time. Yesterday he had his daddy on speakerphone and played in his room with Lego while talking to him. It was for him important to share everything what he was doing right there with wolfgang.
I was very busy this week: I checked out different schools around Basel. I also contacted a new organisation that helps parents of preschool-kids with autism to find the right schools and therapies.
People in switzerland seem very nice and helpful so far and i am looking forward to go with wolfgang sometimes within the next weeks.
And i started running again. It was a good feeling to "be back". I ran around our lake on tuesday, with is about 4K. Tonight i will run my first roadrace. It's in Wetzlar and called the bridge-race. I will run for Nickys school and it's going to be fun. Hopefully the rain will stop while i am on the road. Keep your fingers crossed that i will make it to finish-line before they all leave :)

The smell of hay

This is a great summer, at least august is hot and feels like summer. Since the warm and hot days started, the farmers are out on the fields to get the harvest in as long as it isn't raining.
So for the last two weeks you see tractors everywhere, they get the wheat crop in and leave the hay on the fields. Later they make big balls of straw to keep it for their animals.
They also harvest the grassfields and dry the grass to hay. And this is where my sensitive nose comes in.
I love the smell of harvest, of hay, the busy farmers. It reminds me of my childhood and that we played all summer outside.
Here in germany, farmland is between villages and citys, cows and horses are everywhere. It's beautyful for me. Seeing my children growing up in this peaceful landscape, where field meets forest and forest meets village is a very good thing for them. It makes you appreciate the simple things in life, it shows you how beautyful the world can smell if you just open your nose :) Train your senses and taste the world.
Cheers!

Light on the end of the tunnel

The last months where hard on our family. A lot happened i don't want to explain here, but i think it was the hardest we ever experienced except finding out about nickys dx of autism.
Well since i am a positive person i always knew, the rocky way will have an end.
Wolfgang will start a new and exciting job september 1st in basel, switzerland. That means we will move within the nex half year.
Schools in switzerland are much better for Nicky then the one in germany. They offer includet therapies, sometimes even ABA. We have to find that perfect school.
Since switzerland has french, german, italian and english as languages, this will be the perfect opportunity for Philip to eather go to a german-english school or learn frech. Holy cow, i guess i have to learn with him!
This is exciting, i love to move. But i fear Philip beeing so sad of leaving his friends, especially Kim, his little cute girlfriend. I will miss our friends Andrea and Jens, they grew so close to our hearts. But i know we will find friends and we will just have a big circle of friends around the globe!

Everything is happening for a reason, and since we where never really happy with nickys school and Philip's daycare i see that as the reason. There is more to offer for our kids!
I keep you updated.

FDA Changes Tylenol Warnings But Doesn’t Tell You How to Take it Safely

FDA changes Tylenol warnings but doen't tell you how to take it safely:

Shared via AddThis

Cranio-sacral therapy

OK, this has been too long since i posted. I started a job, nothing special, just job lease, but it has been very busy here. I am leaving early in the morning and getting grocery-shopping done during my break. Then i rush home at 4 and get to play with the boys and the day is done. It's crazy but its probably only till end of June. We will see.
Anyway, I wanted to post about Nick's new therapy. We are seeing a Homeopathic Therapist for the last four weeks. After knowing Nicky's history he started him with cranio-sacral therapy. This special therapy he is using is called Bow tech (no it's not the fitness gear!). It's specific pressure points on his muscles the therapist massages to straighten the body and makes the body stronger. We where very sceptical (like you are right now, aren't you?). But we wanted to give it a try. Especially i had a look into homeopathy itself and i just wanted to try different things.
So we went one time, twice, three times.....and......Nicky started to make new sounds, he is pointing at things he wants, he is very aware and reacts right away on any commandos. Yesterday, for example, he helped me to set up the table, he put the place mats on the table and the utensils.
Today he came to the kitchen, opened the fridge and made the sign for drink. OK, he can do that for years. But today he pointed to the water pitcher. I asked him if he wants some apple juice with the water; he shook his head. WOW, this is huge. We had a CONVERSATION.
So we will go on with that therapy and i will keep you posted.
Sorry for not doing so many postings right now. I always have a lot in my mind to write here, but i do not have the time right now. Keep checking back.
love - me

What a (beautiful) weekend

Just a short post. We had a great weekend, Nicky was happy and calm. We where very busy and spend Saturday and Sunday all day outside. On Saturday we first went on a walk to the beautiful spring-forest, afterward the kids got their horseback-riding-lessons. Nicky loves this part of Saturdays most. No matter how terrible his mood was before, as soon as he sits on the back of a horse he smiles and enjoys the breeze that goes on up there :)

Saturday afternoon Wolfgang and me tried to get some stuff in the garden done while the boys where riding there bikes. It was too funny, while Philip was trying to draw with chalk on the street, Nicky tried to ride his bike over it. He even got of his bike and tried to hopscotch :O) On the on of the day our ice cream-truck comes and delivers some homemade ice cream for all of us. We had late supper with stuff from our grill (yummy!).

So yesterday, after the boys slept very long, we decided to take them with the bike trailers on that beautiful bike trail that starts in our city. Its all flat and goes through beautiful landscape. Nicky enjoys sitting in the trailer.
We brought stuff for a picnic and found a nice place in a meadow full with bright yellow dandelions.

After that break we went back home, but wanted to make a quick stop at a local hotel here. The hotel is directly on the lake and has a beautiful outside eating area with a playground for the kids.

When we arrived there we saw my new friend with her daughter and husband. The daughter Kim is also Philips best friend, so the both where happy seeing each other and off they went to the playground. Nicky enjoyed a snack and then he was also on the playing equipment. So whats a parent to do when the kids finally offer some time: Sit, chat, have a beer, coffee or whatever. We stayed for three hours and had just such a good time.

When we finally arrived home, we both knew, this was a very special, happy weekend. And even Philip came over to me and said 'Mama, this was a very good day" . Sweety-pie.

Have a great week.

Exposure

We went on a little vacation to a village called "Sun Park" just two hours from here. It's really fun for the kids there. You life in little but spacious houses in a park that includes a big water park and an indoor playground.
Nicky and Philip had so much fun at the water park. It comes with a canyon where Nicky just loooved to drift around. He looked like a smiling cork, really cute. Compared to the days we had before he was just a different child.
The park also had this indoor playground with the usual stuff you find there. It also had a stage, where once a day there was some animation for the kids, like dancing, theater and so on.
As soon as the music started, Nicky was right in the middle of the activities. First the animation people where a little unsure, but they didn't mind. BUT, they other kids ;O) . Some stopped dancing, just being amazed by Nicky and his behaviour.
As a parent you tend to pull him out there, but i think, every exposure to typical children is the best you can get both sides of the kids. I am always open to answer questions to both kids and parents. But parents don't ask, they just look. We are used to that sort of exposure. It still hurts but you just grow that shell. You ask yourself "When do people realize that something is wrong with him?" . Maybe when he starts to wiggle with his hands, maybe when he screams out of joy (for them it's probably more the scream of an animal). Maybe when he starts his crazy dance till the sweat runs down his temples.
You get that almost every day. Even we try to avoid the crowd, we also train with him to go shopping and to places where it can be loud.
But with a child on the spectrum, you never come unprepared. You know where the exit is, you know you have to pull something good out of your pocket to get him out of a favourite activity. You know when his limit is reached.
Today school started after two weeks and he looked very happy seeing his bus driver Heike this morning. We have to think about summer vacation, six weeks can be very long. We have two months to think about it ;o)
Have a nice spring day today! It's beautiful here, everything is in bloom and the different shades of green are amazing.

Spring and school vacation

It has been a while since i posted, the reason is simple: School vacation. It means for most of us parents NO vacation, it means stress and bored kids. For us, it runs from a bored 5-year old to a hyper boy on the autism spectrum. That exactly means that the house has not seen a mop in over two weeks, my washing machine is on vacation too (b/c i have no time to even fill it). We wake up, we eat, we keep the kids entertained, we eat again, we try to keep Nicky quiet, b/c all windows are open due to the temps. We do all the things kids love and still he is so unhappy right now. It's depressing for us, we are not moving an inch forward.
So, it's been hard, but the weather is great, temps in the 80's, we eat outside on our little terrace, or we sit on our balcony over viewing the lake while watching the kids.
I have to admit, with the nice weather and spending the evening on the terrace, i am back to enjoy 1-3 glasses of Riesling wine. It's just sooo good, and it's my treat for a long, hard and frustrating day. No worries though!
And i have Wolfgang, who fights with me through the day, who makes me lough, even when i am close to tears. Did you know 80% of parents with autistic kids getting a divorce or getting separated....?
A Roller-coaster this last two weeks; we are going on a short trip Friday through Monday, let's hope Nicky is doing o.k. with it.
Happy spring!

Eating paper

We finished the second week without any supplements. Everything is good. But i see some bad behaviour slowly coming up again.

One is eating paper (also called PICA) and chewing on everything like crazy. I also see an increase in head stimms during play. Nicky also chews a lot on his clothes again.

I know that it can be a high blood level of lead, it also can be that his body has iron-deficiency anaemia or that zinc is missing.

So, because we do not eat any more fish any longer (full with lead!) and Germans haven't used lead in ages in their houses, we can ignore the lead problem for now (we also had no high lead levels in the last test anyway!).

And when it comes to iron, it was not in Nicky's supplement program. So i guess it really is zinc that's missing.

So i hope that the next issue of InStyle magazine will be left for mom and not for the mouthing Mr. Nick.

Sundays, sundays

We had some very good days with good sleep. Nicky ate very good and no bath room issues. On Saturday we went to the city of Wetzlar, where we spend the day with Anna. It was very peaceful and Nicky kept walking with us up and down the hills of the city. We even sat down in a street cafe for half an hour. Nicky was just very good. Even the drive in the car was good.

But then came Sunday. And just like last Sunday Nicky was a different person. He was loud, restless, uncooperative. We had to give him Benadryl again. But that didn't do the trick right away for him. After 3 more hours he finally calmed down and even fell asleep on the couch for a nap.

So what is going on with him? Is it something he eats or does on Saturdays that pushes him over the edge on Sunday?

Well my birthday is next Sunday, i just want my love bug Nicky feeling good.

Wednesday march 11th and Thursday 12th

The last days where uneventful. Nicky was mostly calm and contend. On Wednesday he had issues with falling asleep and he woke up a couple times during the night so w. had to stay with him the whole night. I think the pomegranate juice made him hyper, i will give this another try in a week. Pomegranate juice would be so great for him.
Yesterday he fell asleep on the couch at 7pm and slept through the night without once waking up.
We absolutely will go back to supplements, but we will watch it closely.

Today our friend Anna from the US is visiting us for the weekend. She is in Denmark for a semester right now. We are all very excited. We will have some "Wiener Schnitzel" tonight. Everybody loves them and they are SO typical for Germany. Tomorrow we will visit Wetzlar and Sunday Frankfurt. Philip is jumping in circles right now, he can't wait.

March 10th, first day "Without"

Just a short update like promised: This is the first day without supplements and herbal teas. Nicky did good in therapy session, no stimming, no craziness, no loud noises, good visit on the potty ;O) . He fell asleep without melatonin and through the night.

Starting over

Once in a while we do a "Starting over" with supplements and treatments for Nicky. It gives us answers what really helps him and what not and especially what makes him crazy and stimmy. This is the perfect timing right now: We got the test results back last week (see post) where we saw some improvements and some things we have to fix, like the uric acid problem.
We had a terrible weekend with Nicky and couldn't figure it out why. He was loud, unhappy, restless and just kept us on our feet for hours. On Sunday noon, i finally gave him some Benadryl. It was the only thing i knew would help him. And it did, he finally sat down for two hours before he started all over again.
It brakes your heart, and the worse is, there is NO one out there who can help you. It really could be that he is in pain, but there is no way to figure it out. Last night he woke up, sweating, screaming, and i almost heart an "Aua" . It can be everything, just a nightmare, his stomach, his liver, his kidneys, it could be life threatening.
But we have, like almost all parents with kids on the spectrum, given up to talk to pediatricians and neurologist about test results. They don't give it a look, i saw it last week at an appointment in a children's hospital. The doctor was really nice and good, very sensitive and helpful, but he doesn't care about biomedical stuff.

Well anyway, today we start with "No Supplements at all" and i will use this blog as a dairy on his behaviour. I will especially look into sleeping patterns, behavior (stimming, craziness), constipation problems and how therapy sessions work.
See ya later!

Is it GOUT????

We got Nicky's last Urine-Blood-Stool-Test back. We do this once-twice a year to see where he has deficits in different areas: Liver, Fatty acids, Vitamins, Gluthation and especially yeast issues. I will tell you more in a posting later this week. But i just came over something interesting. since we make this tests for the last four years, Nicky always had problems with uric acid and also citric acid. So our new DAN here in Germany gave us some meds to lower the uric acid. After half a year we made the test again in January '09. I was sure we are in a better place now and was full of hope.But not so! The test came back with uric acid levels still elevated, better then in august, but still very elevated. So??? You think you have it under control and then it just hits you! Can it be gout? Is it a dietary issue after all? Nicky always had big problems with gross motor skills, he had three times a hip infection in his life (ever had one or know one? No? Same here, till our son came along!). His tests always came back with elevated uric acid. Does that makes sense? YES if you read about GOUT. There is a recommendation in diet:

Here is a partial list of foods high in purines, which have the highest concentration of purines and should be avoided by those who are prone to gout or are already suffering from it.
Beef * Pork * Bacon * Lamb * Seafood * Foods that are made with a significant amount of yeast such as beer and bread * Alcoholic beverages While these foods high purine levels can also aggravate symptoms of gout, they can sometimes be enjoyed in moderation by those who usually follow a low purine diet.
Asparagus * Cauliflower * Mushrooms * Peas * Spinach * Whole-grain breads and cereals * White poultry meats, such as chicken, duck and turkey * Kidney and lima beans.
And finally, here are some foods that are safe to include in a low purine diet, though they should not comprise the entirety of your eating plan.
Green vegetables and tomatoes * Fruits and fruit juices * Breads that do not use yeast (check the kosher section or a health food store) * Nuts * Milk and milk products, such as butter and cheese * Chocolate * Coffee and tea.
If you suffer from gout or have a family predisposition to the disease, it is a good idea to steer clear of low carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins and Protein Power diets. Their recommendation to eat large amounts of foods high purines such as meats and dark vegetables is almost certain to cause problems in those predisposed to gout.

AHA, low carb diet is not good if you suffer from high uric acid. But that's what SCD is all about, isn't it? So i have to ask myself what do i want to treat? His uric acid problem and with it probably joint pain on every step he makes? Or constipation, which comes back when we go back to Carbs.
Stay posted, i haven't figured it out, i am still in shock and denial.

Stimmy, Stimmy ...and how to get that kid asleep

So we are in a "Down-face" right now. The last 1 1/2 weeks where hard on the whole family. Nicky is very loud, stimmy and over all just very uncooperative. You see it on little things during the whole day that something is bothering him.
That starts in the morning when he has to get dressed: He doesn't put his hand through the sleeve itself, he kind of fights it. It's a struggle.
But the worse is his sleeping pattern right now. He wakes up screaming during the night, he want the light on or somebody sleeping next to him. He also has a hard time fall asleep.You think he should be exhausted by the end of the day, especially with all the stimming and loud noises he makes. But hell NO! He is up, loud. And even he falls asleep, he wakes up after two hours, sitting in his bed. and seems like he is is done with sleeping.
So the first thing you look into as parents of an autistic kid is, "What have you changed that pushed him over the edge?" . Supplements are always a good guess, but also food could be the reason. Another is (and that's actually something good) that he is dumping toxins like yeast or heavy metals. In this process called Herxheimer reaction the child is feeling worse for a few days before an improvement occurs.
Because he is on a couple new supplements for over three weeks already i don't think is a Herxheimer reaction, it might be that the supplements itself (Olive leaf extract, artichokes and other nat. herbs) make him stimmy and sleepless.
So i left it out for three days and we already saw an improvement in sleep in the first night. Last night was actually good, he didn't wake up once after midnight and woke up for his normal school day time at 6 o'clock.
I also changed a few things in his bedtime routine. We give him Trytophan, which has Magnesium in it, along with other ingredients. Magnesium given at night makes you all sleepy and your body relax.
I also give him some herbal tea, called the Lazy Tea by Janosch with verlian, Anis, fennel, peppermint, Lavender. Very soothing, and he loves it so much, he drinks a full pot full over the late afternoon and evening.
Another thing is giving a bath with verlian herbs. I just bought the herbs in the pharmacy (welcome to Germany, where you get all nat. stuff!) and make a big pot of tea out of it.Beautiful calming bath essence.
There is a big section about sleep in one of my all-time-favourite autism books "Autism, Effective Biomedical Treatments" by Jon Pangborn . He talks about all this things and more, one is for example, that your body can not produce Melatonin, a hormone, that makes you sleep, as long as the lights are on. WOW! Nicky loves the light on at night, but he also has trouble to sleep through. As soon as we removed that bedside-lamp his night was so much better.

I am sure that there is so much more out there and if you want to share it with me, i would love to learn about it.

Let hope for a calm weekend, it's supposed to be sunny here temp's in the upper 50's.
Have a great weekend!

Holy ginger

So i made some ginger root-tea yesterday. I read in the Body ecology diet book that ginger root tea has some contracting effects on your intestines. Contracting is what we are looking for b/c of the constipation problems we are facing. So i boiled several slices of fresh ginger (love that taste of that root) and cooked it for 15 minutes. The recipe asked for Stevia to sweeten. But somehow Germany still doesn't allow that sweeter. Which is just bull, this is a natural sweetener and everywhere else in the world available. But i have a source (Hi Dr. F.!) to get it. So soon the sugar-trap will be gone and we will get more and more in the BED. The BED (Body Ecology diet) is a little tricky, but it all sounds so reasonable to me and for Nicky.

So anyway, i made that tea, sweetened it with honey and tasted it for myself. Well,YUMMY, spicy and it is a real thirst quencher. Nicky had half a sippy cup full, even he didn't like it first, he came back for more after having a sip.

This morning after N. woke up, he went successful to the potty. Never happened before in the a.m.

There are little things on the BED you can follow from the beginning. But there is a 80/20 rule (http://www.bodyecology.com/07/01/04/80-20_rule_essential_to_diet.php) i find hard to follow. But by time i will find a way. When we started SCD i thought, this is impossible to do. It's not, it's your child, and you would give your life for them. So cooking is just a walk in the park :o)

Have a great Sunday.

For all mac and cheese lovers - "Enjoy"

This is adapted from one of my favourite blogs, the SCD-girl http://scdgirl.blogspot.com/

Artificial colors and flavors? Ew.
You know, I've often wondered why artificial colors and flavors are illegal, but then I realized, by wondering, that I'd answered my own question. What ARE they, anyway? You don't know. I don't know. And that's why we can't eat them, because we have to know what a food is in order to know if it's legal or not. And let's face it -- artificial coloring and flavors are not food. We only eat food on the SCD. Perhaps this should be our slogan: The SCD: We eat food! In case you were wondering what prompted this post, well, let me tell you. I spoke with an acquaintance of mine recently who used to work at a large food manufacturing company. One of the items they produced was a macaroni and cheese-type recipe. The recipe called for two parts cheese, one part yellow food color. No, that's not a typo. So, for example, a batch would include 500 pounds of cheese...and 250 POUNDS of powdered yellow food color. The thing of it was, said my acquaintance, is that the food color cost just as much as the cheese! It was EXPENSIVE! You really wonder what's in our food supply, don't you? And people think we SCDers are the crazy ones...

After all i am glad we can not buy Mac and Cheese any longer - no more toxins for my kids!!
Enjoy your meal :o)

In a good place

I have to say i am getting used to the ups and downs in our life when it comes to Nicky. I know by now that even he has some "stimmy" days, he is either dumping toxins or just getting used to a new supplement. After some tough days he comes back in such a better way. Yesterday Philip, our 5 yrs. old was almost chocking on some food and he tried to cough it out. Nicky, sitting across him on the table, just started to copy coughing. It was too funny. I said to Philip "You got a frog sitting in your troath? Ribbith!" Guess what: Nicky started to move up and down while sitting in his chair. Just like that. We all started laughing so loud and Nicky clapped his hands and started also giggling. It was all spontaneous and he knew we are laughing with him. He had this big grin all over his face.

Moments like that keep me going. I know he is a hard nut to crack when it comes to diet and biomedical interventions. But we make steps forward, never back. We keep fighting yeast and we do antiviral therapy. I am also reading about the Body Ecology Diet (http://www.bodyecologydiet.com/). It sounds just so natural, like people should eat and how they did before industry started to "make" food. Toxins are in our body and cleansing your body is a good way to fight infections.

I put Nicky on a supplement that is all natural. It has ingredients like Pomegranate, Lavender, Thyme in it. It tastes a little strong, but i think it helps him.

Our DAN doc told us he is thinking out a Hyperbaric oxygen chamber in his office. This is a very new way to treat the kids and the result are stunning. I will be the first going in with Nicky, i can't wait!

That's from us, you see we doing good. Still fighting with the school system, but i hope i change one thing at a time.

As long as Nicky keeps smiling we are in a good place.

Yummy Yummy SCD legal Clementine cake

This is a yummy recipe from one of my favourite websites, the smitten kitchen (smittenkitchen.com). When i read the ingredences i thought, wow, this is SCD legal. And it sounds very moist and easy. So here it goes, just use honey instead of sugar! The original recipe is from Nigella, my favourite cook in the US.

Clementine Cake

Adapted from Nigella Lawson
… Oh right, I forgot to mention that this cake was darn good. I am not going to tell you that it is my favorite cake ever. It wasn’t. But all of the things I was worried would go wrong — it would be too bitter, it would be too tough, nobody would eat it — I couldn’t have been further off about. It is ridiculously moist, not bitter and surprisingly popular at a dinner party. You know, until you tell people they’re eating a cake of boiled rinds.
4 to 5 clementines (about 375grams/slightly less than 1 pound total weight)

6 eggs

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (225 grams) sugar

2 1/3 cups (250 grams) ground almonds

1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
Optional: Powdered sugar for dusting, or for making a glaze

Put the clementines in a pot with cold water to cover, bring to the boil, and cook for 2 hours. Drain and, when cool, cut each clementine in half and remove the seeds. Then finely chop the skins, pith, and fruit in the processor (or by hand, of course).
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Butter and line an 8-inch (21 centimeter) springform pan with parchment paper. (I used a 9-inch, it worked fine.)
Beat the eggs. Add the sugar, almonds, and baking powder. Mix well, adding the chopped clementines.
Pour the cake mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 30 to 50 minutes*, when a skewer will come out clean; you might have to cover the cake with foil after about 20 to 30 minutes to stop the top from over-browning.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool, in the pan on a rack. When the cake is cold, you can take it out of the pan and dust it with powdered sugar. I made a glaze of powdered sugar and a tablespoon of clementine juice because I was convinced the cake would be too bitter. It was not necessary. Nigella says the cake is best on the second day, but ours never made it that long.
Variations: Nigella says she’s also made this with an equal weight of oranges and lemons, in which case the sugar is increased to 1 1/4 cups.
* I am very unclear on the correct baking time, as you can see. Nigella’s recipe says it will 60 minutes. When I checked on it at 40 minutes (because I think you should start checking on any baked good at the 2/3 mark) it was done. Very done. Dark-brown edge-level done. And my oven runs cool. But I had made the cake in a one-inch larger pan, which made it slightly thinner. Which is all to say: Start checking at 30 minutes. Better to check too often than char your cake.

Nicky loooved the cake, and he is always sceptical when mom is baking :o). Enjoy!

A b@$ch called constipation

So here we are again, fighting constipation. Once a month she finds us and there is no escape. You see her crawling into your sons body, she makes herself comfortable and then she hits him. Usually on day three. This is after you have tried everything to make him go. Walks, swimming, Oxypowder, even in double doses. Nothing helps, because by now its in our sons head. He knows, she is there, waiting to hit him hard and painful. so he is trying to avoid pooping at all, because its painful. Of course he doesn't understand that it doesn't help, that he has to do it. Otherwise it's getting really though on him.
This for us most ugly condition named constipation came to us when our son still was a baby, just 10 months old. I remember going to our pediatrician after Nicky didn't go for a week. They kept telling me, this is OK, "Just give him prune juice" (he hated it by the way!) and he will go tomorrow. So here i where with a baby cramping, crying so hard, he was purple. I screamed with the fre@$ing doctor, that i will NOT leave this office before he hasn't helped us. So guess what, he got some gloves and took care of it. My poor baby, i spear you details. But this was the beginning of a long and endless road of constipation. I think, me and Nicky spend at least 6 weeks of our lifetime on the potty, just fighting and pushing. I tried everything, GI docs, enemas and of course medication like Mirolax. And guess what, Mirolax helped, but was that the way i wanted to treat my son. What was causing the constipation? Why was nobody asking the same questions. Till i met Pam Ferro, she was great, told me about SCD. And she said no more Mirolax. I was nervous, but after a week on the diet i felt we don't need Mirolax any longer. And she was right, Nicky went twice a day and we didn't had any more problems with constipation. Till we decided to give "only" GF/CF another try. Since then our problems started again, and i just knew we gotta stick to SCD. Even we didn't get rid of the yeast with it, the constipation part is the biggest thing, its the most important thing to take car. We know now how and we learned our lesson.
Let's go fight that yeast, it's a b&$ch herself, but we will win this fight also.
Sorry for strong words here today, this is not usally me, but sometimes (and moms of kids with autism know that) you get really angry with the world.

An Au Pair called Jurie

After it turned out i am getting a job (which endet up that i didn't because of the financial crisis the company had a hiring stop!) we decided to go with an au pair. We already had one over in the US, but it was different. She was more like a nanny, because she was from the US, talked our language and knew her way around (in the US).
This time we found a male au pair from Moldavia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldavia). We where actually not searching for a male. But it turns out with a special need child you are not as popular for young chicks from the UK or the US. Nice, huh? Everybody just wants to have fun while babysitting a bunch of kids. That's how most of the girls see it.
So i guess we had a good pick. Even i was very nervous....and just think about my husband, hehe. Having a male as an au pair also makes sense for us too. He is strong, that's a very positive aspect. Nicky tends to go the other way when you want to go this way. Within the last year it got harder and harder for me to pick him up, get him out of bed or the bathtub and so on.
Also i have to say about Moldavia, this is a very poor country in the south of the Ukraine. People go to Western Europe to find a job, get some money and some way to stay here for longer. So we thought it's good to have somebody who is more motivated to work with us.
So here he is, he arrived today after a 2 1/2 day ride (yeah roadtrip) in a minibus with 8 other people who want to try there luck here in germany. Seems like we are the golden country. He is shy, but i guess he loved the ride through munich, the german autobahns (highways). And the best: Philip loves him. He thinks it's the coolest thing to have a big playbuddy he can comand around. At least for know we let him think that.
And for Nicky, we let the two connect within the next days. I know it's always strange for everybody to meet Nicky the first time. But then they just figure, he is cute, all smiles and not so strange at all.
And for me, i have to find a job, this drives me crazy :o)

Happy 7th birthday to my sweet Nick

Tomorrow will be the day, 7 years ago, you came along. The day i was waiting for my whole life. It was hard work, the day you where born. You decided to pull the plug at 7am. After we arrived at the hospital we went from labour to active labour to almost having a C-section. It was all very tough on us. And then at 9.09 pm, you finally arrived, after 12 hours of labour. You where perfect, so little. You cried, quietly, not like your brother two years later. He was loud :o). When i was holding you the first time, you looked up to me with your big eyes. Your papa said "Hey, he looks like E.T.", because your eyes where filled with some drops they put in newborn eyes.
Here you where and i just held you and couldn't believe the luck we have. After everybody was gone i pulled your little bed right next to mine. And i just looked at you the whole night. When i fell asleep for a little while i woke up ad checked on you. I still couldn't believe you are mine. So beautiful, so perfect.

Since we brought you home you light my days. It's been a blessing that you are with us. Even in dark times when we went from doctor to doctor and finally got the diagnosis PDD-NOS, i always felt you are a special assigned task for us. Something that always waited for us. To fight for you. It's you that keeps me going every day. I can not wait till you come home every day from school. A smile by you makes my heart melt.
I hear very often what burden we got in life. NO! That is not what you are, you are special, you are the biggest cuddle-buggler ever. You love to spend the day with us, you grab our hand when you feel unsafe. You cry at night, because you would rather be with us then alone in bed :o)
You give kisses. I love you little Nicky-Noodle, Happy Birthday my sunshine!

Autism and a cold - a "not so good" combination

So it goes around, the flu in Germany. I heard every 10th has some kind of the flu or a cold right now. You just can not escape it. And so our family got it too. First me, then Wolfgang, then me again, now the kids.
And you know when kids are sick, it is always heartbreaking. They have a high fever and still want to go out in the snow to play. you give them a fever reducer and hope the temp. will not come back so high again. With Nicky it usually helps, back stays the cough though. Philip has fever very often and it makes me wonder if he has some kind of an infection in him or sensitivity for something (like food).
For the last two days we are sitting inside, both children are having fevers, cough and no appetite. With Nicky being so thin anyway (42 pds by age 7) it is always double as hard for me, when he refuses to eat. This morning i had success feeding him pancakes with applesauce on the couch, he ate four, hurray!
The other bad side is that because he is not moving for days, he tends to be constipated. So even he feels better after a few days, you have to get a grip on that problem too.
Keep your fingers crossed, that by Monday next week everybody is back to normal and we can send them both back to school and Kindergarten.