Ben: Age One through age Two

I have to back up just a tiny bit. At 11 months old Ben went on a nursing strike and no longer received breast milk. He randomly threw up different baby foods and refused to drink cow milk altogether. Shortly after his first birthday we moved to Florida. We had to rent a tiny apartment while waiting for our NC house to sell.

We brought Ben into a new Pediatricians office, now that we were back in Florida, for his 15 month old check up. The doctor reviewed his records and said he was behind on his shots and that she had to play catch up. I'm going to call this pediatrician Dr. U so that I don't get sued or anything. I told her that our old North Carolina Pediatrician never gave more than 2 shots at a time. I asked her if I could break up any shots he needed. I knew he needed the MMR, and that morning my husband firmly told me, "That is a big shot, Ben is ONLY to get that shot, okay?" But this new pediatrician was very pushy. She told me that he needed these shots to go to school. That it's a disservice to a child when parents pick and choose shots. So I very reluctantly agreed. I definitely felt more "peer pressured" then I ever had in my life and hated that my son was the one to suffer for my lack of a backbone. He received SIX vaccines that day. Shots were given in each arm and two in each leg. In a single visit his immune system was forced to deal with 11 weakened, dead or live viruses: Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Haemophilus, Influenza, Hepatitus B, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Varicella, H1N1, as well as all the preservatives, metals, and other toxins like formeldahyde inside each needle. Many do not know, as I only found out recently, that these vaccines are grown in human cells, animal cells and yeast. Also, when someone catches a disease like Rubella (Chicken Pox) or H1N1 (Swine Flu) it's from breathing in that disease or touching it and wiping your face or eyes. The disease enters the body and goes through the first series of defenses, like the mucus in the nose, mouth, throat, then the acids in the stomach, etc. But in a vaccine, the weakened or dead virus skips the many stages that the body would normally go through when dealing with a disease, and the disease is injected straight into the blood stream along with all the other toxic ingredients, which is how it almost never happens naturally in nature. So had Ben been exposed to any of these things: The virus, the metals, the yeast, the formeldahyde, etc, in a normal means of exposure his body would have better been able to handle and detoxify these foreign agents, but instead they were ALL injected right into his blood stream with direct access to his brain. FYI The modifyied weakened viruses in shots have been found in spinal fluids and in the brain of children. That is a fact. That issue asside, I could be wrong, but I don't believe schools will turn away a child that hasn't received the Swine Flu H1N1 vaccine by age 2, or the influenza or Chicken Pox vaccines. And I also believe there are personal or religious wavers that parents can sign if they chose not to vaccinate. Anyway...

During that visit Dr. U asked me if Ben had 3 words and I told her Ben said, "dah" for dad, sometimes, and "duh" for duck and for anything else. That was it. She told me she needed 3 words, but he only had two and one of them he used for everything. Ben randomly mumbled something that sounded like "wasstha" during this conversation and she said, it sounded like "What's that?" and checked off that he had met his 3 word mark.

I also discussed my concerns over his throwing up, which was now multiple times a day, and she ordered an upper GI exam. The results came back inconclusive so Dr. U put him on reflux meds. He still threw up, just not quite as much or as often. After a few months we took him off them because we saw no difference.

I left that appointment and sat in the parking lot with my little Benny already asleep in his safe car seat. He looked so peaceful after crying so hard, and it killed me to know his little body was at war with all the "stuff" inside those vaccines. I cried. I cried hard. I called his old pediatrician in North Carolina and asked if I'd made a horrible mistake. I was told to find a pediatrician that I could express my concerns to and felt comfortable communicating with so that I wouldn't feel like I was being ignored or pressured to do things I wasn't comfortable with.

A few months later Ben said "doh" for dog, "tat" for cat, and "ight" for light, with an occasional "cookie" "nana" for banana and even once a perfect, "cracker" but definitely didn't meet the vocabulary numbers for an 18 month old. Our new pediatrician, I'll call him Dr. B told me that these numbers are only suggested guidelines, and every kid develops at their own rate. Ben still didn't call for his parents though. No "dadda" when he saw him come home from work. No "mamma" when he was sad or scared or hurt.

Around this time, Ben's throwing up started to become a real problem. We went on a family Disney cruise and I started a log of when he'd throw up, what we had fed him, etc. He threw up 5 times in one day. He wasn't sick. He didn't have a stomach flu. He had no fever or any other symptom. He ran around with a smile on his face. Mostly while eating, he'd puke up whatever we fed him, and then instantly after puking he'd keep on eating. No tears, meltdowns, or hysteria after throwing up - a usually frightening and unsettling experience for a small child to go through.

My husband and I fought a lot about why Ben was throwing up. He insisted he was "normal" and he'd "grow out of it." I insisted that it wasn't normal, and that if he had to throw up daily, he'd want to stop it. Nobody should live like that and just because Ben can't talk or complain doesn't mean it should be ignored. We would bicker over the most stupid reasons for why Ben threw up: The texture of the food, he fed him a forbidden fruit - watermelon, I didn't cut up the food enough, the bite of bread was too big and got stuck in his throat, the french fry was too salty, the chip / cracker was too sharp / crunchy (everybody knows that Wheat Thins are difficult crackers to eat, right?). One of the worst memories I have of this time was after Ben played hard at a MyGym. He hadn't had dinner yet and we picked up some chinese food to go. While waiting I refilled his sippie cup with cold water from a water cooler. Ben chugged that water down, he was sweaty from playing so hard. As soon as we started driving home, it was now dark out, Ben started to projectile vomit the water. Following silence, I heard the splat and splash as Ben violently threw up the water across his body, hitting the back of the driver's seat, just behind my husband's head. I began to yell, "He's throwing up!" A second heave started shooting more water across the car. "He's STILL throwing up!" I yelled louder. From the brief flashes of light from other cars or light posts I could see Ben's eyes were watering, his face was turning red. He barely had a chance to catch his breath before he heaved again. "NICK! He's still puking! He can't BREATHE! Pull over!!!" "What did you give him?" my husband demanded - I already knew what was comming, I already learned which foods I couldn't give him in the car because they'd guarentee a vomit shower, only I hadn't given him anything. So I told him, "I didn't give him anything! He's throwing up the water! THIS ISN"T NORMAL!" I insisted for the hundreth time. I'll never forget the reasoning my husband gave me for this: "The water was too cold!" I wanted to slap him. No, I wanted to punch some sense into him. A few days later Ben ran into a TooJay's restaurant, right up to the hostess, and before eating or drinking anything, he threw up on her feet. Just bile. Ben was very sick and I knew something was very wrong. We started him back up on the reflux meds, stronger ones this time.

Ben's throwing up continued to the point where we just accepted it as a "easy gag reflex" and life went on. I had conceived the day we moved back to Florida and when Ben was 22 months old I gave birth to our second son Jonathan. I knew better from my experience with dairy and removed all dairy from my diet weeks prior to that delivery and had been medication / antibiotic free for a few years since I couldn't take any while pregnant or nursing Ben or pregnant again with Jonathan.

At first Ben was all into his baby brother. He loved to kiss him, all day, to the point where I'd have to tell him no more! It was cute that he loved him and showed him affection, but I was honestly a little jealous. I could count on one hand the number of times Ben had given me a kiss (with fingers to spare), and most of the family was lucky if they had received even one kiss from him. He also didn't give hugs. When I thought of a child with "Autism" I envisioned a child rocking in a corner, or spinning the wheels on a car, flapping arms, twirling around in a circle. I honestly didn't believe my sweet Ben was Autistic. I remember when my sister in law mentioned that Autistic kids have "stims " these self stimulation behaviors, and she asked me if Ben's throwing up could be a form of a stim. I thought that was worthy of mentioning to his pediatrician, who quickly told me what I wanted to hear: "No. Absolutely not." He then asked me something that I thought was odd. He asked ME if I thought Ben was Autistic. I first answered, "I'm not the doctor. You are." and Dr. B explained that Autism is a social disorder and Ben was very much aware that Dr. B was in the room and was making good eye contact. But we still didn't know why Ben threw up or how to stop it. Ben was also very behind in his speech, so we had him seen by a Pediatric Ear Nose and Throat Specialist. She performed a hearing test, an x-ray, and examined his ears by looking in them with her special equipment. She even did something with blowing air or looking for bubbles in the ear drum. Ben's ear anatomy was 100% perfect and he passed the hearing test with flying colors.

Other than the throwing up, Ben was a pretty healthy kid. He had only been sick twice in his first year of life, both times he had caught a head cold from his sweet cousins, but nothing serious. Then, just before Ben's 2nd birthday he got his first sinus infection. No ear infection, but the rounds of antibiotics began. He didn't / couldn't take / finish that first round, so when it didn't clear up he was put on stronger antibiotics. I knew that it's bad to start antibiotics and not finish them, or take all of them, so every time I had to administer them I literally had to pin him down, squirt the meds down his throat with the plastic syphin, and when he gagged and tried to throw it up, I had to place my hand over his mouth and keep his jaw shut, blowing in his nose so that he had to swallow. It was awful, but I honestly believed he needed those meds or else he would have perminent hearing damage from an ear infection that wouldn't go away unless I got those antibiotics down his throat. A few months later Ben turned two and that's when Ben really began to get sick.