Week 5 Lesson’s from Nicky - Always Follow My Heart

Do everything your heart tells you to do, within reason because regret weights tons.

When your child has an illness with no specificlly identifiable cause or cure, it's no so easy to know what do you do? So, in my case I did what I could. On the therapy side, if there's an acronym for it, PT, OC, ABA, PRT, FT, TEACCH, RDI, DTT....we tried it!  On the medical side we've tried everything that wasn't obviously dangerous (and didn't make me feel like I was treating my child like a lab rat - which I did by the way.) and offered hope we might be able to put the puzzle together and help Nick; hyperbaric chambers, chelation, bio-med treatments, Secretin, special  diets and some things I can't even remember. Some helped a lot, some a little or for a while. I don't know how it will be for anyone else, but twelve years into our journey there is no magic bullet for Autism, at least not yet.  

All interventions are not created equal. There are people out there, even well intentioned people, taking advantage of desperate parents.  Do everything your heart tells you to do, within reason because regret weights tons. I can't go back, but I have imagined what it would be like to have all the hours we spent driving to and from labs, clinics, doctors and sitting in waiting rooms, returned to me to spend on proven interventions (http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/autism-treatment-overview).  Oh well, at least I can say for sure we tried all we could and there are no magic bullets for Autism… well at least not for my family. 

Hope: Silver bullet yet to come! If not for us, for some of you :)