Update on Patrick's Progress

Hi everyone! I know the big question has been what type of progress are we still seeing in Patrick. Well I was gone for a week to Las Vegas and when I got home there was a ton of his artwork saved for me to look at.

He has been drawing and coloring all kinds of things....a lot of trains and house/barn scenes. He is very detailed with them and is so cute when he explains them too. I have to say that he is still doing very good. I have a consult with his Dr tomorrow so I will be able to discuss a few items with him.

Patrick is still stimmy and has been eating paper, shaving cream etc. It appears that the bacteria in his gut is off balance again but I guess we will see. :) I will give a very detailed update after the phone consult tomorrow.

I am having people from all over contact me regarding the stem cell treatment. I hope that our journey will benefit others who are starting on their own. Patrick is doing fantastic!

Hard to believe that school is starting soon. Patrick will be going into the Second Grade right as scheduled. We are very proud of him!

Patrick is doing great and Life is good

Hi everyone!


Patrick just keeps on doing better each day. He is still ready to go back on "vacation" though. He asks me about going back to Panama daily. :) I have been speaking to three families who are heading to Panama in August; two are going for autism treatment.

This first pic shows him outside riding his scooter. They had fun that day and to our surprise we took Joey's training wheels off and he started riding like a pro on his little bike! You can see how proud he is by that big smile.

I am getting ready to head off for the Mrs. United States pageant in a few days. The kids are excited. They like "helping" me pack. HA. My platform as always is Autism Awareness...I got some neat things to take including new pins and notepads with a great autism logo on them.

When I return, Rosemary will then compete at the Preteen Kentucky National American Miss where her platform is also autism.

When I started out doing pageants in 2006, autism was a tough platform because I had to explain so much to almost everyone that asked about it. Now, in 2010, with 1 in 91 children now being diagnosed with autism, I find more people with questions about it but pretty much everyone is familiar with it. I judged a teen pageant a few weeks ago and I think out of about 14 girls there were two with autism as a platform. It certainly speaks as to what an "epidemic" it has became.

I have had so many emails and calls from people with questions about the Panama Clinic. Their website is http://www.cellmedicine.com/. Go ahead and look them up and then I am working on typing up some facts sheets about our experience and just details on navigating Panama. We are so glad we went.

I will update everyone when I return next week on how Patrick is progressing. Have a wonderful week!

Friday....Seeing More Improvement

What a great day here. Patrick is doing extremely well. Here is a pic of him playing with his brothers today. I brought in their large bin of train toys and tracks. Patrick and Bobby set up the entire living room in tracks and houses. They played for hours.

Patrick is wearing the yellow shirt with Bob and Joe in the back ground. His behavior therapist said today that she can see significant gains in his attention span and comprehension. She took him to lunch at Olive Garden. One of my friends sent me a message tonight saying she saw him at Olive Garden and that he was so well behaved.

He literally played with trains until bedtime. He also had a new babysitter tonight and she said that he was perfect and he talked quite a bit.

I took Bobby and Joe to PIR to watch their dad race tonight. We arrived just in time to see him win his heat race. They were extremely excited by that. I have a great picture of them sitting on the new car..you can see the new autism ribbons we had made for both cars and the car trailer.

They look great...very visible. No racing for me this week....I want to keep myself in once piece before Mrs. United States next week. Although I promised Joe and Bobby that I would race the very weekend that I get home.

Above you can see Joey showing off his "big grin." He had a great time at the races. I am not sure what we are up to for tomorrow but Patrick's first week back home from Panama has been great! Stay tuned......

Home Again

It has taken me a few days to update everyone on Patrick's trip back home. He actually did not want to leave Panama. He even told me last night that he wants to go back and he pointed his hand where his IV was to say "little sticks okay." Obviously he enjoyed it so much there that he thinks it was worth the "little stick" from the IV. I thought that was cute.

He is still talking a lot. He was up this morning playing with his toys and pretend talking with them. He is still really "stimmy" when he gets excited. He has gotten in to a little bit of everything since arriving home on Sunday. Last night he got out some green paint and proceeded to paint one of his toy trains green to match the real train he rode in Panama.

Packy was thrilled last night to see scenes shot in Panama on a really old Herbie the Love Bug movie. He saw the canal, the ships and got really excited to see the Canal Railway train in the background.

It could take up to a month before we see more results from his treatment. I have several friends whose children have had this treatment and the majority seem to feel that their children saw the most improvements in the one to two month range. The couple children that made early gains seemed to see them with bowel issues and sleep issues. Luckily, for Patrick, he overcame his bowel issues several years ago and we don't have the sleep problems either.

So far, so good. He is doing great. I will try to get a copy of the WPSD-Channel 6 interview to post on here. I didn't get to see the interview because we were in Panama at the time but everyone tells me it is really informative as to autism and the stem cell treatment overall.

I will get some trip pictures posted soon. The kids got in my suitcase and used the camera the night before I left. So lo and behold, I had no camera when I arrived! We bought a disposable one and I need to get the pics transferred to disc so I can upload. I posted a pic above that I took a few hours ago. He was sitting at his computer watching "Brainy Baby Spanish" on You Tube. I noticed that as the picture showed the action and the Spanish word, a voice over would say the word in Spanish as well. As I watched him, the screen showed "Gracias" and Patrick said "Thank You." He also was saying the English version of the colors that were being shown. I have not worked with him on Spanish, last week would have been his first intro to it. I will keep everyone posted. Thanks for all your prayers and emails!