My nephew Jeffrey, 8, looked up at her with those big blue eyes of his and said: “Momma, my hair is sad.”


She asked him what he meant.


“It’s crying,” he explained.


A non-autistic child probably would have said it this way: “Mom, I am hot, my head is sweating.”


But Jeffrey often has unique descriptions about what is going on in his world and I must say they are truly verbal diamonds.


Indeed, that’s when when you consider how his parents struggle mightily to make sure he lives as normal a life as possible.


My sister once told me she is afraid to die, worrying about what will become of Jeffrey. How will he fare as an innocent in a dangerous and corrupt world?


Jeffrey was diagnosed with moderate-to-severe autism when he was about 3. Autism is a complex neurological disorder that affects everyone differently. It usually presents during the first three years of life and impacts development of social and communication skills.


Jeffrey stopped talking. For a time, it seemed a light went out in his sparkling eyes, which no longer made contact with other people’s eyes.


My sister, a retired Air Force chief and a tiger mother extraordinaire, immediately set into motion what continues to be an intensive holistic ongoing treatment involving a strict diet and constant therapy.


She, as well as thousands of other parents of autistic children, is a strong believer that autism is related to the mercury-based preservative thimerosal that is used in vaccines administered to infants. Some kids have nervous systems that simply can’t handle the assault, they contend. Yes, many studies ruled out such a connection, but more research needs to be done.


Award-winning journalist David Kirby, in his book “Evidence of Harm” said it best:


“No one can say with certainty that thimerosal, the vaccine preservative made with 49.6 percent mercury, helped fuel the explosion in cases of autism, attention-deficit disorder, speech delay and other disorders over the past decade,” he wrote.


“But no one can say for certain that it did not.” To that end, we can only beseech the medical community to give parents like my sister and her husband some peace of mind and get to the bottom of this affliction, which affects one in 169 people.


Since Jeffrey’s diagnosis, his house has a revolving door, with therapists and tutors coming in to help release that beautiful mind from the barriers this mysterious affliction throws in its way.


Thanks to a lot of hard work, the spark is back in his eyes; he talks; and he is a very happy, huggable little boy whose face breaks into a heart-warming array of dimples when he smiles.


At 8, he’s a whiz on the computer, is writing a book (actually an interesting take on several books he has already read) and he is very good at math.


My sister doesn’t want me to be so impressed with all that stuff. They are signs of obsessiveness and she wants to break him out of that. Still I can’t help being amazed. And I can’t but wonder what he will be like if and when he completely emerges.


Patricia Poist is a staff writer for the Living section. Write to her at: ppoist@lnpnews.com. blog comments powered by Disqus