AUTnotISM

Autism is an adventure, a journey, a quest. It is a quest for answers, for peace, for justice and for solutions. I am one of the lucky ones. You see, I was born on January 11th, which makes me a Capricorn. Okay, I feel some of you rolling your eyes already, but being a Capricorn has been a tremendous asset. Capricorns by their nature (for the most part) are studious, industrious, hardworking and very importantly, curious and for better or worse, stubborn.  Curiosity when you have a kid with Autism, or any kid for that matter, is an incredible gift. Without it, the first line of this blog might have read ‘nightmare’, but, my capricornian self, feels an unyielding desire to discover the inner workings of this beautiful child that is my son. So many questions arise from every day situations that other people simply don’t have to think about! Why does he walk on his toes? Why does he only eat brown food? Why does he make funny noises?  Why does he flick his fingers and roll paper into coils? Why doesn’t he like it when I sing? Okay, okay, so as far as that last one goes, he ain’t the only one, but I’m not that bad, although my ‘Lady Gaga’ could use a bit of a tune up. That aside, the answer to all of these odd questions deserve more than a one word answer. Autism should not be the answer, but the question, don’t you think? If you’ve read this far, then you possibly agree. I guess before I venture any further, the polite thing to do would be to give you some back ground on my humble self. There are many of us ‘mother warriors’ out there, and I am just another, except that I am me.

My name is Kathryn, but my friends call me Kitty. I am almost 44, and I work as an aide in a wonderful special school. I am married with two kids and a puddy tat. My fave colour is red, and I have a kooky condition called synesthesia, which means for me, that I hear songs in colour. Now down to the nitty gritty. In 2003, I had a beautiful baby boy.  We called him Fraser, which was the boy’s name we had picked since our Eloise was  born almost 2 years earlier.  From day one, something wasn’t right.  The poor little man cried ALL the time, he came out in a rash on his face, that was eventually diagnosed as eczema (even though doctors said it wasn’t possible in such a young baby). He had psoriasis around his penis (also not possible apparently). He had terrible, smelly wind (unusual for a breast fed baby), he hardly slept and just seemed uncomfortable all of the time. As I write this,  I wish I could go back. Now that I know what I know, I could help him so much, but alas, we can only move forward.  This is where being a Capricorn starts to pay off. I came to the conclusion, as I had done when Eloise went through a short stage of inexplicable crying, that baby animals don’t cry for no reason, or whimper, or whatever they do. But think about it…do baby animals have skin issues, or digestive issues, or get distressed for no apparent reason? No, they don’t! So why would a human baby (humans being a species of animal) behave in such a way? The answer is simple. Without a good reason they wouldn’t. So I set about trying to discover why he had all of these issues.  He was very, very loved and nurtured, so that ruled that out. He was warm and dry, so no clues there, he had milk at his disposal 24 hours a day. So what was it?  The quantity of milk was not an issue, but what about the milk itself…aha! After months of trial and error removing all of the usual suspects (peas, oranges, chocolate), I cut out all sugar and gluten and voila! A baby that, after 6 months, slept his first 5 hours straight! It was a miracle! I kept checking his breathing to make sure he was alive!

Within this time frame, something else happened…we went to the zoo. ‘Cool’! I hear you say, and yes it was indeed cool until we hit the elephant enclosure. You would assume, that a five month old baby boy would be excited to see a huge grey elephant for the first time in his life. His sister was at that age! She toured the whole zoo with her eyes bulging and a permanent smile on her face.  Young Fraser though, took no notice of the this enormous majestic creature hosing himself down with his trunk, just metres away. I watched and waited for him to notice, but instead I noticed something else. Goosebumps. I felt them on the back of my neck and my arms as I slowly and subtly realised that something wasn’t right.

I will leave this post here for now, as I could go on and on. Needless to say, I have a son with Autism, and as it turns out, intellectual disability as well. I have been down many roads on my search for answers and I want to share them. Some things have worked, and many haven’t,  And they’re all worth sharing.  I will finish as I started…Autism, ought not to exist as with many other ‘modern conditions’. Together, we can at least take some steps further. In my future posts, I will tell you about my experiences with PANDAS (not the zoo this time), p5p, kinesiology, homeopathy, synesthesia, Dr Seuss’s Horton the elephant and my personal fave, histamine. Until then, I will leave you with a line from the incredible Stevie Wonder…’when you’re movin’ in the positive, your destination is the brightest star’.

Kitty. xx