Call to the past

 Our life was a lot like in other young families - romantic get-together, ceremonial wedding, and birth of a first child. As normal and healthy people we wanted more children. We all were expecting the birth of a baby, choosing a name for a girl, since we knew the gender of a child. The process of being pregnant with Dasha progressed well, without complications. It all happened suddenly…if only you could make that one call to the past. It was not enough for just some time, maybe an hour, or even a couple of minutes…but suddenly, my daughter and I were on the brink of life and death. 

  Morning of March 6th 2009, the 38th week of pregnancy. I felt strong pulling and stomach ache. But it was not contractions, because the pain didn’t stop. I began to bleed. I called a doctor and he assured me: "No problem there. Those are not the pieces side of an arm, right?” "They are bigger” – I replied. He nervously began to hurry: "Immediately: an ambulance and straight to the hospital!!!” 

Blood loss was catastrophic. My husband and I were in a hospital in 15 minutes. While there I couldn’t even coherently explain how much blood I washed down the shower in the bathroom.

  I didn’t know what does the phrase "complete detachment of placenta” meant, which were said by the doctor, who later sent me to an ultrasound procedure. There I was told that heart of a child still beats, but it is really weak. And after those words I was sent to third floor on foot. Stomach was like a rock, wildly sick. As I was explained in the prenatal, I needed a cesarean section, and that baby’s life in danger, after which I immediately agreed on surgery, mentally invoking God for help. Doctors were in panic. I was calm and focused, and thought only of a daughter, and mentally asked her to wait a little bit more. Everything will be fine… 

  My daughter was born with no signs of life (0 on Apgar scale). Now, only God knows how she returned after a clinical death. Doctors fought not only for Dasha’s life. They were saving me as well ( a large blood loss, complicated operation, which lasted for several hours). I learned this from my husband; he was next to me even before I woke up after anesthesia. Child was not in the room with me. I was scared to ask where Dasha was…crying he said that our daughter is still on the brink of life and death. After the whole course of an intensive care, she was in the intensive care unit still, where she was connected to a life support machines. She was not able to breathe on her own. Words sounded like a death sentence – while brain was without oxygen during clinical death, something terrible happened…1degree coma. Hypoxic-ischemic lesion of the CNS. Extensive swelling of the brain. Spastic syndrome. 

  On a first day we christened Dasha.


 Our daughter was struggling for life herself for the first month, 100 km away from us, in the regional intensive care unit, being wrapped by a bunch of wires and tubes. We were allowed to visit her twice a week. They let us only to see her, so we couldn’t take her in our arms and hug. All this time I had to pump down the milk – the most valuable thing I could give her. When Dasha was released from mechanical ventilation and other tubes, we had to go through hell, after doctors pronounced the terrible words of the diagnosis and gloomy perspectives for our nearest future. For six months we rushed from one doctor to another, pouring into a tiny little body supposingly helpful drugs. Urban, regional, metropolitan neurologists, clinics, rehabs. Lots of diagnosis (microcephaly, symptomatic epilepsy, West syndrome, spastic tetraparesis…). As a result, everyone refused to us. We retreated, as if the world collapsed. But not for the moment we ceased looking for ways and methods of treatment. Not for a moment we lost faith in the child. 

  Up to date, Dasha is not crawling, sitting, walking, holding things, speaking or laughing. 

But this is not a sentence! We are aware of how to help her. We have chosen a path, that will help her in this! 

 In the most difficult period of time for us, is when doctors admitted their failure and denied any further assistance for us, I miraculously found the information about achievements of The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, which was founded by Glenn Doman in Philadelphia, USA. 
 Dear Lord, thank you that there is such a person, that you, by leading us with your inscrutable ways brought our family to this. We found hope. My husband and I read a book, written by Glenn Doman - "What to do about your brain-injured child…” which made a revolution in our minds. 
We wanted to get to the Institute for Development of Human Potential and Opportunities, founded by Glenn Doman, trust the genius professors who for a couple of decades encourage the hearts of parents, and help to facilitate communication between parents and children. To children, who are considered mentally retarded for years. Teaching children to crawl on their stomach and crawl on all fours, walking, running, sighting, hearing, understanding, reading, writing, talking…and the results are very impressive!
  But we faced a problem, even two: language knowledge and lack of presence of large amount of money to trip to USA. If these two conditions are satisfied – only then we can show our child to specialists, who will develop an individual rehab problem, taking into account precisely Dasha’s needs. 

We decided to use at least the knowledge we learned from book (although everything listed there is way to general, without taking into account of individual characteristics) as well as from communicating with parents of such children with special needs, whom we found on the Internet.

 Dasha was 7 months old already. I started a FGFK diet (up to 11 months I had to pump down breast milk for Dasha), as well as gradually abolished the anticonvulsant drugs. We started doing patterning, masks, stimulating hearing and sight, Dasha began to lie down and sleep on her stomach, we built a sloping floor to train her to crawl, a program of passive equilibrium and Medulin-reflex program…this way of rehabilitation according to Doman became a part of our lifestyle. We have seen changes in Dasha – terrible epileptic seizures were gone, she began to smile, followed the toy, and responded to us with an interest look at the cards. Things like this we have not seen before, while we used to treat her with methods of conventional medicine. 


  At the age of 2 Dasha suffered SARS, which severed our situation. Tone rose up, she stopped sleeping normally, was constantly screaming and we had to temporarily postpone our implementation of Doman’s method, because without the guidance of the experts from the institute, we didn’t know how to develop a program, that will suite our child.

 We realized that Dasha needs bio correction of her body. So I became interested in principles of biomedical correction. Biomed is mainly used while treatment of children with autism, but recently this technique was implemented by parents for children with cerebral palsy, and they achieved very good results, in some cases even restoration of an opportunity to walk. 

  Biomed is based on that simple theory of psychology that the development of CNS is closely connected to digestive tract (gastrointestinal tract) condition as well as metabolism. The state of the digestive tract is directly related to work of all human organs and systems. Immune system of babies with cerebral palsy, autism and other CNS damages doesn’t work the same way as it does among healthy people. At this part, all the means that were used at the start of baby’s lives are into power: huge amount of antibiotics, anticonvulsants, nootropics, immunizations, TB skin test reaction. All of these destroys the immune system, in so already affected baby’s bodies.

 In the biomedical approach, special nutritional supplements are used which helps to fight against pathogenic flora (bacteria, viruses, fungi) and helps to fill the body’s need for essential substances: vitamins, minerals, amino acids. But this is only a preparation for an important treatment – chelating – process of taking out heavy metals out of the body. The matter is that heavy metals poisons child’s brain and leads to serious problems with the psyche and nervous system. Children with autism and cerebral palsy are victims of heavy metals poisoning, since the body with misbalanced metabolism doesn’t have enough strength to take them out, in opposite to healthy people. 

  This method requires a lot of capital invested. We are in a constant need of buying and expensive supplements needed, one-two times a month. 
In the end, we have selected two methods, a combination of which can help Dasha! They do really work.