"AUTISM SPEAKS" IS LIGHTING IT ALL UP BLUE
Don't you just love the month of April? Spring is in the air. Flowers are starting to bloom. Trees are losing their bare winter limbs being replaced by lush green leaves. Kids are out riding their bikes, playing catch, doing kid things and just being kids. Neighbors are out walking their dogs or working in their yards. There's a sense of renewed life and hope swirling around the air. Ahhh, don't you just love April? *screeeeeech* Wait a minute. . REWIND. . .bloody hell, this is not my reality! I HATE the month of April. . .everything is soooooo BLUE in my reality!
BLUE Empire State building ~ BLUE Qingdao TV Towers in China ~ BLUE Niagra Falls in Canada ~ BLUE Christ the Reedeamer in Rio ~ BLUE Table Mountain, South Africa ~ BLUE The Palace of Fine Arts - Mexico City, Mexico ~ BLUE The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge - Japan ~ BLUE Sydney Opera House - Sydney, Australia ~ BLUE Palace of Culture and Science - Warsaw, Poland ~ Even the Great Pyramids in Giza, Egypt are freakin' . . . BLUE!Oh, then we have blue light bulbs, blue shirts, blue Coleman Lanterns, blue milkshakes (yuck), blue decorations for our houses. . BLUE, BLUE, BLUE. . EVERYTHING IS SOOOOO BLUE!
When we first moved to the sunny south from Massachusetts, when Mitri was around 2 & 1/2 yrs. old, we just loved the fact that come the 1st day of Spring everything was blooming like crazy. The grass was green, the black racer snakes were slithering about, (okay, I didn't like that so much), the Crape Myrtle trees were on their way to bloomin' like nobody's business. And the kids, well, they were all starting baseball, bike riding, golfing, swimming, and totally enjoying the 80-85 degree weather. Paradise! Simply paradise! No blue in our lives!
The "Light It Up Blue" campagin of Autism Speaks has been going on for 6 years now and I often wondered why the color blue? What the hell does the color blue have to do with autism? Why not red? Or Yellow? Green or Pink? How about purple or black? I think, those of you who live with autism 24/7, would agree with me that one color does not quite capture the many facets of our autistic lives.
In our house, it’s a “BLUE” day when Mitri has a meltdown. . . screaming at the top of his lungs, smashing everthing within his reach, hurting Mommy with a big old fat BLUE bruise!
A “RED” day when I’ve had enough! When mommy is overworked from her daily duties: dishes, laundry, homeschooling, playing occupational therapist, speech therapist, behavioral therapist, cooking three different dietary meals, balancing check books for our business and home, appointment scheduler, seamstress for the clothes that don’t fit our sensory sensitive kid, and yada, yada, yada.
GREEN . . . .a perfect color for when the “GREEN-EYE-MONSTER” hits because all your friends (or use to be friends, but that’s a whole other post) are going out to dinner with their husbands on a weekly basis, getting mani-pedi’s, lunch and shopping with the girls and you can’t because, well, there’s no room in your life for such trivialities and you don’t have the money because it’s being spent on important things like DAN doctors, supplements, therapies, building a home therapy gym and all the paraphernalia that goes along with that, special dietary foods that cost three times more than supermarket brands, non-toxic household cleaners, air purifiers, natural, sulfate & paraben free toiletries, & last but not least special educational teaching materials because there’s no school choice or tax breaks for home schoolers.
YELLOW. Oh, warm, sunny yellow for those days when happiness and hope snuggles our entire being because Mitri has made even the tiniest of improvements and is not screaming at the top his lungs because he's in pain and can't tell us.
Here's a little history on the significance of the multi-colored puzzle piece that has come to be known around the world as the symbol of Autism Awareness: The puzzle piece logo was first created in 1963 by the National Autistic Society. They explain “The puzzle piece is so effective because it tells us something about autism: our children are handicapped by a puzzling condition; this isolates them from normal human contact and therefore they do not ‘fit in’.” Since then, the interlocking, mutli-colored puzzle piece has become the international symbol of autism. Its significance has become multi-faceted. For some it represents the mystery and complexity of the disorder, for others it represents the mechanical nature of an autistics persons thought process. The bright colors are said to represent hope.
Ouch. . now ain't that a slap in the face to those of us who know different and are currently raising children who regressed into autism after vaccinations. Even the co-founders Bob and Suzanne Wright of Autism Speaks watched as their grandson regressed into autism: On NBC’s Today Show and MSNBC on Feb. 25, 2005 Wright explained how he and his wife “watched helplessly” as their grandson, an apparently normal toddler, rapidly deteriorated and lost his ability to interact with the outside world. “Suzanne likens it to a kidnapping, as if someone had taken away the life he was meant to live,” Wright said. Even on Autism Speaks web page under the "About" section it states that they are ": . . .dedicated to funding research into the causes, prevention, treatments and a cure for autism. . ." (http://www.autismspeaks.org/about-us)
Let's pick the above statement apart just a little (indulge me here a minute):
DEDICATED TO FUNDING RESEARCH INTO:
1. the CAUSES,
(Plural, which means there are many - we've seen the genetic studies AS, where's vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children study. . you know apples to apples studies)
2. PREVENTION,
(Prevention means "the act of preventing or hindering". In this case autism. Where's your prevention treatment AS? Early intervention? Better diagnosis? Look how well that's turned out. Check your stats on the rising number of autistic children. Try again please!)
3. TREATMENTS,
(Oh, this a blog post or a book in and of itself! Let's see, you've got the therapies covered: SP, OT, PT, and ABA. But wait. . . a lot of insurance companies don't cover these treatments, nor are all these treatments available in every area, especially rural areas. Are y'all workin' on that? How about the non-traditional treatments that HAVE helped so many of our children? You know the one's that the Mainstream Medical Profession calls "QUACKERY": biomedical treatments, hyperbaric oxygen treatments, M-B12 treatments, natural supplments and better nutrition including GFCF diets, Specific Carbohydrate diet, no GMO's etc. Yeah. . .I don't see y'all booking these families for stories about how these treatments have helped!)
4. and a CURE for autism.
(Naaahhh. . .not going here.)
Listen, all you "nay-sayers" and Face Book "un-likers", I'm truly not saying that AS doesn't do anything for our community. What I am saying is that their focus "AWARENESS" is not in keeping with their statements on what they are dedicated to. They need to widen their horizens, get out from under the CDC and pharaceutical companies umbrella and take a damn leap of faith and do some studies, listening, very closely I might add, to what so many of us have experienced - VACCINE INDUCED REGRESSIVE AUTISM. It's not a dirty word for gosh-darn sake!
WAKE UP PEOPLE! The ANSWERS have been right in front of your face for a decade now! IT'S ACTION TIME NOW!
I am just so, SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY DISAPPOINTED with the most funded and highly recognizable autism organization in the world for their lack of due diligence concerning vaccine induced regressive autism studies. As I sit here pouring my heart and soul out to perfect strangers (and risking my FB likes decreasing, which BTW, so be it if that happens after this post, my darling husband and I didn't start the page up to win any popularity contests, but instead to help, counsel and give hope to those coming up the autism ranks behind us), my mild manner husband is embroiled in a Tet-a-Tet with perfect strangers too regarding the even newer news that the CDC has put out AGAIN that VACCINES DON'T CAUSE AUTISM. Moreover, I find it ABSOLUTELY APPALLING that AUTISM SPEAKS backs the CDC without even conducting their own an apples-to-apples study on this subject. REALLY. . .AUTISM SPEAKS! You, who started your organization as a result of a vaccine-induced regressive autistic grandchild, how hypocritical can y'all be!
Okay, so by now you've probably picked up on the fact that I typically never run the streets of Mainstream USA. I'm a rebel, plain and simple. I won't appologize for that. It's done me well, these many years. I don't like injustice, especially when it comes to children. I don't like government or large organizations telling us what to do with regard to our children, our lives, etc. AND, I especially don't like being lied to by the very government & organizations that are sworn to protect us and our personal liberties. AND YES, a life of autism for my child is a DEFINITE infringement on his personal liberty. Will our son be able to get a driver's licence at 16 like his neuro-typical peers? Probably not. Will he be physical and mentally capable of going to college? Don't know, time will tell. Will he be able to hold a job? Again, don't know. Will he marry & raise children of his own? Again, don't know. Now, I know these things are not definite yeses for our son's neuro-typical peers, but they have a better shot at it than our son does. And the kicker is, in my opinion, this could have all been avoided for my son and the millions of children around the world who suffered from vaccine-induced regressive autism IF there were equal parts ACTION and AWARENESS thirteen years ago.
SO, BACK TO THE BEGINNING . . . April is still coming, Autism Speaks will still light the world up blue, the CDC will still be touting that vaccines don't cause autism, money will still be wasted on frivious studies and the autism rate will continue to rise, news outlets will continue reporting what MAINSTREAM tells them to (yea, this includes you too Fox News. . .we're so fair & balanced), and the ridiculousness of it all will go on and on and on, all while millions of autisic families are struggling daily taking care of their children that can't take care of themselves, working 24/7 to pay for their care, and hoping their child will have as happy and as productive a life as their non-austistic peers.
Me? How am I'm going to cope with APRIL - VACCINES DON'T CAUSE AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH? I will be taking a break from all the BS! (No news watching, only another go-around of Alias and some music listening) I'm going to watch our son and his new friends have fun at their baseball games (yes, I'll be posting pictures ad naseum). I'm going to read outrageous supernatural, paranormal, werewolf, vampire good vs. evil books on my Kindle and of course rooting for the good guys (oh yes, something that takes me far, far away). I'll also be enjoying some Orthodox Lenten & Bible readings for our Pascha season and teaching our son about it all. I might even get my husband to take me out on a date! Lucky too? We shall see. . .LOL! I'm going to play, play, play with my boy in our garage therapy gym doing. . .well, sensory therapy stuff, of course!. And lastly, there is one thing I'm going to do, that I've been wanting to do for years now during the month of April. . . RAISE MONEY FOR AUTISIC FAMILIES. What better way is there to spend Autism Awareness Month than to try to provide hope and help for those 1 in 50 children and their families! I can't think of anything better to combat those April Blues, can you?
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