Christa Bailey: Embracing Autism

Embracing Autism

Andrea: Welcome to This Way up. We are a community dedicated to having open conversations surrounding children's mental health. I'm Andrea Nanigian.

Emie: And I'm Emie Waters. When someone you care about is struggling with their mental health, this can be an incredibly stressful and challenging time. So we're here to provide valuable resources to support you as you navigate this journey.

Emie: We're so excited to introduce you to a very special guest on our show today. Her name is Christa, and she is the mother of two teenage boys. One is in high school and one is in college. Their family lives in San Diego, California. Christa's younger son Nicholas, was diagnosed with autism at a very young age, despite the fact that he hit all of his developmental milestones up until that point. And as she describes it, this change happened seemingly overnight. I can't even imagine. She has been a fierce advocate for his health and his education ever since that time. And as a result, she and her family have become a resource and a support to so many other families. Their unwavering commitment her unwavering commitment to her family and son is incredibly inspiring. And Andrea just can't wait for everybody to hear more about this amazing mama.

Andrea: Christa really is remarkable, and her attitude, her positivity, and her tenacity just really inspired me. And I just loved this conversation with her. We are actually opening this episode in an unusual way. We were chatting with Christa prior to the official recording and found, when we went back, that the conversation was so heartwarming, and you could hear the pride and joy in Christa's voice that we just wanted to share it with all of you.

Cathedral High in San Diego offers a unique program called Options

Andrea: So let me set up the stage here a bit. Christa is sharing how her son Nicholas, who's currently 16 years old, is flourishing in his high school, which he attends. Cathedral High, which is a private high school here in San Diego, California. Cathedral has a very unique program called Options. And Options is a program which offers students with intellectual disabilities or delays the opportunity to become fully integrated into the total life of the school community. And you will hear several examples about how Nicholas is just living the high school dream. Christa is starting to share how Nicholas is managing a team of classmates as he produces videos for his own YouTube channel. And that's where this episode starts.

Christa: He's come from being nonverbal to managing nine teenagers, three of which have special needs. It's amazing.

Andrea: That's m really amazing.

Christa: So three of them were from his special ed class, and then four were mentors. So they're like the gen ed kids. So at Cathedral, they don't have an adult following them around. They have the program called Options, which is technically their special ed program. But the beauty of it is it's helping him learn social skills organically, because he has juniors and seniors take him to the gen ed classes and work with him. And the thing is that when you have an adult following you, which is what I witnessed at elementary, ah, school level and middle school level before I pulled them out of public school. They alienate themselves from the kids. Because they don't want to go up and talk to the kid. Because the adult, or even sometimes the aides at the middle school shoot the other kids away. In fact, I had a friend. Yeah, I had a friend whose son grew up with Nicholas, because we're, like, best friends. He tried to go up and say hi to Nicholas at the lunch table, and the aides shoo’d him away. Get out of here. The day I heard that, I said, he's done. He's not. He never stepped foot back on that campus ever again.

Emie: That's such an interesting format for them, too. That would be hard to try to be just one of the other kids.

Christa: Right? And it was segregation. It was really unbelievable. When inclusion is the way to go with kids with autism, it's proven inclusion helps kids learn from their typical peers, period. if you don't do that, you don't have a way of developing typically and learning normal behaviors versus abnormal behaviors from the other. At Cathedral, they are one of the only ones that have this program in the San Diego area. And the juniors and seniors apply for this mentor job. Their background checked, they're interviewed. There's a waitlist after the mentors are selected because everybody wants to do it. The kids are the king in the castle. They're treated beautifully. They can play any sport. It's just a beautiful program. It's really amazing. So Nicholas, having these juniors and now, they do TikTok videos together on their way to class. And so he's learned how to be social. And it's really cute because even I told them, I said, Teach him dance moves. So when he goes that dance crisscross that I posted the video, they taught him that so that when Homecoming came, he knew how to do the dance. So it was really amazing.

Emie: It really is. Because most private schools don't accommodate that wide range of even just isolated to learning differences.

Christa: Right.?

Andrea: It's amazing for both sides.

Christa: Right?

Andrea: Those kids are also exposing themselves to empathy and to patience and acceptance and all of that. Right? I mean, what a full circle program? Oh, that's so yeah.

Christa: like, I'll just say one more thing about that. So the principal of the school I went to, like, a coffee chat, and usually people bring problems to that, and they're like, Christa, what do you have to say? And I said, I just came to thank you all for having such an amazing program. Nicholas is thriving. Thank you. I did. And he came back to me and said, no, thank you for having Nicholas here. I can't tell you how wonderful it makes our children and how empathetic. Like you just said, Andrea, they are learning so much from the kids in the options program, and they keep it small. There's only twelve kids, so it's not a big program. There's only four kids per grade that are allowed in so that they can give them the creme de la creme treatment. And one of the mentors that was leaving the house last Thursday said, I've been so moved by this program that I want to adopt a child with special needs and save a child. That's amazing.

Andrea: Oh, my gosh, that makes me want to cry.

Christa: I know.

Emie: Wow.

Christa: And he's probably one of the best mentors that's ever come through there. And that says a lot because they're all amazing.

Emie: Wow.

Andrea: Okay, Emie, just so you know, I want to get this principal on as a guest.

Emie: I was just going to say that I wrote it to talk to them because that is an unusual program within a private school context from my limited experience,

Andrea: even from the public school, because my son went to the large public schools and special needs kids would be in these standardized classrooms. But I still felt like there was some isolation there that it really wasn't integrated. But 4000 kids? How do you ever do that right when you've got 4000 kids on campus? But what a beautiful program.

Emie: I know. We just jumped in. We've all seen your Facebook posts of Nicholas's production, but can you explain how he got to this point where now he's going to be a junior next year, right? This year. And he's producing a high level video production. And yet a minute ago, you said he was nonverbal. How did he get so far?

Christa: For fifth grade promotion, I had to get a new phone. And they said, well, you buy one, you can get one free. I was like, well, all right, I guess I'll give Nick a phone for fifth grade promotion. And we had no idea what he was doing. We thought he was just playing with the stuffed animals and he was actually making a film. And he did it all. Jack showed him, his older brother showed him how to use Imovie, and then he came to us and said, look, and showed us that he had this entire film done. And it was absolutely amazing. And you can hear us talking in the background because we didn't really know he was filming or doing anything like that. And it just started from there. And even his very first one, if you go back to his YouTube channel and watch loose tooth with the your stuffed animal, he was doing different camera angles in his very first show.

Andrea: Wow. Absolutely amazing.

Emie: He had a vision.

Christa: He had a vision. And I truly believe that that was his speech therapy, because he would go back and he would listen to it, and he'd say, like, you'd get frustrated, and he would say, I can't understand what I'm saying. So he started practicing his lines so that he could be understood on what he was saying. But if you go back and watch the very first one, compared to what it is now, it's night and day. His language was very garbled. You just really had no idea what he was saying. So that's how it all started, and it has never stopped. I have been to every location. Starbucks, Donut shops everywhere, ice cream shops everywhere, asking, can we do a video here?

Emie: Oh, wow.

Andrea: Good, mom.

Christa: Oh, we've been everywhere. So he actually counted the other night. He's posted 60 videos, but he's probably done about 80.

Andrea:  What's his YouTube channel? Just can we share it with the podcast?

Christa: Yeah. So it's The Bailey Show. Nine two five.

Emie: That's amazing. Yeah, I've seen a couple of them, and they're elaborate based on his age and everything. It's pretty amazing.

Christa: Yeah. And it's hard sometimes because he thinks I can read his mind. And he looks at me like, Your turn to talk. And I have no idea what he wants to say because he hasn't told me. And I'm like, I can't read your mind. What do you want me to say? So now we've progressed to writing scripts. So when his friends came over, we were able to hand each person a script. Wow. It's come a long way.

Emie: Why can't we see this latest one?

Christa: So just do yourself a favor. Watch Loose Tooth very first one, and then just skip all the way forward to the last one. And you're just like, wow, what an improvement. Fifth grade.

Andrea: And it sounds like he's building his additional skill sets off of something that he loves. So whether it's the social aspect of it or the verbal aspect of it, he's taking something he loves and bettering himself as a whole person through that. When my kids were in preschool, one of the teachers was educated in what they call Reggio Emilia. And what they do is, whatever the child loves to do, they build curriculum around that piece.

Emie: Wow.

Andrea: My son was really into airplanes at that time, and they had him teach other children when he was four to teach other children how to make paper airplanes. And then they actually brought in wood, and they had them measure out pieces so that they could make a wood plane together. And they used that passion. The other skills he's getting from it are amazing.

Christa: That's so, like, that kind of thing is what they do at Cathedral as well. Not to go back to Cathedral again, but that's good.

Christa: Nicholas so if he has a report on, say, they were reading a particular book, they let him do a video report because he can act out what he learned. And so, to your point, they do the same thing. They're like, what is his skill? His skill is creating a video. So instead of making him sit there and do that. Let's just have him do a video and show us what he's learned.

Andrea: I actually wish they did that across the board for all kids, because I think it brings a passion to learning that a lot of kids don't have.

Christa: Right.?

Andrea: They get bored and they're just out there not getting engaged. But what a gift Cathedral is.

Christa: I haven't heard him complain about school since he started there, and I always was like, “no school, no school, no school”  He loves it.

Andrea: Did you know before you went into Cathedral that they had this type of a program?

Christa: Jack went there, so I knew of the program, but I also was like, it's a college preparatory school, so why would I spend all this money and not get the academic huge academic part of, you know, they have a pretty high curriculum. So it was seen his friend Gabby, who he went to prom with as a cheerleader, and I'm like, he's going here because the inclusion is amazing. She was a cheerleader from freshman year until senior year, and they let her do a solo dance senior year.

Emie: Oh, that's amazing. I've got goosebumps.

Christa: They all love her. They're all sad to see her go. She's an amazing woman. She's just adorable. And she and Nicholas became fast friends, and, yeah, she was the reason he's there, because I went to go watch Jack playing JV football, and I sat down the stands and I was like, yes, he's going here, because that is unbelievable. So, yeah, that's how it happened.

Emie: And she went through the options program, too?

Christa: Yes, she went through the options program and she kind of paved the way. They'd never had anyone as a cheerleader from the options program.

Emie: Oh, that's amazing. Does she have autism, too?

Christa: No, she had down syndrome.

Emie: Oh, got you.

Andrea: How many kids are in the options program?

Christa: So there's usually about twelve, but they let four in per grade, so there can be up to oh, I thought.

Andrea: That was the mentors.

Christa: Oh, no, the mentors. So the mentors are great. So the mentors are the whole semester. So what my experience was in public school was like, okay, who's here? Okay, you take Nick to this m know when they would doll out the aides every morning. Where at cathedral? You get a mentor for math, and that is your mentor the entire semester.

Andrea: They use continuity.

Christa: Yes. They don't waiver. So he gets a set of seven mentors, one for each period. It's that same person the entire time. And then the next semester, he gets a whole nother set of seven mentors. So he gets to know them, really know, and sometimes they're like, I just can't connect with Nick. And his teacher will say, just give it time, just give it time. And then the minute it hits, they're like, oh, I get this kid. And he's funny, and he's got a funny sense of humor and the mentors.

Andrea: All apply for it. So they're wanting to do this. They're engaged and committed.

Christa: They're committed. In fact, the conversation I had with this mentor that said he wanted to adopt someone, he says something that I'd never heard before. He said, My favorite part of this responsibility is taking the kids to the cars where their parents are every day and seeing how excited their parents are to get their kids, knowing the challenges that they have 24/7 with these children to see how happy they are to.

Emie: And that's a kid telling you this. That's a kid telling you that a student, huh? Yeah. That's amazing. And how wonderful encouraging to know that there's a young person that is perceiving really broad level emotions and context.

Christa: Right?

Emie: That's really impressive.

Andrea: Do they go through training, the mentors?

Christa: yes. And they do, like, an Options boot camp, so they get to know the kids. So for two weeks in the summer, they'll have the mentors and the kids that are coming in for that school year, and they just play water games and just have fun so they get to know the kids really well.

Andrea: Do the parents also get involved in talking with the mentors beforehand to help select which ones might know? It's actually good because, there's part of me that says I would want to be involved because it's my baby.

Christa: I was ready to let Nicholas, soar, I mean, I homeschooled all middle school, and I just was like, you've got this. And just go soar and do your thing. I don't need to be involved anymore. I'm involved, but I'm not a helicopter mom anymore.

Andrea: What a relief for you.

Christa: Yeah.

Andrea: wow, talk about that transition. Seems like you have really transitioned very well into seeing him as a growing boy and

Christa:  not a dependent. Yeah. So I'm going to rewind to elementary school. In elementary school, I hired advocates, lawyers, everything. Like, nothing was ever good enough for my son. and it's justified. And so I fought them, fought them, fought them. I even donated a lot of my time to do Friendship Circle. I would go at lunch and have the typically developing peers come play, and we do, like, Freeze Dance and all this other I would plan activities. So what they did is they would bring the special ed kids over to Friendship Circle, and then they would bring the typically developing kids, but they only allowed a certain amount, 20 kids or something like that.

Emie: What is friendship circle? I'm so sorry.

Christa: I got it back up. so it's just like a lunchtime thing where kids can come and it helps inclusion because the gen ed kids would come and play with the kids from special ed. And I would do really fun things, like freeze dance. Let's say one time it was Halloween and I had, like, thriller and monster mash. We would do all these fun games. Okay.

Christa: So they liked me, so they would come and I liked it because it would get Nicholas involved. But at that point, Nicholas would go walk over to the fence and stare out of the fence. And so I'd always be bringing them back into the circle, like, come on, come back into play. Well, I remember I'd have everyone sign in. That was just part of the rules. And the aides would say, oh, these kids don't know how to sign their names. Let's just sign them. They don't know how to do this. And I said, well, why don't you let them try? Oh, no, they can't do this. So I walked away from that situation thinking they're stunting their learning capability because they're not even using every opportunity as a learning opportunity. Yeah, so the next week I came back and I said, let's just give it a try. All but one of the nine kids wrote their name and wrote it beautifully. so I took it to the principal and I said, here's proof that these kids can write their name, but your A's are not allowing them. And so basically, I'm upset that my son is missing all these learning opportunities. She sat back and she goes, well, what do you want me to do about it? And I was like, Talk to your aides and say, don't put them in a box. Let's let them grow and let's let them be independent and write their own name. And she's like, M well, I don't really have any control over that. And that was it.

Emie: Wow. And this was in elementary school.

Christa: It was an elementary school. That was just one example. Every single time I went into a meeting, I said, Nicholas needs to be in a gen ed class and for at least a portion of the day. And I would like him to line up with the kids in the morning and go into the gen ed class, even if he's in there for roll call. And then he goes back to the special ed class. That's all if that's what we start with. So then a new assistant principal came in, and she said, let's do it. I almost fell out of my chair. I said, Are we really doing this? And she said, yeah, let's do it. And the kids loved Nicholas. He got some of his best friends out of it. I would watch them teach them, like, thumb war, like all these cute little they had all these little special hands with them and okay, Nick, let me teach you this. And it went so far as on twin day, you know how elementary school they always did, like, fun Spirit week. On twin day, one of the kids from the gen ed class wanted to be Nick's twin. And I just cried. I'm like it worked. Now, if you just kept him in a room and didn't let him be with these other kids, that would have never happened and he would have never experienced friendship all of elementary school. What was so amazing is that that is still in place today. So I'm proud that I've made changes for the better for other kids. Absolutely. When he got to middle school, it was very much segregation. So I pulled him and thought, we're just going to use the three middle school years to absolutely work on academics. So I found a wonderful program at the Therapeutic Learning Center that taught Nicholas how to learn with proven programs that work with kids with autism. So he wasn't being forced to try to learn a gen ed way, but more a tailored way. So visualizing and verbalizing is one of the programs. So I did the Therapeutic Learning Center and then I also did Neurofeedback, which was amazing because he went from reading his IEP goal was reading 40 sight words. And within probably three months, he went from that goal to reading at a third grade level, reading books. Wow. And so he jumped really fast. So as we were doing the neurofeedback, I had him doing the specialized programs with the Therapeutic Learning Center and they also worked on his reflexes there, which I thought was really interesting, and I think it helped. And then we were also doing charter school. And so he was still getting some PE art, some social skills through the charter school because it's like a typical school. But then he would get his speech OT and academics there, but then also get to be around kids that were his age. And so he really enjoyed that as well. And then I had a tutor come to the house and work with him one on one. And then I did history and science with them. And science would be teaching them about plants and how plants grow and we would plant a garden or we would just do fun things like that. So I made it really fun. So that's what we did. And, then after that, I just worked so hard that I said, OK, I've done what I can do. And when I went to, interview with Dr. Burton at Cathedral, she said, OK, how involved do you want to be? And I said, I want you to take over. She said, OK, we got this. And I said, great, because I feel like I'm handing you Nicholas on a silver platter because we have done stem cell infusion neurofeedback stimulation for his know compression, all the OT stuff you could possibly do. We've done all of the specialized academics. And I said, he's ready for this, he's ready to go. But most of all from this, I want him to have that wonderful high school experience of going to assemblies, going to football games, being, what a gift. And if that's all he gets, and going to dances most importantly, because that's his favorite thing to do. And, if that's what he gets out of this. He joined the swim team this past year. So just being a part of a team, if that's what he gets out of this, that's what he gets out of it. And, I will be happy. At the end of the day, I have the rest of his life to teach him things that are important, because I look at high school as a very good social platform, learning social skills, which is the hardest thing for a child with autism to really come around to. I have the rest of his life to teach him math and other skills that he needs. And so I just feel like he's in a great place and he's soaring because of all the work that I had done and getting the one on one attention at Cathedral, and just he's thriving with the academics, even though we're not shoving it down his throat, and it's probably because we're not shoving it down his throat. He's learning organically in the classroom and then going back and showing them that, yes, I was listening, and yes, this is what the book taught me, and this is how I can apply it to my life.

Emie: So many ways to learn.

Christa: There's so many pathways to learn. And you don't have to answer those questions, the five questions. You don't have to answer those perfectly with perfect handwriting to show that you've learned. If you can just say, this is what the book said, this is what it meant to me, and this is how I can apply it to my life as a lesson that's learning.

Andrea: Gosh I just go back to when we were kids, and it was so rigid. It was so rigid, and so many kids didn't get the opportunity to expand their knowledge and to see what success feels like because society didn't have an understanding of how other brains worked. It was like you had to fit in this box or you just didn't fit at all. It's amazing how far we've come.

Christa: That's why I think he didn't like elementary school, because it was so rigid and it was all about getting a worksheet done. And he wasn't successful until he got that worksheet.

Andrea: Think and now he can make videos and show you what he learned.

Christa: Exactly.

Emie: Gosh I think people will hear this podcast with you, Christa, and start to think about all the different possibilities there are in a school. I mean, I'm just thinking for myself. It's so exhausting, right?

Emie: All these different things you're always researching and looking for in terms of academics, but even healing modalities, all the different therapies nutrition. I mean, it's a lot of work. everything that you've done took so much effort. I'm just in awe of all the opportunity you've managed to give him.

Christa: But thank you.

Emie: Yeah, it's a lot for you. I can only imagine.

Christa: I would love to talk to you about all the biomedical treatments I did with Nicholas because I feel like I tried almost everything out there. So when he was three, we went and saw a biomedical doctor. Ah. And we tried the traditional gluten free casein free diet. Probiotics, cod, liver oil. That's pretty much the basics back then. but this was 13 years ago. It was probably the worst thing I could have done because he wouldn't eat anything he was eating before this. He was eating broccoli and just eating a normal diet. I was always saying, wow, Nick is going to be my kid that actually eats vegetables because Jack wouldn't eat any vegetables. I was really proud. Like, he's eating broccoli. Wow, this is great. And this doctor had me do the case and a free gluten free diet. It did not work. He withered was his eyes sunk in. And we kept up with it because he kept saying, you got to do you got to do it. Well, his behaviors didn't change at all. And finally the doctor is like, yeah, it's not going to work, okay? He's not the kind of kid that this works with.

Emie: How long do you think you stayed on that protocol?

Christa: Oh, three months too long. Because literally, his wrist was like, just it was like all bone. And then his eyes were black and sunk in. And so I went back and I said, look at him, he's withering away. Well, guess what? All he ate was fruits and, like, fruit, because that's all he would eat. He wouldn't touch anything else. So guess what happened with that? All the bad bugs were feeding off of the grapes in his system. And everything ferments in your gut when all you're putting in your gut is just grapes and sugar from the fruit. So then I went to a different doctor and he did a test and he had all bad bugs. Not a single good bug in his gut.

Emie: Do you mean bacteria?

Christa: Bacteria? Yeah, all bad bacteria. Not a single good bacteria cell in his gut. So then he had leaky gut. So now he's gone. It's like he was drunk all the time. He was just like yeah, it was really sad. just staring off into space and not I mean, we had his ears checked. We thought he lost his hearing. It was just like he was just gone. And so, the next doctor said, I have seen a child with autism starve himself to death. I'm so glad you came to me and didn't keep up this ridiculous protocol because he would have starved himself to death. So he did a whole different type. We tried the B Twelve shots, didn't make any change in his behavior. I was really hoping those worked. and then we did some other typical protocols with him and it was just kind of like stagnant. So then I moved on to a new doctor, Dr. Scaron, who's on the East. Coast. I met him through one of the autism conferences here in San Diego, and he was so amazing. We kind of started working more at the genetic level. Let's see what his genetics tell us. And what his genetics told us is that he had a very poor detoxification system and that he wasn't producing glutathione. There's really no way to get glutathione in the body. Your body produces it naturally.

Emie: And just so I know, too, because I only know a little bit about glutathione. What's its basic function?

Christa: Detoxification. That's what it does.

Emie: So it binds to toxins and helps it exit your system?

Christa: Yes, I assume so. I'm not 100%. I just know that it's your body's natural detoxification.

Andrea: Is that common for children with autism, to not produce the glutathione?

Christa: I don't know if it's common or if it's Jeff Nicholas's. Even if he didn't have autism, he's genetically predisposed to having a poor detoxification system.

Emie: My daughter has that, too. Had the same thing come up in a genetic panel?

Christa: yeah. So I don't think it's tied to autism. However, I do think that that could be why his autism was triggered. After we had the Wildfires, in San Diego, and he had just had his MMR vaccination, and two days later, we had the fires that had black ash all over San Diego County that we were all breathing in. And the biomedical doctor agreed with me. He said all of his kids with autism in the Carlsbad, north County San Diego area hit rock bottom after the fires. And I was the first mom that came to him and said, my gut says that those fires triggered his autism because he was born with a ten Apgar score. Ah, typically developing, met every milestone through the age of two. And was talking, bright eyes, pointing, walking, everything.

Christa: Milestone met, plea, to the point to where when I went into his two year well check and told the doctor, I think something's going on, because he just stopped talking. And he goes, oh, no, he's fine. Looking at his chart, he's developing perfectly. There's no way he's fine. And he's sitting in your lap letting you hug him. I don't think anything's wrong. And I said, are you sure? And he said, well, we can do a test just to see. And his very first test for autism only came back one of three months. I just feel like it was triggered with all of the mercury that comes out of the ground when the ground burns, and all of the lead, the toxic lead that comes out of the leaves and the trees when the trees burn. And that's what I learned from my yeah. And that's what the doctor said. And that's why he said, that's why I think all my kids with autism hit rock bottom. And he goes, you very well could be 100% accurate. It's a beautiful baby and developing perfectly, and it just all.

Emie: It's almost like the perfect storm. You can have the genetic predisposition, and then this wild environmental event that was a heavy load of toxins that just and also maybe combined with his vaccinations, like you said, you never know.

Christa: Well, that's what the doctor said. He said the vaccinations just his immune system was so low because of them, it probably made the whole situation worse. My bet is not getting in the car and driving to Arizona when the fires were happening and staying with my mom and dad in Arizona. I just regret that to this day. And who knows, if we got out of town the minute, maybe he could have dodged the bullet.

Emie: We just said this the other day. I feel like Andrea and I but you're always doing the best you can with the information you have in that moment, And if I could be a fairy godmother, I would wave my wand and alleviate you of regret. You've done a phenomenal job. You've exhausted so many resources. You found the best path for him always. And you didn't know. You couldn't have known. And who even knows, right, today? It's the best theory.

Christa: Right. But well, I spent probably four years trying to get Nicholas's, brother, umbilical cord stem cells. So, working with Duke University, I was on, list for probably two years, and he finally got pulled up. And so they had cord blood stem cells infused into Nicholas. And I was hoping and praying that that was going to be the answer and that everything was just going to be like, oh, wow, thanks mom, that was great. I've been pulled out of my little world that I've been living in and I feel great now. Thank you. That was wonderful. But it was interesting. Just about a month ago, my husband said, a friend of mine just recently asked me, what do you think of that stem cell infusion? Do you think it worked? And he said I had to tell him, Honestly, I don't think it so unfortunately, that was a big cost and a big and it was very traumatic for him. And I just can't that being the overall end all, not discounting it. I'm not saying don't try it. I threw everything at the wall to see what so I just feel like at this point, it probably wasn't the one magic bullet.

Andrea: Is it promoted as being very effective?

Christa: I think it basically or a common M treatment trial state. Okay, so what it is, is they're not FDA approved, but it's an FDA approval to allow the trial to be given to parents and kids that are willing to pay for it. I see.

Emie: Okay. Or are you getting information all these days and years?

Christa: Okay. This is one thing that's really interesting, and I may be the only one, but I've never Googled the word autism in the last 16 years.

Emie: Never. Not once, ever.

Christa: Not once.

Emie: No kidding. That is amazing. Self control.

Christa: No kidding. Ever want to read something that would scare me or lead me down a rabbit hole? That was just, not healthy. So when I had my two nine meeting and that's when they basically come to your house and say, he's very likely going to be diagnosed with autism. And then when you get to a point where you go into a preschool, they do a two nine meeting.

Emie: And in that 29.

Christa: Okay, I think it's more like in nine months, preschool starts. I don't know why they call it two nine meeting. I could be saying it wrong. It's been a long time. Yeah, no worries. 14.

Emie: I thought I'd clarify in case someone else was confused like me.

Christa: But in this meeting, all the teachers and the therapists and everyone were saying, so your son has autism, and all this stuff. And he had yet to be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. At this point. I was looking around the room and I was still in denial. And I'm looking at room, and I finally said, wait, he hasn't been diagnosed. What are you guys talking about? And, one of the Aba therapists pulled me into the kitchen, watch him right now. And he was lining up pans in the pantry. And she goes, he will very likely be diagnosed when you go to his meeting in two weeks with the psychiatrist. So I was working, I was doing public relations for technology companies, and I was flying to Washington DC, like, in three days. So I cried for two days. I just was just so sad. And no, really, my child doesn't have autism. There's no going through the whole process of sad. Man so they said, Read this book before you go to his appointment, with the regional center where he gets dust. And I did, and I read one paragraph, and I closed the book on the airplane out to DC. And I started a journal. I can't read this. This is too and so I just started writing a journal for him that day. And I have been writing it ever since. And I've never read it.

Christa: It's all raw material waiting for me to read it. and it all is biomedical treatments. It, talks about all the fights Brian and I had. It talks about how know Jack, my older son, was, because Nick wouldn't play with him. And he's Jack would tell me later, I would be in the playroom watching cars. And then all of a sudden, the Aba therapist would come in and kick me out. And I didn't realize how life was so difficult for him. So a lot of childhood was not only stolen from Nicholas because he went to a therapist 20 hours a week from age two on, but also Jack from age five on. A lot of his childhood was taken away because being told to get lost out of his own. and so it was a long road, but I would never not do all of the treatments that I did for him because I would always be questioning what if I did stem cells? What if I did the beef nuts? What if I did all the cod liver oil and the goat cheese yogurt? And what if I never tried the casein free, gluten free diet? So I feel like everything is well worth a try, because I am always that person. Because, even today I'm saying, what if I drove away from those fires? I try really hard to look at the future and not look at the past. But sometimes it's but at one point, after I went to an IEP meeting, I was fighting the teachers. I came home and Nick and I were just sitting at the kitchen table and I was, ugh, I'm so sick of fighting with them. And Nick looked at me and he goes, me know. It was just so interesting. And I had that moment of that AHA, moment of my stress is getting him down. So it was literally at that moment at the kitchen table, I looked at him and I said, I accept everything the way it is and I will calm down and I will stop stressing. I'm so sorry. And it was a game changer, that moment. I'll never forget it because he was verbal, but he didn't speak a lot. And so when he said something, you really paid attention to it. And if he said French fries, like I moved heaven and earth to get him some French. so it was a pretty profound moment, looking at the big picture. I would never change anything and I would try everything all over again. But I would look back and if I could tell myself some ten years ago, I would say, take it down a notch. Stop killing yourself trying to cure autism, because you're only hurting your own.

Emie: Wow.

Christa: And to answer your question, which I actually, kind of went on a tangent, but I didn't answer your question. I only read the books that therapists told me to read. I only took the advice interest from my doctors. I only gave Nicholas supplements or did anything with the biomedical treatments that were proven that he was deficient in from an organic acids test or a genetic test. And, when I say I threw everything at the wall to see what would, I never did anything that wasn't proven that he needed to do that.

Andrea: And how did you find those resources?

Christa: So flying home from DC from my business trip, I read Jenny McCarthy's book, which I was a little leery about reading, but I actually loved it. And I kept saying to myself, that's me. That's me. That's me. That's Nick. So I loved it so much that I read that on the way home. And that just kind of gave me a little burst of, okay, I've got this. I can do this. She did it. I can do it. So the first doctor I saw was one that she recommended, and he was in Orange County. So that's how I found my first resource. Then the second biomedical doctor I found was through a friend that also had a child with autism. And then the third one I found was through the autism conference, the Taka, it's called Talk about Curing Autism. It's a resource here in San Diego. And I found that one. And then the next resource I found, which is, I also found them through, the conference, and they're here in San Diego. And they only work with kids with autism. And they have doctors on site, they have OT speech, they have music therapy. They're wonderful. So they're the ones who are overseeing Nicholas now. I just went from the doctor on the East Coast to Cortica because he's the one that did all the genetic tests. So, Dr. Scouron on the East Coast did so many genetic tests that he proved Nicholas's autism was not genetic, that it was 100% environmental. And so he has regressive autism. So, going back to my gut, I do believe it was the MMR Vaccination plummeting, his immune system with all of the black ash from the fires and the toxins that came out of that ash. I do believe it was when it triggered his autism. I also blame a lot of pesticides, personally. We've done a lot of organic purchases. We do not use pesticides in our home or in our yard. we have never used a service like that since he was diagnosed. And it's interesting, too. These tests also tell you whether or not your child is sensitive to the Wi Fi and all of the oh, my, are you serious? They do. And so the genetic tests prove that Nicholas is okay with that stuff. He's okay with the big power lines running all over you.

Emie: could test if somebody's sensitive to.

Christa: That, you can test it.

Emie: There's just so many things to worry about.

Andrea: I think I can only worry if I'm seeing that I've got some sort of an issue, or the people that I love have some sort of an issue. Because if not, I'd go live out in the middle of nowhere in a cave. The genetic testing seems like something that I'd recommend for almost anybody that suspects that they might have autism. But if it is genetic, and you may not know this, but if it is genetic, if you're making those changes in the environment, are the success rates of having it regress, or, not progress so quick better than if it is genetic?

Christa: I don't know the answer to that. But I can tell you that our kids were in preschool together, and they were pretty much at the same level. And, last time I saw her was maybe three years ago. And her son has never really progressed. And he, unfortunately, is at a school where the kids are banging their heads, and so there's like bubble wrap and padding on the ducts so the kids don't hurt themselves. And she had twin boys, and one was typically developing and the other is really impacted with autism and is still really impacted. They were pretty much at the same level in preschool. We were really close. And then when he started kind of going the other direction, Nick started going the other direction. I don't know. I don't know if it was just too hard for her to stay friends. Watching Nicholas flourish and her son wasn't I don't know. But we lost time.

Emie: No, I could totally see that.

Emie: I keep having this, my brain works in analogies. I perceive everything through some other random analogy. So I keep thinking as we're talking about all these things that everybody's researching and all of the healing opportunities and different types of doctors and school, inside, I just feel like, oh, my gosh, it's so much. And it's so exhausting. And I keep thinking about how I remember writing a little blurb about this before. Have you ever watched curling? The sport? Curling?

Christa: Yes.

Emie: I feel like we're all those people with those brooms, and we're frantically, frantically trying to optimize the trajectory of our kids lives so that they can just go, but it's like a nonstop we're like the person with the broom where we're, like, trying to get the most optimal path for our little kiddos to just go off. And it's just a lot even, like, hearing it when we talk, listening to your story. I don't know. And maybe that's a negative of me to go, oh, my gosh, it sounds like so much, but we do.

Christa: Lot, so much. I actually think that's the perfect analogy because Nicholas has always been he progresses, but it's really slow and he's steady. He's slow and steady, but he's always headed in the right direction. But it takes a long time to get there with the reading and the math and the language, all of that. And that's me on the side. Let's go, let's go. Let's get it done. I have been stressing out for 14 years. I'm that little frantic broom next to him. And he's just like, I got this. I'm going to get there. Just give me some time. And I'm the one.

Emie: It's like that one day when he told you even yeah.

Christa: And he now is so, one little sidebar is he unfortunately is now developing OCD. He's got this compulsive hand washing and I guess OCD, I'm learning something new now. OCD and autism go hand in hand, and it doesn't really show up until teen years and young adults, he's a little bit late to puberty, but I'm feeling like puberty might be could be 100% wrong. It does.

Andrea: It does.

Christa: Yeah.

Andrea: My son has OCD.

Christa: Okay. I'm trying to get in with a therapist. Not easy. Everyone's booked. Everyone has waitlists. So I'm on a five month waitlist right now for him? Well, in the meantime oh, my gosh.

Emie: Are you kidding?

Christa: I'm not kidding. And I've been turned down by a lot because they may, specialize in OCD. Can't take a child with autism because they need somebody who can communicate with a child with autism as well as understand the OCD. But I didn't want to sit back and wait, so I went back to the therapist that's done his neuro. We did a Q EEG on his brain. That's the other thing. I never let anyone do neurofeedback on him until we did a mapping of his brain to understand what was over processing and what was under. And I can't enough, because I have had many therapists say, oh, well, we can do it without mapping the brain. I said, well, how do you know it's going to be effective? So, no, they use my knowledge. Okay, well, let me give you one example why that wouldn't work. One thing that really showed up in his brain is that he was not reading facial expressions, okay? So the part of the brain that reads facial expressions was really underdeveloped. And I would have said, oh, he totally can understand facial expressions because he understands mine. And what the therapist told me, she's like, and think about it. He's been working 16 years to understand your facial expressions, but to try to understand everybody's is impossible to him. But he's been working his whole life to understand yours. So if you went and told somebody, oh, you don't need to work on that part of the brain, because he totally understands that would have been a disservice to Nicholas, because that really needed to be so I would never, ever help kind of like do the neurofeedback and, rewire his brain in a way, because the brain wants to work properly. It doesn't want to work in an inefficient manner. And there's a beautiful book called A Symphony in the Brain that explains all of this. And I highly recommend this book called A Symphony Brain and it talks all about neuro. Well, back to OCD. So I didn't want to wait for the therapist, so I went back to the person that did the neurofeedback. So we did another brain mapping just a month and a half ago, and she has a protocol using stimuli to help calm down the frontal lobe. So the frontal cortex is what's? and it's interesting, while we're treating the OCD, I'm really seeing his executive functioning improve, which is really I want to get ahead of it because I don't want it to control his life.

Andrea: I just think it's great that you're doing that. And interestingly enough, Emie and I, interviewed a doctor a few weeks ago. She was doing neurofeedback, and one of her big suggestions was to make sure you went to a board certified neurofeedback doctor. She said people can just buy the neurofeedback and say, I do neurofeedback.

Christa: That's so scary.

Emie: Actually, when you think about it, that's very scary.

Christa: Yeah.

Emie: Christa, thank you so much for talking with us. I learned a ton, and I wish we could do this for hours more because I have so many more questions. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

Christa: You're so welcome. Thank you for having me.

Andrea: Thank you.

Christa: Christa.

Andrea: Thank you for joining us on this way up. We hope today's conversation brought you valuable information.

Christa: Insights and a unity.

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