About Babies

From Despair to Hope:
 our family’s journey with an autistic child, Part 2
By Sheri Hunt

Haidyn, during the time of his surgery

Last month, I introduced my family to you. This month, you’ll get to know Haidyn a little bit better and I’ll share some more about our journey from despair over autism toward hope for his recovery.

Although his development was right on track, the first year of Haidyn’s life was spent at the doctor’s office with well baby visits and chronic ear infections. Then, when he was just over one year old, we rushed him to the doctor afraid that he had swallowed something. Our pediatrician assured us that there was nothing stuck in Haidyn’s throat. But, he immediately set an appointment for us to see a pediatric oncologist (a children’s cancer specialist).

We arrived at the office of the pediatric oncologist fearing the worst. He told us that Haidyn needed surgery to remove the lump in his throat. The hospital where the surgery was scheduled was two and a half hours away. At the hospital we waited patiently for Haidyn to go into surgery. I remember thinking, “I never want to go through this again.” After the surgery, the doctor met us in the waiting room. I held my breath as he began to speak. He proceeded to tell us that Haidyn had a Thyroglossal Duct Cyst. I thought, “What in the world is that?” He proceeded to tell us that it is a neck mass or lump that develops from the cells and tissues remaining after the formation of the thyroid gland during embryonic development. It’s very common in pre-school age children and often appears after an upper respiratory infection. We couldn’t stop thanking God that it wasn’t cancer. The doctor said that he removed the entire cyst and Haidyn would be just fine. When Haidyn came out of the recovery room I couldn’t help but shower him with hugs and kisses.

Not long after his surgery, we were back to the pediatric oncologist because of a bubble-like infection on his incision. After lancing the bubble we noticed that the lump came back. Another surgery was scheduled and promises were made that the cyst was gone. We went back to the doctor with another bubble-like infection and discovered the lump had returned again. This time the oncologist sent us to a pediatric ear, nose and throat doctor. Another surgery was performed, and it was a success. But, Haidyn was still getting infections.

Haidyn’s recurrent infection caused him to run a fever and he would be miserable. Because the doctor’s recommendations were not helping Haidyn get better, I began to search for natural alternatives. There was a man at our church who was a Doctor of Naturopathy named Jim Robertson. He had just opened his practice in our town. I called Jim and asked what he could do. He told me to come to his office because he wanted to do The Ki Method® on Haidyn. (The Ki Method® is a hands-on therapy that promotes healing and restoration by lightly touching energy spheres in certain sequences that helps the body function properly once again.) When we arrived at Jim’s office, Haidyn was very upset and didn’t want anyone but me to touch him; so Jim showed me the sequence to help Haidyn with his infection and fever. I began the sequence with a crying, restless baby. As I began lightly touching the energy spheres as Jim instructed, Haidyn feel asleep. When I was done, the fever was gone. My instructions from Jim were to continue doing that sequence on Haidyn until our next visit to the doctor, which was in a couple of days.

We arrived at the pediatric ears, nose and throat doctor not knowing what to expect. Haidyn’s fever had not come back and he wasn’t miserable anymore. They removed his bandage to check his incision and it looked great! No infection! His dissolvable stitches had come out and were lying on top of his incision. What a miracle that was! We couldn’t stop praising God.

The surgeries performed on Haidyn were all within approximately eight months. During that time I noticed that Haidyn had stopped talking and interacting with us. I blamed it on the trauma of throat surgeries and the multitude of doctor visits. He began jumping and flapping his arms when he was excited. At first, we thought it was cute. Then, he starting jumping and flapping his arms all the time. He also stopped playing with toys and wanted to watch Television all the time. It would take hours for us to calm him down so he could sleep, and then he would wake up in the middle of the night and be up for hours. He would make loud meaningless sounds. Haidyn became a daredevil and fearless. I remember finding him on top of the refrigerator getting ready to jump down. Haidyn had turned into an uncontrollable, sleep-deprived child. What happened to my sweet little boy? Was he going through a phase? Or could it be lack of discipline? I went online and researched his symptoms and came across the website for the Autism Society. They had a list of about ten signs that your child could have autism. Haidyn had eight out of ten signs for autism. Once I knew he had the signs for autism, I had to find out what autism was.

Next month I’ll share what I learned.