Lucas is our only child. He is a beautiful and sweet boy and is now 3 years old.
Lucas was a super happy and easy going baby. He didn’t have any colic problems, always slept well and was basically content and smiley most of the time. He started crawling when he was 10 months and walked by the time he was 13 months. He seemed to be achieving all his milestones within normal age.
It took a long time for him to start using language though. We were sure that this delay was a result of his being raised in a bilingual environment (Norwegian and Portuguese).When he was 16 months he started using a few words. He would also say simple stuff like ‘hi’, bye-bye’, mama and dad. He would point at things in books and people on pictures and say ‘grandma’ and ‘granddad’. We really felt like we were blessed for having such a wonderful baby.
When he was about 18 months old, like it happens to many autistic child, Lucas started regressing. He stopped using all the words that he had and he lost interest in the other kids and adults in his daycare. His eye contact was reduced to almost none, and he would even go through much trouble just to avoid looking in our eyes. He started babbling, screeching and making lots of strange sounds. Additionally, he began to show an unusual interest in spinning things, like wheels in a car toy and bike pedals. Shortly after these developments, the teachers in his daycare spoke to us about their concern. We refused to believe there was anything wrong with our boy. However, weeks and months went by and Lucas was still regressing. We were forced to face that situation when we noticed loss of affection. We would come to pick him up at his daycare, and he wouldn’t even look up to see that we were there. He was always circuiting the room, babbling and humming. It seemed like our presence did not make a difference for him.
After researching a lot about autism on the internet, we realized that many symptoms were there. Our boy was autistic. We went through all the so called 5 stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Well, we never really got to the last one, acceptance.
We have come to accept and love our son just the way he is, that means autistic. However, we have not and will never accept that his autism is a lifelong condition. There are thousands of children worldwide recovering from autism, and there is no reason for us to believe that Lucas cannot be one of them.
We can not count how many times we have heard people and medical professionals telling us that autism does not have a cure. We refuse to believe this. Just like so many parents have done before us, we will leave no stone unturned. We will try everything. We will spend our lives looking for the answer. But make no mistake: we have not stopped living our lives to pursue this path. In fact, we have just begun living our lives and are full of joy and excitement everyday. We love and accept Lucas just the way he is and do not hate his autism, but we believe he deserves every chance to try and come to our world.
No one needs to caution us about getting heartbroken, disappointed or frustrated if we don’t achieve our goal. We can handle ourselves! All we know is that we will never stop trying, no matter how long it’ll take. We also know that we don’t want anyone’s pity. What we need is people’s help! So ‘gosh, poor you’, or ‘how terrible’ are not things we are interested in hearing. ‘How can I help’ though, is the best thing one can say to us right now.
Today we feel so lucky to have our baby, just like we felt before he was diagnosed. We own that to the Autism Treatment Center of America, home to the Son-Rise Program! This program and its philosophy have changed our lives forever. We are truly blessed for having found about it when Lucas was only 2 years old and way before his diagnose. That protected us from the general pessimism among many parents and horrible prognosis that usually follow an autism diagnosis. Because of the Son-Rise program, we know that no one has the right to decide today what our child will never be or do.
Right now (May 2011), after 6 months of dietary intervention, 2 months of biomedical treatment and 8 weeks into our Son-Rise program, we have already seen amazing results. Lucas is today more affectionate and happy than he ever was. He has an awesome vocabulary of about 120 words and has been using many of them actively to get his needs met. We hear one or two new words almost every day. Often he will voluntarily say words in Portuguese in appropriate situations, even thought he hasn’t been exposed to this language for about 6 months. His eye contact is off the charts. He loves going in his playroom and has a great time there with us and his volunteers. He is still has lots of repetitive and exclusive behaviors, but a lot less than before.
We are so happy we are already on our way to recovery! We will get through to you, Lucas!
Son-Rise recovery videos: