Last Updated:
Sep 25, 2009
The Gillespie Family
Stevie & Sammy5-13-04 1:07/1:08 6lbs1oz5lbs15oz
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Last Updated:
Sep 25, 2009
The Gillespie Family Stevie & Sammy5-13-04 1:07/1:08 6lbs1oz5lbs15oz |
Stories |
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January 21, 2006...we traveled to Fairfax, VA to the Childrens Hospital TSC clinic and met with Dr. McClintock. Stevie and Sammy do NOT have Tuberous Sclerosis Complex. YEAH!!!! January 23, 2006...Sam had his EEG today but we will not know the results for atleast 1 week. Jesse was a huge help and comfort to his little brother. Thank you Jesse! January 24, 2006...we have hired Mary Hepple, an advocate, to oversee and mediate Steven and Samuel's Early Intervention Services. She is an awesome advocate. Delegate Eric Bromwell co-signed Delegate Sue Kullen's Maryland Mercury-Free Vaccine Act. We respect these Delegates and Senators a great deal for wanting to make Maryland safe for all children and pregnant women. Go Delegate Bromwell!!! Here's hoping that Maryland will be the seventh state to be Mercury-Free!
January 13, 2006...HAPPY 20 MONTHS STEVIE AND SAMMY!!!!!!! January 12, 2006 Today, Stevie and Sammy were seen at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital for an audiological evaluation. Dr. Resnick has informed us that the boys have a mild to moderate hearing impairment. We now have to see Dr. David Tunkel with Johns Hopkins. The boys need to have a sedated Audiology Brainstem Response test done to determine the extent of damage and severity of the impairment. We will also be meeting with Dr. Joseph Pillion, Director of Audiology at KKI, for a consult. We were not prepared for this. January...We have an upcoming TEAM meeting through Infants & Toddlers this week for Sam and next week for Stevie to discuss their ISFP. January 12, Stevie and Sammy will be seeing Dr. Resnick, a pediatric audiologist, at Mt. Washington Children's Pediatric Hospital to have a hearing assesment. On January 21, my parents along with our family will be heading to the Children's Hospital TS clinic in Fairfax, VA to meet with a team of specialist to determine whether the boys need further testing to rule out/confirm Tuberous Sclerosis. January 1, 2006...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!! 12/05...It's December obviously, Stevie and Sammy are cutting 4 molars at once and have had headcolds since the week of Thanksgiving. Stevie is also now standing. YEAH! Both love "Jay Jay the Jetplane," "The Wiggles," "Blue's Clues" and "Teletubbies." They are sleeping through the night for the most part when not too congested. Sam has been cruising furniture for awhile now and we are patiently waiting for him to take his first steps. We had a relatively quiet Christmas as Steve had to work that night. The children seemed very happy and content with their presents. They got a good bit. My parents came over and helped alot. Mom helped me with the Christmas dinner while dad entertained the grandkids. We forgot to take pictures. Too busy cooking, eating and then relaxing. We had an amazing appointment with Dr. Andrew Zimmerman on 12/12 at Kennedy Krieger Institute and he diagnosed the boys with regressive autism/encephalopathy. During our consult, Dr. Z pulled out a Woods lamp and went over the boys and found what appears to be hypomelanotic macules (white spots/patches of skin.) So now the boys need further testing to ruleout/confirm Tuberous Sclerosis. They also have to have overnight EEG's to rule out seizure disorder. So now a new journey begins... The twins were also evaluated by the OT and SLP at Mt. Washington's Childrens Pediatric Hospital's outpatient Feeding Clinic. They will be going weekly for feeding therapy. Our next biggest news...Delegate Sue Kullen will be sponsoring the Mercury-Free Maryland bill and Delegate Gilleland will be co-sponsoring this bill. There are several more Delegates and Senators also supporting this bill. But Steve Sr., Stevie Jr., Samuel, Ashley, Jesse and I would like to personally thank Senator Kathy Klausmeier and Delegate Eric Bromwell personally for supporting this bill as they are both in District 8 and we have spoke personally with both of them and they are true heros for making a committment to our future, our children! Thank you both for listening to our story and for taking our concerns seriously. Let's be the seventh state to be Mercury Free!!! [CA passed 9/04 (AB2943/Ch. 837-Stat. 2004), DE passed 7/05 (HS2 for HB108), IL passed 9/05 (94-0614), IA passed 5/04 (SF2209), MO passed 5/05 (HB131) and NY passed 8/05 (H5543/S2707). 11-21-05 We are so proud of our daughter. She recieved her report card today and thanks to a healed gut due to vitamins, minerals, enzymes and supplements plus the GFCF diet she has the best report card ever. Ashley is currently in a Functional Placement. This is the first year since Ashley was 5 years of age that she has been off of prescription meds for her ADHD. Her grades are as follows:
Art Gr 8 = A
The Speech Pathologist comments:
Comments by quarterly period: Ashley has the following dx of ADHD, a mixed receptive and expressive speech and language disorder, a severe reading disorder, a severe writing disorder, a severe math disorder, has a moderate to severe sensoneural hearing loss in her left ear and is borderline to low average cognitive functioning. I am sharing all of this information with everyone as "There is lots of hope!" for our older children, as well. My daughter is a living testimony to this. And we are sooo very proud of her and she is proud of herself. She is now more aware than ever of all the changes that are going on and Ashley seldomly ever cheats on her diet. She has more willpower than I could ever possibly hope to have... Michelle 11/05 Much has happened since my last post in 8/05...the boys are now crawling which is a HUGE accomplishment. We now have a new PT and Special Educator whom are extremely wonderful. We are working on many new things with the boys such as baby signing since they are non-verbal. Unfortunately, we have not found a great OT and are still working on this issue. We also have a nurse co-ordinating their Infants and Toddlers program along with a social worker. The twins are currently being evaluated by the county's school psychologist as the neuropsych that originally gave them their autism spectrum dx has not returned anyone's calls or letters. The boys have also seen a nutritionist, Dana Laake, and she is awesome. They have loads of GI issues and we will be doing further testing to confirm malabsorption. They are currently on the GFCF diet along with vitamins and supplements. I am making all of their organic food here at home. It has been quite the experience as they eat better than the rest of us. Ashley is still on the GFCF diet along with vitamins and supplements and is doing wonderful. She has gained over 15 pounds since May which is a big jump. She is filling out and feels great these days. She is doing very well in school this year as opposed to the last school year and is med free. Jesse will be 11 years old on 11/08 and is going to be taking vitamins and supplements also. We were told that he has Irritable Bowel. Aside from that, he is doing well. He is of great help. Jesse is also taking violin in school and is looking forward to his upcoming winter concert. Amanda called and is now a Private in Fort Lee, Va. She is in AIT and is enjoying military life as much as she can. My girlfriend Debbie sent her her first big box of goodies. Amanda was more than surprised. Amanda will be stationed in Hawaii for 3 years. Please pray that she gets stationed in Hawaii as planned and NOT deployed. I will be attending a Floortime series in November and December. Ms. Jo Raphael will be heading this series. We are also looking into VB/ABA for the boys which is another home-based curriculum to enhance their learning. On December 12, we will be meeting with Dr. Andrew Zimmerman at Kennedy Krieger Institute to review Stevie and Sammy's MRI results and findings. Dr. Zimmerman has a rather lengthy background in autism spectrum disorders. 8-10-05 Today, we met with the neuropsychiatrist for a diagnostic evaluation on our twins...Stevie Jr. and Sammy now have the clinical DX of autism spectrum disorder. They will be 15 months old on 8-13-05. This does NOT change how we feel towards our babies as we love them dearly but it definitely changes how much harder we will work, research and fight for their rights. *I had originally started this site because I wanted to share photos of our beautiful children... But then on April 28th, my good friend Marion called me and brought up Don Imus and his morning talks regarding David Kirby and his book "Evidence of Harm" as well as tunafish, mercury and Thimerasol. I now have included information regarding all of these issues, on our site. Our twins have the DX of Severe Global Development Delay and are showing characteristics of autism... We believe beyond the shadow of a doubt that all of this started when I had recieved the MMR vaccine 5 days postpartum, as I breastfed for a short time thereafter. At 8 days of age they were having major GI issues and we switched formulas several times. Then in conjunction with all of their other vaccines, Stevie and Sam recieved 2 flu vaccines each containing Thimerasol. Shortly after recieving those 2 vaccinations both boys exhibited self-stimming behaviors. Samuel was exhibiting a physical stim while Stevie was exhibiting a visual stim. The few words that they both said disappeared. At one time, both of our babies loved to be held and cuddled that stopped as well. We are now going from doctor to doctor trying to find answers. (will continue) 8-01-05, Today, we met with Dr. Michael Altman, the pediatric Neuropthamologist at Sinai. Stevie and Sam's vision is so good that they do not have to go back for 2 years. He aslo explained that their MRI's were fine and no surgery is neccessary. Their brains are a bit smaller than average. But other then that they are OK. The extra fluid over the cerebral cortex is nothing to be concerned about. 7-19-05 Today, the boys had their MRI's and thankfully all went well. They can't wait to get home as we all had to get up extra early and dad went with us straight from work. 7-6-05, We met with Dr. Arnold Brennar back on June 14 and had some blood work drawn on Stevie and Sammy. We are awaiting results from those test. We recieved our Hair Analysis results from Great Plains Lab in Kansas and now have to send out the urine as well. The boys are making nice progress since they have been on Nystatin for Candida, acidophilis, liquid Vitamin C and Cod Liver Oil. We have to wait for further results prior to chelating. On May 31, we met with Shelley Kennedy the Special Educator for the boys and on June 17, we met with Jeffra the Occupational Therapist for the boys. We now have a nice full schedule through the Infants and Toddlers Program of Baltimore County. We also had a mini-vacation at the end of June in Florida. The kids had a great time in the water. We stopped by South of the Border and brought back a few goodies. The babies were a little sick and have recovered nicely and will not be traveling long distance anytime soon. On July 18, we meet with Dr. Brennar in reference to Ashley and on July 19, Stevie and Sammy have their scheduled MRI's. Also, look for the huge article in the Rolling Stones Magazine dated June 30-July 14, 2005 "Are Mercury-Tainted Vaccines To Blame?" written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On July 20, there will be a HUGE rally/walk in D.C. for the Mercury/Autism connection.
6-7-05, We now have our MRI appointments for the boys which will be 7-19-05. Hopefully no one will be sick and we can get this done. 5-16-05 Our MRI appointment for the boys was cancelled for 5-17-05 due to them being sick. 5-13-05 HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! STEVIE & SAMMY are 1 year today. YEAH!!! but unfortunately the boys both have upper respiratory infections and fevers plus Stevie has an ear infection. YUK! 4-30-05 Our new journey begins as we have a glimmer of hope as to why our boys are developing the way they are. We are now consulting with a DAN doctor. Defeat Autism Now! Many who read this may not believe but knowledge is power! If you do the math and research you will want to protect your child or children as well... Mecury, a metal, also known as Hg to chemist has been used as a preservative in the form of Thimerosal in children's vaccines since the 1930's. In the early 1990's it was banned from animal vaccines because it was to toxic. In 1998, it was removed from over-the-counter products because of safety concerns. In 2003, the U.S. House Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness wrote, "Thimerasol used as a preservative in vaccines is likely related to the autism epidemic. This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding injecting Thimerasol and the sharp rise of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin." I urge anyone reading this to look into what vaccines your children are receiving. Ask your doctor for the package insert not the box. Check to see that Thimerasol is NOT contained in the vaccine. Also, buy David Kirby's book "Evidence of Harm" and Dr. Jaqueline McCandless's book, "Children with Starving Brains" both books are extremely informative on today's autism epidemic. Mercury poisoning is autism... 4-25-05 Today was Jesse's first game as Saturday's Open Day was cancelled due to poor weather conditions...Jesse also brought home his third report card of the year and had all A's and B's. We are super proud of him. GO JESSE!!!!! 4-21-05 Today, I met with Lee M. our case manager for the boys through Infants and Toddlers...Lee is going to approve a Teacher to come and evaluate the boys and to start working with them which is great news as they will now have a Teacher as well as their Physical Therapy services. Lee will no longer be their case manager once the boys turn 1 which saddens us as we have enjoyed working with her. The boys are making progress slowly but surely and we are happy with their small strides. Here's an update on the boys...4-18-05 We met with Dr. Gratz, a pediatric neurologist, at Sinai and he feels that the boys do not have Hydrocephalus. He also wants us to keep our May 17 appointment for their MRI's and have an ultrasound of their heads done to look at ventricle size. He feels that they are just developmentaly delayed, until further testing shows otherwise. He will be following up with the boys in six months...
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