Session Six 6-19-09

Session 6
(diagnosis autism age 3)
6-19-09
This morning we had an early HBOT session in hopes Sevyn would sleep in the chamber. Well, despite having kept him up very late he was pretty hyper by the time we got there. Just one of those days I guess. He kept spitting and flapping his arms in a spastic way that told me something was off for him. We had to take it easy going into full compression because he was holding his ears and not listening to me when I tried to guide him through the toning to open his mouth. He also didn’t want to eat anything to help pop his ears. It took longer to get to 4.2 PSI and thus more time in the chamber. Sevyn wanted to move from one end of the camber to the other and check all the windows, zippers and knobs over and over rather then lay down with mommy and watch Sponge Bob or Word World. All the activity makes us both quite hot in the chamber, so I really try to encourage him to relax and be calm. At one point the did get mad about not being aloud to touch the inner zipper of the chamber (the kids can never touch the zipper) and he hit me in the face and pulled my hair in a fit of rage. This was the first angry display I have seen in the chamber and he calmed down quickly when he saw Dr. Matt checking in with a stuffed animal overhead. Despite some behaviors we still did the full hour long session and Sevyn was seated and playing with me towards the end. I actually wanted to stay in the chamber once he calmed down and just cuddle like we did the day before, like he finally got to that relaxed state and it was time to decompress and get out. Sevyn did fine during the decompression and is naturally popping his ears now. When he doesn’t do it I ask him “show me your tongue” or “show me your teeth” to get him to open wide and say ahhhh. When the zipper opened Sevyn jumped upright and shouted, “We did it!” It was the very first time we had heard those words from him! Completely spontaneous and purposeful! Not and echo but his own thought! It was so cool! Dr. Matt and I applauded Sevyn and gave him big hugs! * I should note that I was very stressed out on this day. Thinking it over, some of Sevyn behaviors may have been from my stress and him feeling that energy. I had a family member pass away and had been crying and sad. I feel like Sevyn was reacting to me and not the therapy or a dietary infraction. When we got home Sevyn was calm and asked to "go outside" until we let him out to play in the back yard. He came inside later and ate some toasted brown rice bread for the first time after being offered it for months! He also ate half of my salad and a bunch of veggies I had no idea he’d even try! We are putting all kinds of new veggies in front of him lately and he’s just now starting to try them. He’s been eating more raw foods and Prana Enzyme Bars (these are great and 75%raw, vegan, GFCF, and organic) yes they have sugar, but much less than the fruit and sugary GFCF cookies he was having for snacks. He was eating way too much fruit! He did some ABA with me today. We worked with PECS and did some fine motor and floor time. He refused the flash cards again screaming "stop it" and trying to scatter the cards. Before we went to bed he sat and read about half a book with me. No poop today. He went 5 days in a row though and that’s amazing!

opps this video is from day five...but you get the idea!