Beyond the Obvious

Jake has made some great advances over the past year, most noticeably in the area of speech communication/vocabulary. He speaks very intelligently, and understands and correctly uses some very big words and some abstract concepts. However, he has not mastered the back and forth of conversation, and often his talking is "TV talk" where he is in his own world talking to Sponge Bob or some movie character. If you ask him "how was your day?" you are just as likely to get an answer of "good" as you are to get "and now it's time to go to the Krusty Krab!." But, when it comes to him telling you that he wants something to eat or drink or to go the to store, etc., he's doing a pretty good job of making himself heard and understood.

It is unfortunate though, that he still has an extremely high tolerance for pain, and often will not communicate when he's hurting. Yesterday I received a call from his teacher, telling me that over the last few days he has really been acting out around recess; not wanting to go outside, and then when he gets outside he is difficult and angry. Upon returning to class, he has been going into crying fits and causing disruption. He even bit and hit an aide on Monday.

His teacher and I went through several scenarios trying to figure out what was wrong. Of course we considered the obvious that he is acting out since daddy had to leave him again, or that he was having a hard time dealing with changes in the classroom, and even that maybe going to school all day was to much for him.

After my conversation with Mrs. Burden, I started to really think about Jake and what I know of him, and I just didn't feel like any of the things we talked about were really the issue. Yes, he misses his daddy, but he's adjusted very well at home and is not showing any signs of acting out like he did in the past. He's also talking to me a lot about daddy and how he misses him, and that is new and positive. Then I started thinking about changes at school, and the one thing I couldn't get over was the fact that he is happy to go to school in the morning, and this behavior is new - something has happened very recently.

I was still pondering what was wrong when Jake arrived home from school. He came in saying, "Jake had a bad day. I got all reds." They work under a color system at school, greens mean all is good, yellows mean we had some issues, and reds mean things didn't go so great. I hugged him and started to help him get out of his school clothes and into some comfy clothes so he could relax.

He was indeed sad, and although I kept asking questions, we just weren't connecting - I couldn't' figure out what was wrong. That is until he took off his socks, and I saw his big, swollen, black and blue infected big toe.

"Jake!" I cried out, "what's wrong with your foot?"
"DON'T TOUCH IT," he yelled, "IT HURTS!" Well yes, I could see that. He had a major ingrown toe nail that had abscessed and had swollen to the point that I was thinking we might need a trip to the ER. I could only imagine how terribly painful it had to be for him to put that foot in a shoe, where the toe would be smashed against his other toes, stabbing him with each step.

Now it all fell into place - when he gets to school he takes his shoes off, but for recess he has to put them back on. Force that painful toe back into a tight shoe, where once again every step he takes will bring agony. And yet, he didn't tell anyone. Usually when he is hurting he will at least say he has an orange (he learned to tell pain in color; orange is bad, red is REALLY bad), but this time he said nothing to anyone. He just suffered through it, and when it got so painful he couldn't contain himself, he acted out, biting and punching and finally deteriorating into a sobbing mess.

I was able to doctor his toe and kept him home for the day. He is now saying that it feels much better, and it certainly LOOKS better, so that's a good thing. Tomorrow he will go back to school and I will tell his teacher what happened, and we will have solved another mystery.

As a mom, these types of incidents just rip my heart in two. Thinking that my beautiful, sweet little boy is needlessly suffering in silence is enough to just send me over the edge. I wish there was more I could do for him. I wish it was all just a little easier for him. I wish we could have a miracle.

Is Autism Cause by the Weather?

Since we live in Oregon, I was obviously intrigued when I recieved the following email today:

Autism linked with rainfall in study
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Children who live in the U.S. Northwest's wettest counties are more likely to have autism, but it is unclear why, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
Michael Waldman of Cornell University and colleagues were searching for an environmental link with autism, a condition characterized by learning and social disabilities.
They got autism rates from state and county agencies for children born in California, Oregon and Washington between 1987 and 1999 and plotted them against daily precipitation reports.
"Autism prevalence rates for school-aged children in California, Oregon and Washington in 2005 were positively related to the amount of precipitation these counties received from 1987 through 2001," they wrote in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, a London physician who wrote "Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion", expressed doubt, noting that autism diagnoses are on the rise in all climates.
No one know what causes autism, whose symptoms range from severe social avoidance to repetitive behaviors and sometimes profound mental retardation.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about one in every 150 children has autism or a related disorder such as Asperger's Syndrome. Rates in many countries have been rising, although that may be partly due to increased reporting and diagnosis of the condition.
Doctors agree there is a genetic component to autism. They also theorize that something in the environment and possibly conditions in the womb can trigger the condition.
The researchers said their study supports this idea.
Perhaps infants and toddlers are kept are kept indoors in front of the TV more in rainy climates, and that somehow causes brain changes, they said. Or perhaps they breathe in more harmful chemicals while indoors.
Vitamin D deficiency caused by insufficient time in the sun might also be a trigger, they said.
"Finally, there is also the possibility that precipitation itself is more directly involved," they wrote. Perhaps a chemical or chemicals in the upper atmosphere are transported to the surface through rain or snow.
"In recent years autism has been blamed on everything from discarded iPod batteries to mercury from Chinese power stations, from antenatal ultrasound scans to post-natal cord clamping, from diet to vaccines," Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a long-term study to find the causes of autism and other childhood conditions.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Michael Kahn and Alan Elsner)

Where has the year gone?!

It seems like just yesterday I was posting about our trip to visit daddy last spring - and to my horror I just realized that I haven't provided an update for my loyal readers for half a year!

2008 has been a little rough for us; life without daddy has been difficult and living apart for so long has started to take it's toll. But despite the obvious hardships, I'm so happy to share with you that Jacobi has made some great strides this year, and continues to grow into an amazing young man.

Last week was Halloween, and we were blessed with a visit home by daddy. Jake was very excited to see his dad, and started planning for the reunion by shopping for Halloween decorations whenever we went to the store. By the time Randy got here we had indoor decorations, out door decorations, costumes, and candy buckets. Jake was ready to go!

This year when I asked Jake what he wanted to be for Halloween, I was a little surprised by his answer. I had expected him to say he wanted to be Sponge Bob, or maybe a pinata (after his favorite video game, Viva Pinata). But as we were looking through the costume catalog and I flipped to the super hero section, Jake spotted a picture of the new dark batman and shouted with glee "Batman! Jake is batman!"
"Really?" I asked, "Are you sure?"
"YES! BATMAN!," Jake replied.
"But Jake, if you go as batman you have to wear the batman MASK - and that goes on your head like a hat. Are you SURE you're going to be able to do that?"
"YES!" he shouted.

I had my doubts. At nearly 7, he's never been able to tolerate anything on his head. In fact he has never been able to wear anything on his head other then a light hood. Even when dressing him, if I take too long getting his shirt over his head he freaks out, so I highly doubted he was going to put this batman mask ON, let alone wear it for an hour or two of trick-or-treating.
But after conferring with his dad it was decided that I would purchase the costume that Jake picked out, and we'd just see what happened.

Finally the big night arrived, and as the sun went down Jake and I started to get our costumes on. When I came down the stairs I was greeted by daddy helping Jake button his cape - with the Batman mask securely over his head. As soon as the cape was latched, he ran up the stairs to check himself in the mirror!

Not only did Jake wear his Batman costume, but he trick-or-treated for nearly an hour, skipping and running and singing, and joyously waiting for the next person to open their door so he could say "TRICK OR TREAT!"

His reward for his big Halloween adventure was some much needed time with his dad in a fairly social setting, and coming home with a great big bucket of candy. Of course he won't eat it, but he got it, darn it!

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Jake started Kindergarten this year, and one of the bonus "fun stuff" items for me was waiting for "picture day" so I could put the very first "school portrait" in his education scrapbook. The day of pictures Jake and I picked out the perfect outfit, combed his hair, polished his glasses, and off he went. I know it seems silly, but this picture was a really big deal for me, because it would be the foundation picture in his school scrap book - the first picture of him turning into a big boy, and the last will be his high school graduation.

About a week before Randy came home on leave, I got the pictures back. My mom actually saw them first and called me into the room. "Jake's pictures came back today," she said. Her lack of enthusiasm was my first clue.

I pulled pictures out of the envelope and stared at them for a few seconds. "Uh oh," I said."

"What do you think happened there?" my mom asked.

"Ummm...I don't know, but HEY! We can do a retake!" I replied.

I sent the pictures back with the "unaceptable" and "take retake" boxes checked, and figured that all would be fine. Except it wasn't fine - because Jake was home with pneumonia on the day of the retakes, and we weren't able to get them re-shot.

I really wanted to put photos in with Christmas cards, so I knew I was going to have to do something. Since money was tight, I decided to take him to one of the discount stores that has an in-house photo studio. When I went sign him up for pictures, I told the lady taking apointments that we would need extra time, and that it was very important that not have to wait long upon arrival, so could we please get an appointment earlier in the day. She ended up scheduling us as the first appointment after lunch, which should have meant no wait, so I said OK.

We spend a lot of time at this particular store shopping, and so it's a place that Jake is both familiar and comfortable with, but even so, he only has about 1o minutes of "wait time" in him before he starts getting very restless, which leads to agitation.

When we arrived for our appointment, we were the only people in the waiting area, but both of the studios had people in them. Fifteen minutes go by and we're still waiting to just GET IN A STUDIO, and Jake's still hanging in there. He was really excited about having his picture taken, and we spent the time talking about how great it was going to be to get to go in the studio and see the big camera.

After we had been waiting for about 20 minutes, I went up to the counter and said the gal who was working, “Look, when I signed up I told them that Jake has special needs and that we needed to get in within 10 minutes and they assured me that we would.”

She snapped back at me, "Just a minute!"

About this time 2 moms and their two boys, probably 11 and 12 years old, come and crowd in the very small waiting area, followed by a man and his son, who was probably about 8. They stood right in front of the only opening, in effect trapping Jake in a very small, confined space that now has a lot of noise and activity. At this point Jake rapidly starting losing what grip on reality he had. He stood up and started batting at imaginary things in the air as the moms stared, the kids stared, the dad stared.

The dad with the little boy did not come across as a nice person. When his son went to sit down, he grabbed him by the arm HARD and said "I told you NOT TO MOVE,” which of course Jake responded to by mirroring him, "I TOLD YOU NO MOVE!" Jake shouted at the guy from the across the room, giving him is best dirty look. The man shot a dirty look back, and at that point I was about ready to come out of my chair.

The two boys that were siting next to us start talking to each other and Jake walked over and said, “Hi Boys!” He said it with a smile and was very friendly, and the boys looked at him like he had worms crawling out his ears. “My name is Jake! I'm Jake!” He said, again with enthusiasm, and again they just stared at him. In Jake's world, that must mean they didn't hear him, so he stepped closer. The one boy actually leans back in his chair like "get away from me" and the other boy goes' YOU ARE Weird! The moms did nothing, just stood there and stared.

Jake looked at me like he knew something bad just happened, but he wasn't sure what. At that moment, when my heart was about to break, one of the studios emptied out, so I took Jake in there to get him away from the crowd.

We waited in there for another ten minutes…so he has now waited for over half an hour, which is really an outstanding amount of time for him to basically just stand around and wait. Finally the "photographer" came in, and I explained to her that Jake has Autism, which means it will take a little longer to do his pictures, and that I had arranged for extra time when I signed up. She assured me that was fine and that she had a friend who has an Autistic child, so she knew all about autism.

I wish I had a quarter for every time someone said to me, "Oh, my niece/neighbor/friend/boss's sister/third cousin on my step mom's side has a child with Autism, so I understand!" At the same time I was taking my quarter, I would turn around and bet it double or nothing that the person claiming to "understand" is actually completely clueless. I would then take my one million dollars and open up the most amazing therapy center you could possibly imagine. But I digress.

Jake had to climb up on a table covered with a soft rug and balance at a weird angle for the "photographer" to get the shot she wanted. I explained to her that he has difficulty with balance, and that the longer you try to get him to hold still in one spot, the less likely it is that it's going to happen. (I'm quite sure that's why we got the "what is THAT" pictures from school). Finally she gets him right where she wants him and she says "SMILE" and Jake gives his very best giant, fake, over-the-top Cheshire cat grin.

I told her that wasn't going to do, and she started barking orders at him, "Turn RIGHT!" "Turn you head RIGHT!" "He doesn't understand that, " I said. And before the words were completely out of my mouth, she had darted across the room and grabbed his head to try and turn it the way she wanted. It never occurred to me say, "by the way, many autistic people do not like/want to be touched by people they love, much less strangers, so what ever you do, don't touch my son." Because, yanno, she told me SHE KNEW ALL ABOUT AUTISM.

Of course the unwanted touching and the barking of orders confused and annoyed Jake, so he immediately started to become agitated. Once he is agitated, you can pretty much forget getting him to sit still much less smile and take a pretty picture, but she did manage to snap three more fake smile shots.

At this point she tells me that she'd like to try a different style of picture that would be easier for him. She pulls down a black background, we get him to turn sideways, and she tells him to look up at the sky, to where there is a little teddy bear hanging from the ceiling. Jake looks at the bear and starts to smile, and SHWAMP!, the flash goes off on the camera, right in his eyes. Jake threw his hands up to his face like we do when the sun is in our eyes, and he slowly peaked out from behind his hands, all the time blinking wildly and now physically shaking. He dropped his hands for just a second and SHWAMP! she took another picture. "ENOUGH!" I shouted. He can't take THAT! (In my head, this was followed by, "what are you, fucking CRAZY??"

Jake started crying and he was shaking and I went and picked him up. "No more light," he whimpered in my neck. "No more." "No more," I told him, "it's all over now. We're all done."

"Well I guess that should do it!" the girl said. I looked at her like SHE had worms crawling out her ears. "Follow me and we'll look at his proofs!" The three that she took with the Christmas background were part of the $9.99 portrait special that I had signed up for. I wanted these for my Christmas cards, to send to all of the friends and family who haven't had a picture of Jake since he was born. There were only three choices, and he looked like a goof in every one. "I don't like any of these," I said, "but I guess the first one will do." So she says to me, "well usually I take 8 or 9 on that background, but since he was such trouble I just did the three.

You will be proud to know that I help my composure, and lucky for everyone in the studio that day, the first of the traumatic flash pictures was actually quite lovely. Of course those were NOT on special, so I had to pay full package price, which was $50.00.

Next time I know that I need to immediately lay ground rules for the picture takers. Through out this story you will notice that I refer to the gal who took the pictures as the "photographer." That is because while that is the title the studio gives her, she is NOT a professional photographer. My photographer friend, Cyndie Planck, would have gotten beautiful, joyous pictures of Jake without any trauma to him at all. I wish I could afford to use her all of the time, but I have to make choices while I'm dedicating our resources to getting Jake's Place up and running.

I also know that when people say, "I know all about Autism" I need to act like I didn't hear a word they said. I need to be proactive and educate every single place I go with Jake, because he can't advocate for himself and most people don't know nearly as much as they think they do.

If you have a story about getting your child's picture taken, please share it with me, I really care about what you're going through, too.

The Language of Autism

Autism is a unique affliction; it runs the gamet from causing mild speech delays to near total incapacitation, which is why it's called a Spectrum disorder. Children with a diagnosis of Autism are some where on this spectrum, and how they are affected can be amazing, and frustrating, and incomprehensible all at the same time.

Yesterday Jake and I took a trip to the grocery store. Jakey loves the store - he loves to "talk to the peoples" and look at all the stuff on the shelves and, well, SHOP! Although he's nearly six and weighs 55 lbs, Jake has just progressed to the point (within the last two months) where he can walk along with me instead of riding in the cart. Since he's started walking he rarely wants to ride any more, but yesterday the cool red race car shopping cart caught his eye and he wanted to hop in.

Our store has groceries on one side, and house wares, home and garden, etc. on the other side. As we walked in, I started to turn right to go to the garden center, and Jake said “NO, lets go that way!” pointing to the left toward the food. I said we would have to go to the garden center first.

After we finished in the garden center, we started heading over to the grocery section and I headed down the aisles which run north to south. Every time we'd turn down the east-west aisle, he'd say "almost there...a little more..." He did this for six aisles. "Almost there...a little more..." Finally we turned down the cereal aisle, and he said, “That one! That one!” and he pointed down the aisle which has the typical 1000 different cereals. I started walking toward his very emphatic pointing, and about half way down the aisle we got to the Apple Jacks. Jake has never had Apple Jacks, and since he has extreme food sensitivities to the point of choking and gagging on new things, I tend not to buy him stuff that he hasn't had. But Jake was adamant; "That one," he said, “I want that one!” I said, “Are you sure?? Because if I buy it you have to eat it.” “YES! YES! I want that one! It has game! That's cimmaninon (which is how he pronounces cinnamon)!” So I said OK, although I wasn't quite sure what "game" had to do with cinnamon. As I started to put the box in the cart Jake said, “NO! Jake box! JAKE BOX” so I turned it over to him.

Jake held the box the entire time we were in the store. Autistic kids will often grab on to something and seem to become obsessed with it - it could be a block or a crayon or a cereal box.
Usually when we are at the store, Jake will say "Hi!" to everyone that walks past him. Then each time he says "Hi!" he says to me, "I'm talking to the people!" It's thrilling for both of us on different levels, but for me it's really wonderful for two reasons - he is using the word "I", which took him a long time to master, and he is focusing on the people around him instead of his internal world. But there would be no saying "Hi" to the people yesterday, because Jake now had a cereal box! As we continued our shopping he was talking to the box, and I kept hearing "cinnamon game." I was distracted so I didn't stop and ask him what he was talking about , but just continued on to the checkout.

When we go to the checkout Jake put his box on the counter for the man to scan. The man looked at Jake and said, "Hi! How are you today?" and Jake replied, "I'm Jake!" And that's how this disease works - pleasantries that most children learn by the age of three can be lost on a person with Autism for years or even a lifetime.

We finished checking out and headed out to the truck, with Jake smiling and holding his box of Apple Jacks. After we got home Jake helped me carry everything in and then retired to his room for some quiet time. Although he loves to go out, anytime he is around people, lights, sounds and new sights, he needs some quite alone time to come down.

Some time later I was relaxing and I heard him opening something. “What are you doing? ” I asked. With that question he came running down the stairs yelling, “WATCH! I got WATCH GAME!” So I looked at what he was handing me, and sure enough, it was an XBox game that you wear on your wrist like a watch. I took a brief look at it (it looked HARD) and I asked him if he wanted to put it on. "Yes! YES YES!" So I put it on him and turned it on, and figured he'd break it in an hour or so and that would be the end of that. Imagine my surprise when 45 minutes later I went upstairs to check on him and he was on my bed, playing that game. PLAYING IT. He figured out all the buttons, what to do, everything.

I really shouldn't have been surprised, as he has several gifts that are in direct opposition to what the Autism brings us, but I think the dichotomy catches me off guard every time. How is it that he can't answer the question "how are you," but he can play musical instruments, do simple math, and figure out how to play a video game that has complex movements in 20 minutes? It's a strange, strange affliction this Autism; it's a terrible, wonderful thing.

Oh, and by the way - he did eat the Apple Jacks - and asked for seconds!

Jenny, Jenny, Jenny...

Oh Jenny McCarthy, I know you mean well. I know your heart is in the right place....but.

And it's a big but. I would hazard to guess that 95% of US parents, when told their child has Autism, heads straight for Google. I know we did - we researched and read and researched and read until we couldn't read any more. We wore out keyboards, I kid you not. We wanted to know, WHAT, HOW, WHO caused our beautiful little boy to have this terrible affliction.

We heard lots of theories about Autism, but the two that seemed to keep coming up over and over were that Autism is caused by Thimerosal, a mercury (50%) based compound that was once used as a stabilizer in vaccines (and many other products), and/or was caused by or exasperated by Gluten.

I've always lived my life by the "everything happens for a reason" perspective, so it was during all of this researching and reading that I finally understood something about myself that I hadn't been able to figure out - why I had spent 4.5 years in college studying Molecular Biology and another 3 years working in research before I finally called it quits and went into business for myself. I mean I enjoyed research, and I did some good work while I was still in that life, but the fact was it was not my passion, and I had always known that. I could never really figure out what drove me to learn it - it's not exactly the easiest subject to learn - but when I found myself submersed in research abstracts and science periodicals studying Thimerosal and the effect of Gluten on the human body, I had one of those AHA moments! This was something I knew something about, and I was really anxious to discover how so many parents had come to the conclusion that vaccines were the culprit. Bring on the science!

Well, I hate to tell you this Jenny (and all the other band wagoners) but as of today, there is absolutely no factual scientific evidence to support that vaccines in any way contribute to Autism. And here's another one especially for you Jenny: your son is around the same age as mine. Jake was born in 2001 and had the "suspect" vaccines in 2002. But you you know what? They had already started to discontinued the use of the mercury compound Thimerosal in 1997 as part of the FDA Modernization act of 1997. Most vaccinations today do not contain Thimerosal at all, and the ones that do have such ridiculously low amounts (micro grams and lower) that my fillings would be doing more damage then these vaccines. (They've pretty much phased out mercury in fillings as well, but I've still got some real old ones in there!)

As for Gluten, there are some correlations showing that some autistic children when put on a gluten free diet show some signs of improvement, NOT CURE, but improvement - but as we all know, correlation does not equal causation. My son has gone through some amazing changes over the past five years, and during that time he's also started wearing under pants. AHA! Under pants cure Autism! Well...not so much.

I, as well as anyone, understand the intense desire to find out what causes our children's ailments, and I personally have been caught up in that all consuming desire to find someone, ANYONE to "blame" for Jake's Autism. But the fact is that while it may bring a sense of relief to point a finger and say AHA! Thimerosal! and AHA! Gluten!, the really hard truth is - and I'm sorry, because I know it's painful to hear - but the fact of the matter is that all of those claims are based pretty much solely on junk science and personal anecdotes.

I am thrilled for Jenny MacCarthy that her son showed great improvement after a change in his diet. Unfortunately for my son - and thousands of other kids with Autism - becoming gluten free had absolutely no effect what so ever, and the process the family and the child has to go through to become gluten free is painful and arduous. (Although I can imagine it would have been much easier for us if we had an in-house dietitian and gourmet cook on staff!)

Jake, for example, is very food taste/texture intolerant. He cannot eat a vegetable or most fruits. He will gag as soon as they go in his mouth and he will then immediatly throw up. His main diet staples are corn dogs, toast, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and plain cheese burgers, with the occasional grilled cheese or quessadila thrown in (oh, and he loves brownies). He is so sensitive to taste, that if you give him a different brand of corn dog, he cannot eat it. (And yes, we're sure he's not just seeing that the box is different. I was a research scientist, I know how to do a blind test) So as you can see, just about every thing that he eats has gluten in it, and making the change to gluten free products (they really do have gluten free corn dogs! And waffles!) was more than a little painful.

So to Jenny MacCarthy - thank you so much for doing your part to bring Autism back into the minds of the general public, you've just made it a lot easier for researchers to raise funds - but I wish you would have done a little more research before you labeled a "cause" to this disorder.

And to all of my wonderful, loving, caring friends and family who I couldn't do any of this without - you can stop sending me links to Jenny's interviews and articles and book now. I've done my homework, and I have a little different reading list. :-)

Is there a need?

When I share the dream of Jake's Place with other folks, I tend to get mixed reactions. Some are happy for me and instantly supportive, and other's tend to ask two questions: Aren't there already therapy centers out there? and Why aren't you going to be an NPO?

To answer the first question, yes, there are a lot of therapeutic riding centers out there, and they do great works and accomplish wonderful things and change lives. But as a parent of a child with a disability, I have to say that the majority of the therapeutic riding centers out there today do not meet my needs.

When children without disabilities go to ride horses or take riding lessons their experience is very, very different than the experience of those with disabilities. When a mainstream child goes for riding lessons, for example, they usually spend a day or two learning about horses, how to walk around them, how to approach them, how to brush them and groom them, and then how to saddle them and prepare for riding. Once they have learned these tasks, they are placed on the horse and either in a ring with the instructor holding a lead line that is attached to the horse, or without a line, they are taught how to sit and hold the reins and communicate with the horse to get it to walk, and then later to go faster. If the kids are going to a "trail ride" place, where trail horses are used to give people guided rides, they are usually put on the horse and allowed to ride by themselves.

Contrast this to therapeutic riding for kids with disabilities: They may or may not be given an opportunity to pet and greet the horse. Then they are placed on the horse with someone walking next to them on each side, and one person out front, leading the horse. They are then led around the ring in circles; sometimes they do therapeutic games like opening mail boxes or "picking apples." Then they are taken off the horse until they come back next time. It is assumed that because a child is disabled, he or she is not capable of approaching horses the way the rest of us are - maybe out of fear of injury, or out of lack of confidence, or whatever - but the fact is, in general, their experience with horses is very far removed from those of children without disabilities.

There are a few centers in the US that have started using a more hands on approach, but at this time, they are still few and far between. I know from my experience with my son and other children with autism that he is very capable of learning how to "be" with a horse. The teaching is different, the approach is different, but the end result is that children with autism are, in most cases, perfectly capable of learning to ride and care for a horse, and horses make excellent healers. It is a match made in heaven.

As to the second question, the reason that Jake's Place will be a for profit enterprise is pretty straight forward. Children with Autism have parents, and those parents are usually realllly stressed and realllyyy tired. It is rare that we have regular baby sitters and get out on our own on a regular basis, so it is important to me that when a parent brings their child to Jake's Place for their lesson, we have a first rate facility in place for the parent to relax. For the hour that they are at our ranch, I want those parents to be sitting back with their feet up, enjoying soft music and smelling good smells and snacking and relaxing and destressing. I do not want to have to justify to any entity - and especially the US Government - why my NPO horse center has a lush and plush lounge with state of the art electronics and gurgling fountains. And really, I know that there is only so much grant money to go around, so many NPO funds to go around, and I am confident we can operate on a for profit basis and with the help of the Lord and contributions from caring angels, we will be just fine.

If you're interested in helping Jake's Place, please visit our store, where you will find some great swag, or feel Free to make a non-tax deductible donation! Any little bit helps, and we appreciate every penny that comes in!

In the Beginning

Looking back I can't remember when the exact date was, but I guess it was in late 2002. I was at a crossroads in my life - a dark, damp dead end that held me in its steely claws of indecision - and I was finally ready to wake up to the sun, if only I knew how.

2001 had been a very rough year for us. We had lost our business and most of our friends, and the baby that we hadn't expected turned out to be a whole lot of work even before he was born. My husband decided to go back to college, and I was struggling to support the family on income from my then very small marketing business, and when I couldn't work because of complications from my pregnancy, it seemed like we'd be having our baby out in the street.

But then the tide turned and things started to come together as they so often do, and our beautiful little boy was born and I went back to work and my husband was doing great with school and all seemed right with the world. Except something wasn't right. I had a stirring, a restless calling deep in my soul, and I needed to find a way to figure out what it was that was missing from my life. I actually had a pretty good idea of what it was, but I was having a hard time facing it. There was no way I could go there in my head, because the second I did, my heart would be broken. So I did what anyone in my position would do, I ignored what my soul was telling me and went on to pursue a whole bunch of meaningless other stuff to try and shut my inner self up.

If I remember correctly, during the course of that year I started to learn digital photography, I got involved with a "save the trees" organization, I started exploring and mapping back forest roads, I found a group of online friends to email and talk to, and I started redecorating. All of this made for great busy work, but it did nothing to stop the clamoring in my brain. It was during a trip to see my in-laws that my soul completely over powered me, and I heard myself nonchalantly saying to my husband "I don't think I can live much longer with out a horse in my life. It's been 10 years, and I really don't think I can go another day." What? Huh? Who said that!?? In the four years I had been with my husband, I had brought up horses maybe once, and so he did what any good husband would do, he looked at me like I was insane.

It was decided that I could not have a horse at that time, but my father-in-law did go out and buy one (I need to thank him for that again) and I before I knew it I was riding once every month or two. Surprisingly, this did not help. In fact, it seemed to make things worse. So of course it only makes sense that I would start trying to get my horse fix other ways; reading books, buying magazines, looking at horses for sale online and finding other horse folks to talk to. One day I walked into Borders to see if there was any new material to get my fix, and there I saw a book that I hadn't seen before, The Tao of Equus. The cover was cool and the back intriguing - here was a book about my first true love, horses, and something that I seemed to spend my entire adult life trying to achieve, healing. By the time I finished the book a week later, I knew what my calling was - I needed to open my own equine facilitated experiential learning facility.

I knew opening my center was what I was supposed to do the second I learned that there was such a thing. Over the years I had become very involved in my spiritual quest, and I had many women come to me for advice or help, and I found helping women discover their own inner power the most rewarding part of what I did. The second I realized that people were using horses to help women find themselves, I knew that was it. At that moment I decided that I really needed to buy a horse, and in March of 2003 I bought my first horse in 10 years, a lovely Arabian mare.

Once I had my horse, life got busy in a hurry. My husband decided to re-enlist in the service and was deployed, my business was picking up, and my son was having some developmental issues. The next thing I knew it was August of 2005, and my beautiful little boy, the joy of my life, my sunshine, my reason for being, my little Jake was diagnosed with Autism. In that moment, my world came to a screeching halt. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I couldn't live, and the only thing that got me through was my daily trip to the barn. Without those big brown eyes sending love my way and that musky scent of horse and hay waking me up each time I entered the barn, I really don't think I would have made it through that very difficult and very painful period in my life.

The next year and a half found me enveloped in the land of "Parents of a child with a disability," which was a scary, crazy, maddening place to be. We met with specialists, psychologists, OTs, STs, PTs, and the state Early Intervention providers. We had to learn how to live in Jake's world while simultaneously working to draw him into ours - always trying to draw him into ours.
Over the past year and a half, Jake has made some great improvements, some amazing improvements, some of which can only be attributed to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Others came through hard work on all of our parts, but especially Jake's part. Since his disability causes him to be oblivious to danger, and since he gets very excited and hyper when presented with new stimulation, I kept my horse life separate from my world with Jake. I used my horse time to renew, recharge, and refocus. I never lost site of my dream to open my center, but I never got any closer to making it a reality, either. Then a few months ago, something wonderful happened. Jake came with me to the barn.

Horses have an amazing ability to heal humans, but beyond that, certain horses (the Arabian breed is knows for this trait) are able to sense when people are in need - be it emotionally, physically or even developmentally. The day that Jake came to the barn with me, I put him up on my mare, who is fairly high strung and off the lead line is only suitable for an experienced rider. I knew that she would be well behaved while I led her around, but her reaction in the ring surprised even me; the second Jake was on her back she immediately lowered her head and relaxed her whole body, taking each step like she was well aware of the precious cargo on her back. 30 minutes later I had to force Jake down, and he was a different child. Riding seems to give him a different type of aweness, and he seems more secure in his world as a result.

So now I know the rest of my future, and my calling is complete. I am working towards opening Jake's Place Equestrian Center - where horses heal humans. Jake's Place will provide two distinct yet complimentary services; providing therapeutic hands-on horse skills to children with Autism, and providing Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning sessions for women seeking growth, recovery and/or change. Jake's Place will be a for profit center, providing excellent service and amenities in the incredibly beautiful setting of the mountains of Oregon.

I am currently in the beginning stages of raising the $165,000 needed for a down payment on the purchase of land and facilities. If you would like to see Jake's Place become a reality, you can show your support by purchasing items from our shop, or by giving a cash donation. We have a long way to go to see Jake's Place open to it's first visitor, but I know that with persistence, dedication, and a little help from the angels along the way, we'll get there!