Never Giving Up The Fight
For those of you who know me well, I have more heart than talent, I have been named the “bulldog” in the telecom industry, and I never accept no for an answer. I may be told no, but I am relentless as I find a way around, over, under, or through whatever issue is brought to me whether personal or not. I am no different from you or anyone else, however, I choose to never give up the fight. Today, I will share one of my most important fights and long journeys I have ever met. For this fight, I had to become my daughter’s voice and her advocate. And this fight is one that I was not able to correct as quickly as others in my life and as I type we are still fighting the good fight.
In the Winter of 2014, my oldest daughter had onset of physical symptoms such as constant leg pain, shortness of breathe, and headaches. I took her to her pediatrician back and forth over several months and I was told anyting from it’s just growing pains to I am worried too much and that maybe I should seek a physician, a.k.a., a psychiatrist. I knew my daughter and I listened to the constant complaining of leg pain…not muscle cramps, but throbbing pain as she described it. My husband and I watched as our little girl who could score several goals a game in soccer to crying with pain, exhibiting shortness of breath, and begging to sit on the bench and watch her team. Again, I just knew something was wrong.
Well, I was right and through my network of physicians, we were put in contact with a doctor in Atlanta, GA. Let me just say that when I got the blood work back, I scheduled a visit to our regular pediatrician, not to say I told you so, but to say listen to children and parents and investigate a bit better in hopes we help other families as desparate as we were to get our child better. My daughter has several medical issues, but with weeks we had her inflammation markers down and we were slowly getting our little girl back. It has been a long process. We have to keep her nutrition in check and now that we have the physical issues addresssed, now we are working on her anxiety and severe visual processing and moderate auditory processing issues (formerly called dyslexia).
Our daughter has struggled with reading, writing, and classified for years with behavioral issues (inability to listen, daydreaming). She was never “not listening” and “daydreaming” both of these were results of the fact she couldn’t comprehend instructions enough to even know where to get started and the fact she didn’t understand and she knew she was struggling caused her immense anxiety. Her father and I have worked with a variety of specialist to address our daughters issues. The first thing we did was get a neuropysch evaluation completed and we began Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with Dr. Peter Winslett to address the anxiety. We began neurofeedback with Mike Cohen at The Center For Brain and Dr. Robert Coben to address processing issues. We keep the diet in check to keep inflammation/food allergies in check and the microbiome intact and working properly. We have also done accupuncture, exercises for the brain, and other therapies with Dr. Greg Curtiss.
I share all this so that you can see that the battle is not always easy and in life no matter what the issue you face there really is no “silver bullet” or that single one thing to address any issue. Life and all its process and issues require a holistic approach and a multi-facet/multi-disciplinary approach so that you can tackle the root cause. I have always been root cause analysis type person and I when I was asked by several teachers and concerned faculty members if my daughter had ever been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD I told them no that I have not seen this type of exhibiting symptoms, but to make sure I had my daughter tested. She has been tested three times to date, twice in Alabama once by a Pediatric Psychologist, once by a Pediatric NeuroPsychologist and now a third time by a NeuroPsychologist here in Florida. I can rest assured that the data was the same with all three testings and never once was she daignosed with ADD or ADHD. They were all saying anxiety and processing issues.
The last three weeks have been a turning point for our daughter. While at Disney World and on Spring Break, we were standing in line awaiting to enter the House of Horror/Terror (I am unsure of the actal naming here) and out of the blue our daughter said Mom, "give me some numbers to add because I can do them in my head". This is coming from our child who has been counting on fingers, classified with dyscalculia, and has despised math. For almost an hour we add numbers in our head. Yesterday when I picked her up from school, she was sitting in car line reading a fairy book, this is huge. She was so intrigued that when I went to check on her as I saw that she has lit a candle and was up reading way past her bedtime last night. I absolutely did not scold her for being up that late as I have never seen my little girl interested in reading. In the past, she would avoid it like the plague, cried and become sick to her stomach when she was forced to read things. She even woke up this morning wanting to read and as you can imagine my heart is smiling.
Our daughter is still somewhat behind in this years class in reading and math and we have Dr. Rebecca Blake coming next week on April 15th to stay with us for a few days to help us develop a plan to mitigate this and to help us accelerate closing any gaps. Dr. Rebecca Blake is an expert on processing issues and autism. She does house visits…how many doctors do that these days? Yes, very few. She used to be a special education teacher, she had two children with autism and processing issues and she has neuropsychology degree and is helping thousands of families. We have two more session of neurofeedback guided by Dr. Robert Coben and administered by Mike Cohen, to monitor the improvement. We may continue this therapy as we have seen significant progress and neurofeedback is nothing more than exercise for the brain. Athletes, corporate executives, and others use this in a different way to gain competitve edge and improve athletic performancce.
It is my prayer that I have encouraged anyone who is struggling not with just a child as I have many cases in which I could referenced of mine, my friends, my colleagues, or my family that I could write a book on the various issues and examples of why not to give up the fight. Just think if I would have accepted that my kids was ADHD or ADD just because an educator or someone else thought so. I have seen many parents go to a pediatrican as it is the path of least resisitance and the least expensive and get a prescription for the famous Adderall, Ritalin, etc. Those drugs given to a pre-puberty child disrupts the hormonal balances and create further issues in the future. Neurofeedback, hyperbaric oxygen, clean diet,behavioral modification programs, and many other alternative/non-prescription therapies are available and are much safer to address and correct these issues. Our goal is to reverse our daughter’s diagnoses of dyslexia and anxiety not just to mask them with a pill and we are well on our way. Victory is in the power of never giving up the fight.
