The New Car

By Tricia Zarro

Imagine, the day you buy a brand new car. It is what you always hoped for. It is shiny and new. It has all the right gadgets and gizmos. It responds quickly and has that “new car” smell. Your friends and family even stop by to visit, perhaps buying you a gift and wishing you miles of happiness and luck.

Now imagine, the day you bring home your new baby. He is a beautiful baby, everything you had hoped for. He has all the right gadgets and gizmos—ten toes, ten fingers and a beautiful smile. Your baby has that new baby smell. Your friends and family stop by and bring your new baby gifts and wish you years of health and happiness.

The first few months fly by with your new car and everything is perfect. You feed your new car the proper diet: periodic oil changes, wiper fluid, maybe even super-unleaded gasoline. You go for your “well-car” visits to the mechanic or car dealership. Your new car handles the way you hoped it would. It responds with gusto up hills, takes turns with ease and rides along smoothly.

You and your new baby also enjoy your first few months together. Everything is perfect. You give him the proper nutrition and environment: breast milk, a cozy crib, soft, stimulating Mozart music, the whole nine yards. Your new baby responds to this loving, nurturing environment the way that he should. He coos and gurgles, he visually tracks you from across the room, has a killer grasp on his rattle and smiles that warm your heart.  You are doing everything that you were told to do in all the gazillion parenting books that you read.  You bring your baby in to the pediatrician for his “well-baby” visits. You follow the AAP’s recommended vaccine schedule and within the first 12 months your little man has been given some 16 injections into his chubby little leg.

Fast forward to the fifteenth month with your new car.  One day you wake up and take the car out for a drive. Suddenly, out of the blue, another car runs a red light and slams into your beautiful fifteen month old car.
You cannot believe your eyes. Your once perfect beauty, is now ruined.
The car’s body is severely damaged. It cannot drive properly. It no longer responds the way it should on the road. It’s internal systems do not function properly and begin doing quirky things. The blinker will not shut off and  the internal light is constantly on. The cars lights are now dim. In driving situations when you need it most, your car simply does not answer to your call. Your car is totally and completely different then it was yesterday. You do however, have reason to be hopeful. Although the damage is severe, your insurance adjuster can view the car within two days and the shop will have it ready by the end of the week.  You have experienced a terrible accident; but the insurance company has acknowledged your claim and your sweet little car will be back to its old self in no time.

Your little toddler is now fifteen months old. He is growing so big and strong. He is talking, waving, clapping, and welcoming all with his giant, infectious smile.  Your fifteen month “well baby” visit happens and although your little guy has just had his seventh ear infection and is ending a course of antibiotics; you do what you’re told and load him up with  4 vaccinations (DtaP, HiB, Pneum conj, and MMR) totaling 8 live viruses, to keep him on the proper vaccine schedule.  You bring him home and watch him slip away. It is not a sudden car-crunching accident. This accident occurs in slow motion. It plays out with: sleepless nights, high pitch screams in agony, an arching back, countless body rashes, four more ear infections, food allergies and constant, incessant irritability.
Your once cherubic little boy, now falls off the growth chart in height and weight. His eyes tell the tale. They are dull and distant. No more waves and claps. No more giggles and words. No more answering to his name. Your little boy shuts down and the boy that you once knew is gone, leaving a sick, cranky, “blank” boy behind.

Instead of the insurance adjuster visit, you go to your pediatrician. You tell your tale of woe, how your beautiful boy is in pain and he will not let you console him. You tell how you dread each night, because your son cannot sleep more then 45 minutes in a row without crying, inconsolably for hours. You tell how he is just not right since his fifteen month visit. There is no acknowledgement from your pediatrician of this childhood “accident”, only pathetic empty words: “Let him cry it out”  “He is not speaking anymore, because you are speaking for him”,  “Boys develop later then girls, stop worrying”, “Einstein didn’t speak until he was five”, “Let’s wait this out and see”.

Why? Why the striking difference in reactions to these two “accidents”?

If there was a car crash, it would  be acknowledged, amends would be made, action taken and the situation remedied.

Since my son had a vaccine reaction, I am hurled into a surreal world.  His sickness is ignored, the loss of developmental milestones is simply disregarded. I am pushed to the side, shunned by the profession who promised me that they would “First, do no harm”.  I am looked at as a anxious and nervous mother because I am supposedly now nit-picking my child’s development, or lack there of.

Nothing else happened in that fifteenth month that could have caused this catastrophic difference in my son. Although the diagnosis took us seven more months to get, I know it happened on that fateful day at fifteen months old.  It is from this point on that my son was different then the boy that I once knew. You cannot deny this any more then you can deny the automobile accident.  The only difference is that the professionals acknowledge the “accident” caused the damage to the car and not to my boy.

Fast forward four years…

My once refurbished car is now starting to show wear and tear. It has a few dings here and there, and the side door doesn’t shut properly.

My once injured boy, on the other hand, is not showing any wear and tear.   Quite the opposite, my boy is just hitting his stride !

He is finally healthy and sleeping through the night thanks to an all organic, gluten & casein free diet. He is loaded with nutritional supplements to by-pass the systems that were once broken (methylation, sulfation, detoxification). He is talking and getting more and more physically fit, thanks to excellent therapists, dogged determination and hours and hours of hyperbaric oxygen therapy.  He will be entering kindergarten in the fall and I couldn’t be more proud of him.  He smiles often, laughs heartily and knows how to tease his sisters and his parents relentlessly.  He still has some healing to do; but I have faith that this will happen and I won’t stop fighting until it does.

We will never recover from the accident that happened to my son. We will just continue to heal.. both our hearts and his body.

I am a tenacious, determined mother of three. My youngest, Danny, has been harmed by an over-zealous, toxin-heavy vaccine schedule. I did not go willingly into this battle;  but I could not be more proud and honored to be in the company of many  great warriors in this fight.

Tricia Zarro is a tenacious, determined mother of three. Her youngest Danny, has been harmed by an over-zealous, toxin-heavy vaccine schedule. She did not go willingly into this battle; yet she could not be more proud and honored to be in the company of the  many  great warriors in this fight.

Comments

[Kristin]

This was beautifully written. Thank you for sharing your story...

[Rachel]

This is an eloquently written and summarizes so many of our stories to an uncanny degree.
Can I post this with your name at CafeMom (online group that reaches over a million young moms)

[Christina]

Tricia,
Your writing is amazing and completely inspirational. It is a message full of hope and love for the many people whose lives you have and will touch with your message. You are such an amazing mom and know that your knowledge, experiences, and love have touched my heart as I'm sure it has many others.

Love,
Christina

[Melanie]

Tricia,
You write with such eloquence and even more importantly your continual energy is contagious, brings people together, and works toward healing Danny's physical and emotional well being.
Keep on writing...I'm waiting for that book!!!
Melanie

[steev]

the best thing against Ear infection or swimmers ear is the eardoc. With the Eardoc there relay inst any problem. as it is non invasive and it treats the problem and not the symptoms
www.eardoc.info

[kim]

speaking in analogies of cars...i am stealing this from someone, but i cannot say who...but i have loved it since i heard it...

if you take 10 different kinds of cars...open up the engines and start them...throw in lots of sand...they will all go to the shop with different symptoms...the sand will have gone into a million different places and have a million different effects. this is what the environmental damage (in my son's case equate the sand to thimerosal) has done to our children. they are asd, adhd, sensory damaged, biopolar, you name it.

tests show expected categories of damage, tho (as a car would)...yeast, bacteria, parasite, viral, heavy metal imbalances that can be corrected with amazing improvements.

[Janice]

Tricia,

This was beautiful. I am impressed that you find time to write with everything else you have going on. Keep up the good work, Warrior!

Love,
Janice

[Denise Twiss]

Wow! Everyone, especially new parents, should read this article. I am going to pass it along to all of my friends that are new mommies! You have been the most amazing, pro-active mother i have ever seen/known. I look forward to the stories from kindergarten!

[Kelli Ann Davis]

Tricia:

Beautiful story. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Best,

Kelli

[Tanners Dad]

Although your analogy is hard to get through without a tear, this is the kind of post and passion we need to communicate to the voices we heard yesterday on this blog and everyday around the world. Thank You for spelling it out in terms that every human should connect to. Has anyone dug through home videos and put together a full length documentary that shows before, after, the work done with biomedical treatment, and recovery? I would try to show at least 10,000 faces.

[Kathy]

Tricia,

Great post and glad to hear of your success regaining health for your son! Here's to a great kindergarten year!