Forced Vaccination or Food for Your Children

I find it appalling that government aid would be withheld from families and, more importantly children, in order to FORCE parents to vaccinate children.  This was a study done in Georgia where families were threatened with the loss of their Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) unless the families could show up-to-date vaccinations of the children.  In the summary of the study I could see and I am not sure if any families were actually denied aid but the summary does say the families where threatened with the loss of aid.

I understand and I think most children should be vaccinated.  I do NOT agree with the current vaccination schedule by the CDC because I think it is too aggressive.  Especially for children under the age of two.  The government should not force families, who are in dire need of money and support, to vaccinate their children.  This is more than just a debate on vaccinations and if a child should be vaccinated or not but about parental rights.  That PARENTS and not the government should be making decisions for their children when it comes to vaccinations.

My Ideas Are Not Up For Debate!

I know in the arena of Autism and Vaccination I am not part of the norm.  I have my ideas on the subject and you do not have to share my opinion.  If you do not share my opinion you can state so in the comments below ONCE and then after that it gets excessive.  I do NOT want to argue.  If you disagree you are always welcome to start your own blog and state your own opinion.  :)

Chantai Snellgrove had a wonderful idea!  She developed a Cheat Sheet for her child.  The idea of the Cheat Sheet is to give a quick and concise way for teachers (and I think caregivers too) to learn about her child and their diagnosis.  What a GREAT idea!!!  I am planning on filling one out for each of my children so I can have a quick reference sheet for all the other people in my kiddos lives.

The National Autism Association (NAA) has something called the Big Red Box. The Big Red Box is meant for autistic children who elope or wander.  Margaret is prone to this and she has scared me several times.  The kit normally sells for $35 but occasionally the NAA gets a grant and can offer the Boxes for little to no cost.  The kit comes with:

1) Educational materials and tools

          -  A caregiver checklist           -  A Family Wandering Emergency Plan
          -  A first-responder profile form           -  A wandering-prevention brochure          -  A sample IEP Letter

2) Two (2) Door/Window Alarms with batteries

3) One (1) RoadID Personalized, Engraved Shoe ID Tag*

4) Five (5) Laminated Adhesive Stop Sign Visual Prompts for doors and windows

5) Two (2) Safety Alert Window Clings for car or home windows

6) One (1) Red Safety Alert Wristband

*You will receive instructions to submit a custom personalization order online at roadid.com. Your tag will be quickly engraved with your emergency information and mailed to you at no charge.    

This kit is a MUST have if you have a child that wanders.  One the same topic of keeping an autistic wanderer safe I was also checking into ID bracelets and other identifiers.  Margaret does NOT like have barrettes  bracelets, necklaces, or anything else on.  It just drives her nuts...lol

My Precious Kid makes a variety of products for ID purpose.  They have velcro bracelets that I think Margaret would have a hard time getting off.  She has weak hand strength.  In addition to the bracelets though they have dog tags (might could sneak that on her), charms for necklaces (allergies) and shoe ID tags.  I think the shoe ID tag would be the most successful with Margaret.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has some really great tools.  One is a tool where you can see what additives are in the vaccine itself before you decide to vaccinate.  Another tool is a vaccine ingredient calculator.  This is a neat tool and you can see if the additive in the vaccine.  The calculator will determine how much, if any, the additive in the vaccine exceeds safety standards for the person you are making the calculations using the weight of the individual.  There is a lot more information available and the site is well worth investigating.

A small study (Gehan A Mostafa and Laila Y AL-Ayadhi Reduced serum concentrations of 25-hydroxy vitamin D in children with autism: Relation to autoimmunity. Journal of Neuroinflammation 2012, 9:201 doi:10.1186/1742-2094-9-201 Published: 17 August 2012)   recently stated autistic children tend to have a low level of vitamin D in their body and a high level of antibiotics.  With the small population sample one could not call this study conclusive but it is worth thinking about and if you have an autistic child in your life I would suggest getting their vitamin D levels checked.  

I have several friends that deal with PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus) and have had a tough road to finding a diagnosis.  In an article written by Lori Parrish (
PANDAS and Autism Spectrum | Questioning Special Needs Diagnoses) does a wonderful job talking about this disease.  I think I am sadly in the majority when I said I had never heard of such a thing.  I hope to get the word out to others.  It is SO tough when you feel as though you have lost your child yet you do not know what is going on.  When you push and fight to find out people (doctors, nurses, educators, friends, and even your spouse) can turn on you and look at you like you are crazy.  All I can say is stay the course!  As the parent your instinct is often right!

One bit of homeschooling advice.  If you are looking for a site that will generate additional math worksheets for practice then Math Worksheet Site.com is a great place to turn for some FREE (LOVE that word) help.
                                               

Visit to New Pediatrician

This is not a good start when we have been sitting in the back office now at least 40m and it is now 6 pm. Our appointment was at 4:30pm.


I was trying to post from my phone. The above post is only part of a what I wrote. Our old pediatrician has changed practices and the new practice does not accept our insurance. I am SOOOOO bummed but I had to start looking for another pediatrician. Since I don't really know anyone here with small children that are disabled and are not vaccinating their children it is hard for me to get a referral....lol.

Also, before anyone even tries to flame me about not vaccinating my children I have looked into it. They have all had some of their vaccinations. Once we moved I fell behind. Now the children are behind in vaccinations and with Joseph's health problems I have decided I was no longer going to vaccinate him until I knew better what was going on. The other two children I will vaccinate but I will not give them more than one shot at a time. The more I learned about vaccinations the more I think the schedule they advise doctors to vaccinate children is ludicrous. If you want to know why I think that please just ask I and I will send you some information.

OK, so back to finding a pediatrician. Since I did not know what else to do I decided to look on Yelp! I mean, why not? Many doctors in Las Vegas are not even listed on Yelp! I think this is a shame and I do make sure I write reviews for the specialists we see. There were a couple of pediatricians that had positive reviews so I looked them up. I picked Dr. Robertson. So I made an appointment. It was for June 11th at 4:30pm. The doctor's office is on the other side of town from me. I am NOT familiar with the area at all. With my Garmin dead I am SO LOST! LOL

Luckily, I made it there, got the children out of the car and into the wagon along with the bag of binders holding everyone's medical information. My computer and the print have not been talking to each other since we moved so I had to hand wrote out the list of doctors Joseph sees and my questions for the new doctor. I am a terror with doctors and I can't say I really apologetic over it either. My old pediatrician was GREAT! He was the coordinator of all care for Joseph. Trust me when I say that is a LOT to ask of a doctor...lol. When I had even set this appointment the receptionist asked why we were coming and I said it was to check the doctor out and to explain Joseph's complex medical history. The receptionist chuckled and I know she did not believe that Joseph's medical history takes an ENTIRE appointment just to explain everything. LOL

So I get there at 4:30pm because I had a hard time finding the place. Once I get there the office is full. The office staff was nice enough. I got the paperwork and I started to fill it all out. I get it filled in and turned back to the staff. At 5:05pm we were called into the back and put into a room. The room was cute at least, it was done in a Disney Cars motif, but I was surprised there were NO covers over the outlets. I had to tell Margaret four times not to put her fingers into the socket.

At 6:15pm the Dr. Robertson finally entered the room. I appreciated that the FIRST words out of his mouth was to apologize for the wait. That was nice. Then He looked at the list of doctors Joseph has seen since we have been in Vegas. He looked at me and asked if I saw all of them and I said yes but we do not see all of them on a regular basis. He looked at me and said, "I am SO sorry! You are VERY busy!" ROFL! NEVER had a doctor say that! Then we started talking. He asked why I was there. I told him our old pediatrician had changed practices, he knows who our old pediatrician is, and we have to find someone who takes our insurance. He looks at my list of questions and says, "I am a man, if a list is more than 2 items long I can't read it." ROFL! He asks me to tell him what is most important. I tell him I need a referral to a feeding specialist for Joseph. At 4.5 Joseph can only eat baby food, tiny star pasta, oatmeal and eggs. He drinks from a bottle and has NO idea what to do with a straw if you put it in his mouth. In the last two years his weight has not really changed even though he has grown 2 inches. He weights about 25.5 lbs. He wears a 2T shirt and a 12m to 18m pants in the waist. He is SO small!

I also told the doctor that I wanted to take Joseph to a GI doctor and I explained that we were going to see a geneticist the next day. I said we were seeing about getting Joseph a muscle biopsy to check for mitochondrial diseases. He asked why were we thinking this and I said he had some bloodwork that was off in the very long chain fatty acids. He said, "Is it a metabolic problem?" and I said I did not know. He asked for the blood work that shows the unusual numbers and I pointed to the 3" 3-ring binder. He laughed. I said I would look for the lab work and if I could find it I would have the office staff make a copy. He said there is a metabolic specialist that comes to Las Vegas once a month and he would send a referral to him for us. How awesome is that???

Overall it was a good visit through rushed. I left the office and had the kids at the car at 7:10pm. I still had to drive across town to get home. By the time I got home, fed them and got them to bed it was 9:00pm. Wow, that was a LONG afternoon!