All this for $4 Bucks!

So, today I decided it was time to get the van washed. After breakfast and play for awhile, I got the boys all dressed and put in them in the car.

Now I didn't have quit enough for a real inside outside car wash, but I did have enough for the one you just drive through. I have taken Matthias with me to get the car washed many times and normally he'll just sit there and stem and be totally oblivious to what is going on around him.

This is what he typically is doing, not even aware of anything else going on.

But today, to my pleasant suprise, THIS is what he was doing :

He was paying attention to his surroundings!!! AND pointing out and asking every question he could think of!!!

"Mommy look, its blue and yellow and green"

"Mommy look at the water"

"What is it doing now mommy?"

"Can we do it again?"

As we drove home from the carwash, he continued on his visually awareness day. Look, mommy, look! PIGEONS!! (even though I dislike them) I was just as excited as he was that he pointed them out to me and told me how they have wings and can fly mommy!! Then at the next stop light he says"Mommy, look at the ducks, their swimming in the water" "I like ducks Mommy" I sat there in amazement. WHAT in the heck is going on here!!! My son is consistantly verbally interacting with me!!! This is a HUGE, HUGE thing for Matthias!!! These Methyl B12 shots are helping him so much!!!!!

Of course(as you can tell already) I was simply elated by this and took many many pictures (the boys get so tired of the camera in their face, but I love it!!) Now even though Matthias had a blast at the car wash, Gabriel, well he was NOT so excited about the carwash experience, see what he was doing.....

Although this was at the end, so maybe he was just tired of sitting still for so long :)

All in all it was a great day for a carwash, and all this for $4 bucks!!!!

Gotta love it!

Much love

Lisa

HOPE

You'll notice I have changed my Title of my blog from Our Journey thorugh Autism, to Our Journey of Hope Through Autism. Why have I changed the name, well to be honesty? This past month has given me a New Hope I have never had for Matthias, more than I have ever had for him in the past three years!!!! and in my posts I want to continue to share that Hope that I have for him on the journey of autism. God has given me a new out look on it, and even though we have our hard days and have struggles, I still have hope that my Savior is working a miracle in Matthias life!!! Thank you Lord for what you are doing in Matthias life and for showing me the wonder of Gabriels life, and giving me the gift of seeing him reach every developmental milestone, and thank you for always showing me the wonderful gift of Keanes life!

To explain how I feel right now about how grateful I am to God for doing what He is doing and has done for Matthias and Gabriel, listen to the song I have on my page called " All my Praise" by Selah

I will follow you through green pastures and sing hallelujah to your name
I will follow you thourgh dark disaster and sing hallelujah through the pain

Even in the shadow of death I will praise you
Even in the valley I will say

Holy, my God, You are worthy of all my praise
Holy, my God, You are worthy of all my praise

You are sitting on Your throne in heaven and You see all of us down here
You have promised You will not abandon so I shall not fear

And even in the shadow of death I will praise You
And even in the valleys I will say

Holy, my God You are worthy of all my praise
Holy, my God You are worthy of all my praise

You made every star and You taught it how to shine
You knew my name before there was time
Well this was just part of your glorious design

Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Holy, my God You are worthy of all my Praise
Holy, my God You are worthy of all my Praise


This truly is my heart, and although things can be hard, I am reminded to cling to this everyday!

Much Love
Lisa

What a nite!

I have to say I am very excited to see how many have contributed to Matthias Lend4Health fund! Thank you everyone who has helped, it means more than the world to me! There's a link on my page where you can see his profile and see all of the wonderful people who contributed to Matthias and all the other children who have benefited from this wonderful organization.

Now on to the updates!

Sleeping, well...its been a struggle. Mostly Matthias will sleep until about 3 or 4am and then he decides its a good time to sit in his room and play. I am grateful though, that he doesn't cause any trouble or try to get up and roam about. He just sits in his bed and plays and sings to himself. Typically this is how my nite goes....

Go to sleep around 11pm or 12am, Littleman wakes up around 1am needs a diaper change, go back to sleep, then at 3am I am awakened to Handsome singing " I like to move it, move it, U Like to move it move, you got to MOVE IT" and " All hail the New York Giants!"(side note, he does this all day long, what they call Echolalia) LOL I just try to roll over and go back to sleep. This usually goes on until he falls back to sleep at 5am, then 6:30am comes and its time to get up for school!

So after my eventful night I am a bit tired today. I am still seeing the same progress I have mentioned before and lots of unprompted verbal exchanges between Matthias and I. I am very excited to see what this month will bring! I hope you all continue to follow us on our New Journey of Hope!

Much Love,

Lisa

QUICK UPDATE

***Update to the update :) lol Just spoke to the doctor and they want me to give him Liquid Senna once a day for the next three days and after that nothing. Just wait a few days to see how he is doing and come in to see them. So, I am going to use the liquid Senna and then after he is cleaned out, put him on the vitamin C like his DAN doctor suggested.

Just spoke to the Gastro Doctors office, and Thank you God he is NOT severelly impacted! Of course I suppose it helped that after almost 5 days yesterday he pooped right before we left! She did say he does have a small amount left in there that needs to be removed. So this was the doctors prescription :) I did get a good laugh out of this :) They wanted me to use a pediatrics fleets enema!!! That is a funny joke! Right.... like Matthias is going to let me anywhere near his bottom!!! I literally wanted to start laughing out loud on the phone with her but I chose not too :)


So I politely asked her to speak with the Doctor to find another way, like Mag Citrate something of that kind :) So she will call me back later today with another way to clean him out.

But in the long run its still good news!!! Thank you Jesus! And Thank you to all of you who prayed for us!

Much Love
Lisa

Buzz Light Year

So today was an okay day, as I was telling you yesterday we went in to get Matthias xray to see how impacted he is. This is how the morning went for us...

Woke up at 7am, watched cartoons, ate breakfast, left to go to Phoenix Children's Hospital, the second I drove into the parking lot he started to cry. Unfortunately Matthias knows PCH all to well. So he pretty much cried the whole entire 2 1/2 hours it took us before the actual xray was done. It wasn't anything I couldn't handle thankfully :) I am very grateful for all the prayers that went out for Matthias! Thank you for praying for us!

Unfortunately we will not find out the results until tomorrow. Once the doctors office calls me and tells how bad it is or isn't I am going to discuss with them the whole issue I have with Miralax. I no longer feel comfortable leaving him on Miralax 2-3 times a day everyday! Sooner or later his body is going to be resistant to it, not to mention I have NO clue how it is truly affecting him physically. Its obviously not doing what it should be doing, he has been going through this constipation issue for the past 4-5 months!!!

I did a little research with some friends on my email groups and on my favorite blogs and I talked with his DAN doctor today. So what I have concluded is, I would like to try him on Magnesium Citrate to clean him out, if we get to do this from home :), then start him on a daily dosage of vitamin C 2000-3000 mg a day and fiber sure. We'll see what his Gastro doctor thinks about it. I have this feeling they are not going to like it very much, but I am praying they will be willing to work with me on it.

Oh ya, you were probably wondering why I titled my blog that :) well see this picture....he was insistant about lining his action figure guys all up today, over and over and over again :) OH the JOYS of autism :) Look at how perfect they are? They all are standing the same way, except Buzz cause he will only stand up one way, and do you know how difficult it is to get that Buzz Lightyear to stand up on his own like that?? I have a hard time getting him to stand up on his own! Pretty amazing some of the things he can do :) I like this picture so much I have decided to add this wonderful trait of handsomes to my blog title :) Seems fitting don't you think?

Much Love,

Lisa

Up.... then down again

Yesterday was an amazing day for Matthias as you can see by my previous post. He has made HUGE gains in certain areas and I am so grateful for all of them!

But today, well his poor tummy is taking a turn backwards again :(. The past 4-5 months we have been struggling with his stools(see previous post on the poops). First its diarrhea, then he is constipated. The constipation is the worst because he just feels so miserable and he gets this glazed look over his eyes and he stares into space until he is able to pass it, and that sometimes can take up to 4-5 days. This roller coaster of autism just never stops surprising me. I feel so badly for my son, it hurts me to see how much pain he is in, and to see that he has learned to live with pain. Rarely does he ever even say to me, my tummy hurts or I don't feel good. I think in his 5 years of life I have heard him say that to me two times. No child should ever have to live with the pain he is in constantly.

So, tomorrow morning I am taking him in to Phoenix Children's to get an xray to see how impacted he is. If its as bad as the doctor thinks it is, he will have to be admitted to solve the problem. We are praying that it is not that bad, and that it can be handled here at home with a new regimen of his Miralax dose.

I have to say, its difficult for any child to get an xray. But for Matthias, well its even MORE difficult! His whole life, he has been in and out of doctors offices, ER's, urgent cares for one reason or another and he is petrified of them now. So I am praying, and having others pray that things will go smoothly for us tomorrow morning. Will you pray for us too :)

Either way it goes I know God has it all under control.

Much Love!

Lisa

BLOWN AWAY!!!

See this picture here, the one on the red sheet of paper, the one I am proudly hanging on our bulletin board with all his other pictures. Well there is something extra special about this picture. Why? You may ask? Well let me tell you :)

Matthias had OT today, with his new therapist Ms.Nicole. We went into the beautiful facility and into his special room she had set up for him and she worked on all kinds of fine motor skills and texture stuff, and then she sat him down to draw a picture of the Elephant he was so interested in. At first he was very reluctant as usual, so she drew the head, eyes, nose and mouth. Then she asked him to point to were his ears should go and he pointed and then she gave him a marker to draw and GUESS WHAT!! HE DID IT, ALL BY HIMSELF!! He has NEVER EVER done that. I was so excited, I started to cry. He did the same thing with drawing the hands too!!! I am so proud of him!!!!!

Like always say, the little things are so HUGE!!! More progress made by little handsome!

Much Love from a very proud Momma :)

Lisa

I wish.....

First I have to say this beautiful picture is provided by a wonderful ministry called To Write their names in the sand. I have their link on my side bar.

So I have been following a wonderful blog for a little baby named April Rose and her wonderful mother. I was so moved by her story when I first read it because she is in the same place I was in life with my first born son Keane. An unmarried Christian girl pregnant and with an unknown expectancy of her little babys life in the balance.

She has gone through the same emotions as I did and has been able to write so eloquently about them, so I wanted to share with you her blog site. Please take a moment and read her wonderful blog posts, and take to heart what she says about the miracle she is experiencing in her life.

It truly is worth the read. http://littleoneapril.blogspot.com/

I wish I would have had the opportunity she has had to be able to tell my church family what I was going through. I wish I would have been given the chance to be accepted for who I was and been helped with what I was going through. It makes me wonder if I had been given that chance maybe things would have been different in my life? But then again, if they were different I wouldn't be who I am today. Its very hard to be a Christian in our society, let alone a single christian woman and pregnant. People just aren't sure what to make of you. At first I was so hurt by what was going on. I couldn't figure out why the same people who I loved so much and shared so much with couldn't reach out to me. I was still the same woman I was before, I had just sinned like everyone else, the only difference was my sin was noticable.



Today in all honestly I really don't blame anyone, I'm no longer hurt by it. It's just a lesson we all had to learn. God took that moment in my life to bring me to Him for my answers.

Even though I wasn't given those chances I am just glad the Lord gave me the chance to work through my experiences with Him. Because of that moment in my life, God truly showed me what it meant to love others unconditionally, to accept others for who they are and love them right where they are at.



In the end my church family and friends were there when I needed them most. They visited me before I gave birth to my son and prayed for me. They held my hand and cried with me. They told me how much they loved me and my son. They planned my sons funeral for me, they brought food for my family, they held my hand when I said goodbye to my son and played beautiful music for him. They were there just like they always were. Sometimes we expect things to go a certain way in life, and God see's it diffently. He had them there, just when I needed them the most.(

).

I am forever grateful for everything I have learned from my sons short lived life. It prepared me for the joys and struggles I experience today. If it wasn't for Keane, and the life lessons I have learned from his life, I wouldn't be who I am today and for that I am eternally grateful!

Much Love,

Lisa

Sunday

Today was a day where we just sat and didn't do much of anything. Mommy had a bad headache all day, so as much as I hate this idea, I let Matthias do what he wanted to do all day long. No... I do NOT normally let him watch movies all day long and ignore us, but today, Mommy felt awful so I did. He actually was a really good boy and I was grateful for it. Thankfully tonight I am feeling a little better and we read lots of books before bedtime so we made up for it a little bit.

Tomorrow is Matthias' first day at his new OT office, please pray that she can handle him. Believe it or not I have come across MANY who can not control him or work with his sensory problems, so I am a little hesitant about tomorrow.

Here's to a much better day tomorrow and a blessed week ahead!

Much Love

Lisa