Contributed by Tricia Pollok
"There is no doubt in my mind that your son
has autism."
The words stung as hot tears burned my eyes. My mind was spinning, reeling; The doctor responded to my tears as if he was
surprised I was so emotional. I got the
feeling by the way he coldly shattered my world, that he had been giving this
devastating news to parents multiple times a day for a very long time. All I could think was "How did this
happen? How did my beautiful, happy and
very normal baby, hitting all of his milestones up until age 15 months turn
into the screaming, perseverative, empty shell of a child that I no longer
recognized?" Dr. Solomon, the top
autism specialist in the state of Michigan, continued writing his
recommendations as the pain spilled down my cheeks. I looked over at my precious 2 year old,
sitting on the floor, the spark gone from his eyes. Why did he look through me instead of
lighting up when I came into the room like he used to? Why couldn't I get him to play anymore? What happened to him? I often caught him laying on the floor,
staring into space, pulling clumps of
his hair out, or perseverating on
unusual objects. He entertained himself
by complusively finding ways to reach the light switches so he could
insistently and obsessively flick the light/ceiling fan switch on and off...on
and off...on and off...all day long if we let him...staring at the repetitive
and captivating movement. He would grunt and whine at the door to the garage,
begging us to open the door so that he could hit the garage door button to
watch it go up and down...up and down...all day long if we let him...
And the screaming...
I couldn't deny it anymore. The reality of diagnosis was staring me in
the face. I had lost my son to
autism. The very essence of who he was,
was gone. The gut-wrenching pain, sent
me plummeting into an overwhelming pit, encompassing me, and severing all of my
hopes and dreams for my son and our family.
A darkness I could feel swept over me and during many suffocating
moments on this journey, I didn't think I would ever be able to pull myself out
of it. I had already known deep inside
that something went terribly wrong just after Jackson's first birthday, and now
I had confirmation that there was a reason the light in my son's eyes had
disappeared; a reason he had deteriorated into a shell of a child I didn't know. Jackson's health and development changed,
occurring suddenly, soon following his 15 month well-baby checkup. Over the course of a few months, I watched
his life crumble in front of me, taking mine with him. Jackson kept losing more
and more of his cognitive abilities, his personality; his sweet, gentle
countenance, his quick smile and contagious laugh... it was all gone. He was
unrecognizable to me. My boy, once
vibrantly full of life, now a screaming, violent, distant, perserverative, and
excessively fearful child, was about to teach me that my days of trusting the
medical community were over.
In excruciating desperation and bewilderment, I
prayed and prayed that Jackson would come back...that I would find him
again...somewhere deep down inside himself.
But the agony continued to increase, as I found he didn't want anything
to do with me anymore. He screamed when
I tried to hold him or join in his play.
I desperately searched for glimpses of Jackson all the time, but as he
continued to reject me, I drifted farther and farther away from him
emotionally, distancing myself from the source of the pain. Although Jackson
had very little expressive language, with most of his language consisting of
parroting what he heard on a video, he sure knew how to say "I hate you
mommy." I never figured out which
Thomas the Train video he heard that on.
There were times I doubted he would ever respond positively to me again,
and my heart just couldn't bear it.
Emotionally detaching from him, I was being consumed with despair. I wondered if he would ever love me again...I
could never utter those words out loud...
"Dear
God, why?" I grieved. There were
many days when I wondered if Jackson would ever learn to carry on a
conversation, or have a friend, or learn to read, or eat normal food. Would he ever show the intelligence we saw
he had at his young age? Secretly I
wondered if he would be so out of control someday that I would no longer be
able to care for him in my home. At 2 he was already hurting Mallorie and at
times, he seemed to have a strength beyond what his age should possess.
Following the diagnosis, I started to question
some things about Jackson's health. He
not only had severe behavioral, communication and social impairments, he was
physically sick. I had stopped nursing
him when he was 4 months old, yet at age 2 and a half, he was still having
explosive diapers. Although he had been
eating solid food for quite some time, his bowel movements were far from solid. In fact, Jackson had never had a solid bowel
movement. His stomach was very bloated
all the time, and I suspected that some of his screams were from pain, although
he didn't have the language to tell me how he was feeling. I knew that Jackson's problems had begun just
after his 15 month well-baby check. I
remembered that day that my pediatrician had told me it was time for Jackson's
vaccinations, which I never questioned.
It never occured to me that they could harm him, and I hadn't heard
anything negative about vaccines in the news.
Jackson received 9 vaccinations (5 injections) that day, and he was
never the same. I've had people tell me
that vaccines didn't cause my son's autism because "science" proves
that vaccines don't cause autism. That
is a lie. There are studies that prove
vaccines CAN and DO cause autism. The
medical doctors who have discovered the link between vaccines and autism (and
other auto-immune diseases and conditions including ADHD, allergies, asthma,
RA, MS and SIDS) are considered quacks and their research debunked by those in
the medical community who have something to gain by administering
vaccinations. Many of the doctors who
have found the link between vaccination and autism have a vaccine-injured child
on the autism spectrum.
I began to research and learn all I could about
vaccine injury. I discovered that some
of the things recommended to me following vaccination further injured
Jackson. I was told by my doctor to give
Jackson Tylenol to bring down a vaccine-induced fever. Unfortunately, Tylenol lowered Jackson's
glutathione levels, which impaired his ability to fight free-radicals, further
damaging his immune system. Between 15
and 18 months, he had a series of ear-infections, as his immune system had been
impaired by vaccination, and he was promptly put on antibiotics. This caused the perfect storm inside of
him. Without a strong probiotic, the
antibiotics destroyed Jackson's natural gut flora, causing yeast overgrowth. His gut was a mess. He developed leaky gut syndrome, gut
dysbiosis (bad intestinal gut flora), and severe food intolerances. I was now dealing with a severely impaired
immune system from the vaccines, which was causing auto-immune responses (his
body was attacking itself), and a severly impaired gut, which affected his
ability to digest normally, and severely impaired his brain function. Gut and brain health are very closely
connected and when the gut is suffering, the brain tremedously suffers (think
about what alcohol does to your brain when it reaches your digestive
tract). I was devastated when I learned
that all of Jackson's issues were preventable.
Guilt set in. I blamed myself for
blindly trusting my doctor. My precious
sweet baby was impaired for life because I allowed him to be injected with
poisonous substances and neurotoxins including aluminum, mercury, formeldahyde,
and human and animal DNA. Aborted fetal
tissue DNA was in my child. I was
horrified.
For 3 years, autism consumed my life, and I was
determined to beat it. By day, I fought
autism, and by night I researched autism, many nights until 2 or 3am, reading
every website I could find about autism and vaccine injury, trying every treatment and protocol, and
devouring every book I could find that would give me any ounce of hope for
recovery. I was giving Jackson more than
20 supplements a day for his starving brain, injecting methyl B12 into him
before bed to repair his methylation cycle as he wasn't detoxing metals,
running him to speech therapy, and sending him to preschool for kids with
autism. I hired a play therapist to
teach ME how to teach him how to play, and then I attempted to actually play
with him the prescribed 20 hours a week, yet struggled to even want to spend
ANY time with him. I was keeping daily food journals of what he was eating
because I had to figure out which foods he was reacting to. It took me 9 months to figure out the
severity of his food intolerances, but because of his intestinal disease that
just wasn't improving, I changed his diet multiple times before finally
settling on an intense diet called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). For 6
months, Jackson ate a handful of specific and very cooked fruits and veggies,
and beef meatballs. Because of his
intolerance to eggs, nuts and chicken which were allowed on SCD, this was all that
his breakfast, lunch, dinner menu consisted of, and he digested these foods
very fast. He was always eating, and I
was always cooking. Then, there was a
turning point.
When he was 4, one of Jackson's preschool
teachers and I started praying together. Although there are a lot of details I
am leaving out, at some point, I began to surrender Jackson's life to the
Father. It was an emotional rollercoaster to say the least, as I was trying
desperately to maintain control. I would give up the situation one day, and
then worry the next...Surrender takes great faith. Faith I wanted, but didn't
have.
I began to ask for it. Faith, that is. I began to
ask for a LOT of it. I was on my knees in my closet more than I could even
fathom to guess. That carpet has permanant tear stains I think. Oh if only
those walls could speak...I prayerfully agonized in there. I was a prisoner to
autism and I knew that my only hope of freedom was to be down on my knees,
asking the Father for answers and healing.
Realizing that I needed to stop relying on myself for Jackson's healing,
I began to replace my autism books with my Bible, and I couldn't get enough of
the Word. After many, many weeks of seeking Him FIRST, and believing that He
would take care of our needs as I did that, Abba began showing me some things
that I hadn't considered before. Things that were quite hard for me to accept.
He started showing me that I needed to believe Him for the impossible, and that
maybe Jackson's autism was more than just a physical problem. As I began to put
pieces together, I realized that Jackson's terrifying pleas in the middle of
the night to "come sleep in your bed" were not because he was having
nightmares. My husband and I would often hear Jackson scurrying down the stairs
at 2am and find him standing in the living room with a desperate look of fear
on his face. After him talking about a
Disney character for over a year, we suddenly realized that his many questions
about Baloo the Bear from the Jungle Book, and his experiences he was telling
us he was having with Baloo weren't just a boy with an "imaginary
friend". Abba blessed us with some very serious and descriptive
conversations with Jackson, ones that I am still amazed took place since he had
such a limited expressive language at that time. I finally accepted that Jackson was being
visited and essentially traumatized by an evil spirit that talked to him when
he was alone. Sometimes it would appear to him in his room just before bed, and
sometimes it would wake him up.
I share all of the above, not to glorify a dark
time in our lives, or the evil we experienced, but to show you how AMAZING the
Father is! Once I knew the truth about what Jackson was experiencing, I began
to seek Him like I never had before. I spent hours and hours in my Bible,
seeking Truth. I began to hope and believe for a miracle. I asked Abba to
supernaturally heal Jackson because I knew HE deserved ALL the credit, and I
had been doing a LOT of things that others could potentially attribute a
healing to. I wanted there to be NO DOUBT that Abba Father was the One who
healed him, and not me.
On February 20, 2010, after almost 3 hours of
praying, fasting, singing, and believing, Jackson was healed and delivered from
the oppressive spirit and all of the intestinal disease. Instantly.
There is no physical explanation why Jackson was
healed of the vaccine injury. It was not
a gradual healing. It was spontaneous
and nothing short of miraculous. Abba
knew that I needed something tangible that would show me and others when doubt
crept in, that He conquered Jackson's diseases.
Two days earlier on the 18th, Jackson had a very severe case of diarrhea
while still on the SCD, proving his gut was not naturally healing itself. Although quite discouraging, recent test
results revealing that his gut dysbiosis and yeast was off the charts and had
not improved a bit was further proof that my efforts had not healed him. Stepping out in complete faith, we began
giving Jackson foods that very day, that would've sent him reeling behaviorally
and set him back months physically.
There were no reactions at all.
We checked his metals, yeast, and bacteria levels. All of the disease was ALL gone. The evidence that the spirit left that day
was extremely obvious as many of the behaviors we thought were linked to the
autism instantly disappeared. He was
taken off the autism spectrum that year as the same autism specialist who
diagnosed him at age 2 undiagnosed him with these words...
"He is unrecognizable to me."
Those words, that I once used to describe my son
when he became trapped inside himself, were now used to say there were no
recognizable autistic traits in him!!
Today, Jackson is thriving. He is a normal 10
year old boy, with a very determined (and sometimes stubborn) personality...He
reads, memorizes scripture very quickly, eats a normal diet, makes friends
easily, plays on a basketball team and swims competitively. He loves karate,
making movies with his Playmobil sets, drawing, sharing his faith with others,
snuggling with mom (woo hoo) and adores his older sister Mallorie enough to be
her best friend and indulge her love of American Girl and Littlest Pet Shop.
Jackson will tell you he hates math, but he is a math whiz, often solving tough
problems in his head, completely showing his intelligence and cognitive
abilities that were hidden and suppressed for so long. He is a fierce protector
of Mallorie and me. Abba gave him his
life back and Jackson knows it. After the deliverance, Jackson would often
dress up in what he called his "warrior costume". Evidences of Abba's unfathomable love for us
peek through each and every day.
Yes, buddy, you ARE a warrior. Abba has gifted
you with so many gifts and I truly believe you WILL overcome in this life. I am
just so so grateful to have you back.
"You turned my wailing into dancing; you
removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your
praises and NOT BE SILENT. Oh Abba my Elohim, I will praise you forever."
Psalm 30:11-12
In 2004, vaccine injury was not in the news.
