The Autism Caregiver’s Moment of Truth

by Lisa Joyce Goes

Dedicated to my brother, Brian Joyce, who passed away today, March 23, 2012, the day before my son Liam’s fourth birthday. He was the ultimate caregiver and peacemaker. Another good one gone, far too early, taken by cancer.

Since our son Noah was diagnosed with autism in 2009 we have had a steady influx of caregivers in our home. I check, check, and recheck their qualifications. Not just their resume version of themselves, the Facebook version. What makes them tick, their passions, weaknesses and challenges, their families—all of it. Everything that makes them, them, I need to know. Many a qualified worker has been scared off by my invasive questioning and intense eye contact which leads me to conclude our relationship was better left unexplored.

Right now our core group is a solid collection of women who want to make a difference in the lives of children with special needs. They are so much more self-aware and sensible than I was at their age. We are grateful to have them.

The benefit of working in our home is the free 24 hour autism education. If I am not instructing these students directly, explaining a medical condition, giving a history lesson on ethyl vs methyl mercury or the complex institutional deceit that has allowed the autism epidemic to flourish under our noses, then I can be overheard on conference calls discussing current issues affecting autism (the sham known as the DSM) or dissecting headlines with any number of activists I network with from around the world. It is a priceless education for someone interested in autism – the real autism, of course – not the pharmaceutically publicized mainstream media version.

The other day, one of our caregivers was trying to calm Noah. His eyes were dilating, a sign that his blood sugar was dropping and he was on the cusp of violence. I explained to her, as I always do, exactly what he was experiencing at that moment. This is something I do regularly in an effort to help diffuse the situation, keep the caregiver (and myself) and the rest of the family calm. I find having to concentrate on pronouncing the long complex medical terms that describe his many afflictions takes my mind off the awful reality that he is attempting to bite his own fingers or trying to break granite with his bare hands.

Apparently this episode was different than the others for this dear girl because she burst into tears. “Lisa, he is so frustrated. He is all there. I see him in there. Ever since you started that blood cleaning thing, whatever it is you’re doing now…I can see him in there. He’s so funny. I can see his personality coming out. He wants to play with the other kids so much. He feels left out. He’s in so much pain. I can tell.”

On this particular day it finally clicked for her that Noah is sick. He’s trapped in a deteriorating body and she is watching from the sidelines while my husband Dave and I try like hell to save his life and raise our other two neurotypical children.

She’s heard my friends and me refer to what is happening to our children as the Iatrogenic Holocaust. Of course, those who boarded the trains to Auschwitz had an inkling that their futures may not be so bright. They were forced out of their homes, separated from their families, stripped of their assets. The writing was on the wall. Despite the glorious picture of Nationalist pride painted by Mein Kampf, the air must have been thick with apprehension for those cramped passengers.

In contrast, modern day American moms and dads do not head to well baby visits with the full understanding that we may never see our precious babies smile and babble again. We do not drive to the pediatrician’s office thinking, “Well, if he does end up with a seizure disorder that claims his life at least he won’t get the chicken pox.” We do not sit in the waiting room among other parents wondering which one of our toddlers will walk out with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, autism, asthma, or SIDS. We board the train with complete faith. Complete faith that we are doing right by our child, entirely uneducated about iatrogenic inflammation, oxidative stress, and immune abnormalities.

Meanwhile, our children are dying inexplicably at alarming rates, developing auto-immune illnesses of unknown origins (really?) and 54% of our kids require maintenance medications just to be able to function on a daily basis. No one knows why. All the literature and news reports repeatedly tell us our food and vaccines are perfectly safe. There is nothing wrong with injecting or eating altered DNA (no, not because we have scientific proof, because the government says so).

The insidiousness of this Holocaust is that its perpetrators come in the name of omniscient science, preaching health, wellness, and the good of the herd. They smile and pat our shoulders as their nurse slides a piece of paper into the stack we are holding. It says something about “mitochondrial disease…seizures…death…rare”. Sign, please. We trust these medical representatives like we trust our priests, teachers, camp counselors, and coaches. We trust them more because they went to medical school. Most of us don’t know medical school is now pharmaceutical school. Free thought and investigative medicine are frowned upon. Real science, the kind that looks for answers rather than influencing them, is unheard of. There is no money in healing. There is great money in chronic illness.

And that’s why our caregiver cried. The reality of it all hit her at that exact moment. The little boy she cares for three days a week was in a terrible, terrible accident. An accident that occurred repeatedly throughout the first two years of his life, until the mommy that held his squirming little body still while that semi rolled over him time and time again finally got a clue and stopped vaccinating.

It wasn’t that our caregiver didn’t believe all this back when I interviewed her months ago. It’s that now she is living it. She is witnessing the devastating effects of our vaccination program on a real human life – my precious son, Noah Patrick Goes – day in and day out. He is not simply a child with special needs. He is the victim of a crime. His abusers, “Vaccine Champions” (doctors paid by pharmaceutical companies to promote their products) appear on television shows. They comfort the public with perfect rows of white teeth and waxy faces. They scowl at the camera when they talk about infectious disease, crazy non-vaccinating parents (most of whom fully vaxed their kids, by the way) and assure their viewers that kids like Noah are rare. 1 in 6 is not rare.

Medical journals, expert panels, government and pharma-funded scientists and doctors all say it is not true. There is no clinical proof children with autism (a made up word that describes behavior) suffer any pain at all. Their screams and behavior are attention-seeking efforts, the experts say. The experts also don’t understand methylation, metabolic failure, or mitochondrial disease. They only understand it is their job to defend the untested vaccine schedule. They are not paid to save children. They are paid to save profits.

Can you smell the burning flesh, my friends? Preserve the purity of the race/program at all costs. No matter how much human life is lost. If it’s not your child’s life, it’s a-okay. When you author the program you also get to author the statistics, the science, and the story itself.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Now that you know what I am saying is true, please tell Noah’s story to everyone you know. That way, his suffering will not be in vain.” I didn’t think this was too much to ask of her.

She nodded through tears. “Of course, I am so sorry, Lisa.” She said. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

No one does. That’s why we do this. That’s why a bunch of us exhausted moms (and one kick ass dad) find time to post, research, connect, discuss and share information every day. Your doctor, no matter how much he may tell you he knows, is clueless. He doesn’t network like we do. He doesn’t have access to the studies we do because he’s not looking for them. Doctors are process oriented. Thinking Moms are results oriented.

Doctors get their information from pharma-funded institutions exclusively. Thinking moms on the other hand? We do the work. We know no association or insititution is going to go to the mat for our children like we will. We call universities ourselves, attend conferences, visit research hospitals, medical libraries. We read books, talk to politicians, seek the advice of the most prominent auto-immune, metabolic and mitochondrial researchers in the world. We have access to the studies that cannot get published because they point to the cause.

Our advice? Do Your Own Research!

Question your doctor. Bring him the studies you’ve read. Open a dialogue. Do not be intimidated. Your child’s life depends on it. I know many parents of adult children with autism who’ve not yet had their “Caregiver moment.” It’s too awful for them to face. Do not let this be you, friend.

Do not pretend it didn’t happen. Wake up, stand up. Effect change. Yes, you held him down. But, if you are one of the lucky ones, your child is still here. You can do something. We are here to help. While saving your child you may save countless others. All of it, every moment, is worth it if our kids are given a chance at a better life.

Lazar Slavkovic’s Photostream

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Lisa Joyce Goes graciously allowed Gaia Health to republish this important article on autism. The original can be seen here.

Tagged autism, autism caregiver, autism dsm, autism epidemic, autism vaccines, big pharma, conventional medicine, lisa joyce goes, lisa joyce goes autism, modern medicine, pharmaceutical drugs, pharmaceuticals, pseudo-science, pseudoscience