He's coloring!

It's been Brandon's best school year yet. This year, at 6 years old, I finally saw my little boy hold a crayon and color. He is even tracing letters and numbers. It amazes me how long it took to get to this point, and what was it? Diet? I attribute diet to much of my son's successes, because infractions bring on immediate regression to where he was before. It's a sad situation when your child is allergic to most of the foods in the grocery store aisles. As of now, he is gluten free, casein free, soy free, chocolate free, MSG free, and artificial color free....he eats whole foods and absolutely no junk.

In the past year, Brandon has been through just about every biomedical treatment possible. We started Andy Cutler's chelation protocol and did several rounds using ALA. At one point we added DMSA and Brandon made some amazing verbal gains although it was not well tolerated and we had to eliminate its use. He was unable to take a multivitamin, so I purchased all the vitamins separately being careful to avoid soy in the fat soluble vitamins such as vitamins A and E. Halfway through the year, I decided there were too many additives in even his vitamins and took a more natural approach. It started with a vitamin B complex made by Dailyfoods which was made from whole foods. I also picked up some liquid minerals for supplementation and remineralizing water. Then I discovered Amla. This fruit from India is used in Ayurvedic medicine for rejuvenation and it was one of the most amazing supplements I ever tried. It knocked out our chronic battles with candida and gave Brandon a new lease on life with its super antioxidant kick. For a couple months Brandon was taking only calcium-magnesium-vit D powder in a capsule (or in smoothies) and amla, it was all he needed. For the past month, Brandon has not been on any supplements and is doing well in school and at home.

Our current challenge is speech and language. Brandon's speech is significantly delayed and I am working with him to improve his pronunciation and expressive language. I have been taking classes on Applied Behavior Analysis and am hoping to put what I learn to work in teaching Brandon to speak the appropriate words more clearly. I have purchased a tape recorder and have come up with some color and letter identification exercises for him where I can track his progress.

I cannot express enough how pleased I am with Brandon's school program. Mrs. Marshall, his teacher, is very competent and should be proud of her success with him. This fall, he had an aide who was outstanding, to say the least. She was very firm with him and did not let him fail. She took him to a whole new level by making him accountable and motivating him to learn. Thanks Cheryl Johnson! We have had so many blessings this year, I would just like to say "Praise God!" for all you have done for Brandon and our family!