It Was a Consequence

No matter what you believe spiritually, there is just no denying the following very real, very special and very personal account. I write this with no intention of starting a political or a religious debate, but rather to share truth……

Back during the 2008 presidential election, my then five year old son with heavy metal toxicity and subsequent autism, and I worked very, very hard to make autism obligatory to as many of the candidates as was possible for us. We met seven in all; however, I’ll save that chronicle for another blog, another day.

Like I said, no political debate intended with this piece. This is simply our firsthand account of that political arena. Our experience was that Senator John McCain was our very best hope for our preferred outcome. So…..we pursued that avenue. Not that we did not pursue each of them, we absolutely did. In all honesty, we did not receive the same response or opportunities from any other presidential hopeful as we did from Senator McCain. Not by a long shot. I attribute that success to my son who stole his heart, by the senator’s own admission. He opened the door for me to walk though it. I cannot tell you why he did not have the same effect on the others. I can tell you that it was not for lack of trying.

http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/video/video_vid_player.php?v=20070428_mc... Sam addressing the senator himself is toward the end of this very short clip.

Inevitability, with a lot of hard work and help from numerous members of the autism community who contributed lad results showing mercury, lead and aluminum toxicity in their loved ones with autism, we were able to secure a private meeting with Senator McCain in his D.C. office.

http://www.ksfy.com/news/11137101.html

I had the good fortune of attending that meeting with some our communities’ brightest and best! We were pleased with the outcome.

http://www.ksfy.com/news/12551816.html

http://www.autismactioncoalition.org/McCain_Lieberman_letter.html

On my last leg home from Washington D.C., I was not feeling all that optimistic or confident. For one, it’s my nature to doubt myself. Yes, it appeared as though we had convinced an extremely powerful, well seasoned and senior senator of the United Sates of America that there is a correlation between vaccines and autism. And yet….I was very uncomfortable and unsettled. Who am I after all? I am but Sam’s mom.

I sat there actually questioning myself. I sat there and quietly pondered, “What if you’re wrong? What have you done?”

I happened to be sitting across the isle from a gentleman in I'd say his early sixties. We were in a very small aircraft, a puddle hopper if you will, headed for Sioux Falls, SD. The man struck up a conversation with me. Something not uncommon for a Midwestern nor for a truck driver, which I learned from the duration of our conversation, was how he made his living. He asked me where I was headed, where I'd come from, etc. I told him I was on my home from Washington, D.C. I told him I'd been to D.C. to meet with Senator John McCain on behalf of individuals with autism, nothing more than that. What is profound about our conversation is his response.

He shot back, "That's what they think my 36 year old son has. He lives in a facility in Sioux Falls, lived there most all of his life. My wife and I, we just couldn’t take care of him. We ended up getting divorced over it all. It was all too hard, broke her heart. Something happened to him after his DPT shot when he was 6 months old. He had a bad reaction and something just happened to him."

I was nearly numb as I sat there in awe. I had doubted myself and my motives. Human nature? Perhaps. But I have to tell you, God could not have spoken to me any louder or more clearly had the good Lord appeared right there before me on that plane. It was as if He was saying, “What more do I have to do? How much more evidence do you need? Do you not see that 36 years ago this poor man’s young son was taken from him and nothing has changed? In truth, it has only grown to be worse, in numbers too large to be ignored. Go out and spread the word, at all cost, and in the end, save the children…..”

I did manage to tell the man how terribly sorry I was, and that what happened to his son continues to happen today. I told him how that was the reason for my trip, and how many more of us there are to fight now, that others might be saved.

Since that night, I have questioned myself and many things. I have even dared to question God; but I have never, ever questioned whether or not the correlation between vaccines and autism exists. What happened on that plane, out of the clear blue, was entirely too manifest to be a coincidence. It was a consequence.