How Far He’s Come
In 2019, I decided to book a family photo shoot.
It had been two years since we’d attempted one. As anyone with a complex child knows, this is not a light decision. While you want to capture their childhood, you have no idea if they will be able to participate in a productive way. When I booked the appointment, he was doing pretty well. The panic attacks that he had whenever he went into nature had been hit and miss. For a very long time, when his brain inflammation was high, being in a wide open space was more than he could handle. His response was to try to pick up every stick, leaf, and rock he could get his hands on. His little hands would get raw from holding so many, and if he dropped one, there was no way we could leave without finding it. Exhausted and burnt out, each of these experiences would end with him being led back to the car with his eyes pressed shut, lest he see anything else that he “needed to save” but couldn’t carry (and of course we’d all be carrying things for him as well; my backpack was like a compost bin).
But now, his mood was stable; he was happy if hyper at times. I thought it was worth a shot. The day of our appointment came and my daughter had hives, so we rescheduled. Somewhere between the initial idea to do this in the first place and the revised shoot date, my son flared. His agoraphobia was back, he was barely leaving the house at all let alone able to go into a picturesque wooded area and smile calmly for some pictures. But I was determined to get some professional photos of my kids and I’d already cancelled three times, so we went, hoping for a miracle.
To say it was a disaster is a sweeping understatement. We barely got there on time given the huge tantrum that ensued just from trying to get him to leave the house. He knew that when we got to the woods that it would be too much for him, and the thought of it sent his central nervous system into complete “fight or flight” mode. I gave him remedies for anticipatory anxiety and panic attacks, and we got out the door. When we arrived, my son immediately started collecting. We could barely get him to cooperate with the photographer. In most of the pictures he is grasping sticks and leaves in both hands. I thought about trying to explain the situation to the photographer, but it didn’t seem fruitful. I don’t like to label my kids and didn’t want to get into his whole medical history for a 20-minute photo shoot. So I left her in the dark. She seemed pretty confused but was a good sport and even tried to incorporate the sticks into the photos.
Needless to say, we didn’t end up with anything that was good enough to print and hang on the wall. But now those photos remind me of how far he has come. A couple months after that, his agoraphobia and need to collect things when outdoors faded away and hasn’t come back again. I give credit for that to the homeopathic bowel nosode that I had him on during this period of time. It was not even close to the first remedy I tried to treat these symptoms, but it was the one that finally uprooted it. All I can say is thank God for homeopathy. Now when I announce that we are going to a park or a hike he’s the first one to the door, no complaints. This kid LOVES nature. He loves plants and trees, he hugs them and talks to them. He’s an avid gardener. He is obsessed with and has become quite the expert in carnivorous plants. For a while he would remark on how he wasn’t picking up sticks anymore, like he was surprised why he no longer felt the need to. And now, when we’re out, I stand there and watch in awe as he picks up a cool stick or rock, admires it, puts it down, and casually walks away.