The Highwire with Del Bigtree - WARRIOR MOM DEFEATS AUTISM

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

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Our next presenter is a certified integrative health coach, a U.S. Air Force veteran. I'm the proud author of Warrior Mom. Tracy Slapsovic is an Air Force veteran, public speaker, and integrative health coach. We turn to Tracy Slapsovic, author of Warrior Mom and a U.S. Air Force veteran. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand to your feet and great. Tracy Sapsavik. For about 10 to 12 years, I wanted to write a book on my journey of healing my son. Our son was diagnosed with autism.

I could have wallowed in my own self-pity and played the victim and been like, whoa, it's me, my kids got autism. Or I do exactly what I did, and I stuck the tears back up into my eyes, and I got to work. I started Googling because back then, in 2009, when he was diagnosed, you could Google healing autism. And you could get a lot of resources. You got books, resources, nonprofit organizations. some which are still around today. And I just started doing my research. A lot of people were spending thousands of dollars on attorneys to get 40 hours of ABA.

When I was the one who just went and took the classes and bought the books and was like, you know what, I'm going to learn this myself. They really dove in to address those underlying biological issues so that he could speak and he could function. could function. My main thing is to really just reach as many parents as I can and teach them that healing as possible. It's my purpose to create awareness and from a complete space of love. All right, the book is Warrior Mom. It is out an e-book just as a couple of days ago so you can get it. You can also order a signed copy. The hard copies are on their way. It is my honor and pleasure to be joined now by Tracy.

Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for having me. Finally. I know. We've talked about this. We've been at rallies at the capital in California. We've been at some of the same events, autism one and things like that. You're kind of everywhere. This is a big passion issue as it is for so many parents that have gone through this experience. But because we haven't really sort of dove into this conversation,

we've been really focused on COVID vaccine for the last couple of years, Can you take me back to your experience of your child and how does it work? I mean, the stories are all unique, yet there are similarities. For you, what did you see in your son that sort of started making you think twice? So every parent's story is different, but a lot of parents are claiming that the MMR is the slow regression and that was my son's slow regression. I can tell you that he had a reaction to every set of vaccines, fever, he became very colicky after his two-month shots and my kid just screamed non-stop. That didn't stop his development. He was fully developed when I took him in

for his well baby visit at one year and then he received his MMR and Varsela vaccine. Within 24 hours, my son broke out in a full body rash and had a fever for about five days, in a very high grade fever. So a new mom, he is my only child, I was so paranoid, and all I ever got from the pediatrician was this is normal.

And what is normal about? To break from a head to toe, body rash, a fever for five days, which if that happened without a vaccine, your doctor's, to be alarmed in doing something about it. But all the vaccines doing it, oh, this is normal. So this is a common reaction. What she had told me was, oh, he may be allergic

to an ingredient in the vaccines, but we'll just keep an eye on it. And we'll keep an eye on him. His fever will eventually go away. They actually eventually had to give him a mild steroid to flush it out of him. But some experts are telling me that he may have had the measles from getting the MMR.

And that's what that full body rash is. I'm not 100%. I can't claim that. But soon after, as the months went by, my son at one could walk and talk and play and he was doing so well. We actually called him our little monkey, or as my husband says, Mymoon,

because it's Serbian for monkey. He would climb everything. And then slowly I started to see him lose his motor skills, no more climbing. a lot of spinning, no more eye contact. He was very closed off. You sent us in some videos. Let's just take a look.

This is just a couple of home movies. This is prior to the vaccine. This is what our son looked like. Hi, Seine Mae. Walk back and forth. Yay! Rocks, goodbye, me. Are you rocking on a horsey byron

maybe for Christmas? I sure am, Mama. Say Barney. Say Dada. Uh-huh, say Mama. Mama. Mama. Say I like to say Dada.

Say buddy. Buddy. He's like on my own time, daddy, mommy. All my own time. All right, so that suits the was perfectly normal, looks like most of our kids. And then at three years old, so, what, is it about two years later or so, or a year and a half later? year and a half later? No, at one.

At one. Soon after he got his MMR and Vicella and then the rash and the fever and everything, there was a slow decline. He went from saying mama, da da, he also had baby signs. I took him in, we did baby signs classes so he could do sign language and he lost all of it. Here's just a video at three years old. This is good. Let me show you how you were whining when you were a little kid.

Sleepy boy. You know, I think people could watch this and say, well, it just looks like a cranky baby. You know, we were watching this and Catherine Layton, who's my COO, who has been through this experience, said, oh, that high-pitched squeal, I know that well, it's very specific. And was that fairly constant, does those sounds? Why, so the thing is, is they're frustrated. They can't speak. speak. They can't. He's three years old. He should be talking in sentences. And he can't. And he can't

get those words out. So of course they're going to scream. They're going to scream. They're going to tantrum. They're going to do whatever it is that they have to do to get across their message of frustration. And I never knew because repeatedly I had gone back to the pediatrician who had told me over and over, it's normal. He just needs speech. It's normal that he lost his speech and regressed into his state of autism, which when I asked her at his three-year visit, is it possible my child could have autism? It is a very hard question for any parent to ask because we just do not want the answer. And she looked me in the eye and was like, nah, he just needs speech. You know, he was spinning her stethoscope round and round and round and round.

Repetitive. It's repetitive play. And she's like, no, kids with autism, don't too pretend play. So as I spoke to so many clinical psychologists afterwards, they're like, that is completely incorrect, and she should have never said that to you. And she should have, you know, referred you to a clinical psychologist. But you know what she did?

She blew me off. And then there I was still wondering what's wrong with my kid because we had been through two preschools that are like, I'm sorry, your kids got special needs, we can't care for him. Harbor Regional Center lost our paperwork, was supposed to forward it onto a clinical psychologist, and this is where God sends me angels. So I tell you, no joke, I walked into the office, literally ready to put my head through a wall. And my husband's like, oh, hey, honey, meet our new front desk woman. And I was in tears. I'm like, I'm sorry. You know, I don't want to meet you like this.

And she's like, what's wrong? And lo and behold, this woman had a child with autism. And she worked for us long enough to tell me what to do, where to go, and how to do it. So I ended up going through the school district and getting NOAA evaluated, per her advice, me. And when I did that, they did a phenomenal evaluation. I give my hats off to launch preschool and join because they were wonderful. And so from there, I had answers. You know, they did this great evaluation.

They said, I'm sorry, but we do find NOAA is autistic-like, because that is the term that school districts will use. I took that report. I went back to the Harbor Regional Center. But as soon as I had those answers was when I got to work. And I would not have done that if it wasn't for a very special doctor who intervened in my life. Now, here's my number two, Angel. I go back to the office because I had to go grab something right after the evaluation.

In the hallway is Dr. Joshua Berka. Now, he's one of the lead scientists for Beamer. Okay. And I was part of the Beamer study back in the day in 2007. So we were really close friends. And he sees me in the hallway. I'm very blubbery. And he's like, what's the matter?

He reaches out and gives me a hug. And I said, Noah has autism. And he looks me done in the eye, and he said, Noah is going to be okay. I want you to go home, and I want you to do your homework. Because I truly feel Noah can make a recovery. He said doctors are making great strides with biomedical intervention. and I feel like Noah can... For someone that's watched this for the first time,

what is biomedical information? What does that term mean biomedical? So the way I look at it is finding those underlying conditions. The number one thing I tell parents, find yourself a good functional medicine doctor that treat kids with autism. They don't all treat kids with autism. So I usually refer them to maps doctor.

And by the way, you know, we are talking about we're sort of getting into your book. And I really loved how it's laid out, you know, because you just have these basic sections. It's a very easy read, in fact, a very quick read. Most of this book is all the references that you have and places that you can go and what you can do. But for someone that's going through this,

this is what they need to know, that there is hope, right? And there are people you can go to. So you are sent to do an investigation into, you know, this biomedical, A whole new world for me. So I went home and I started Googling healing autism. And I felt at that point, I was at a crossroad in my life. Here is the point in my life where I could be like, woe is me.

My kids got autism. Play the victim, feel sorry for me, or I get stuck those tears back up in my eyes and I could get to work. And man, I tell you, you can ask my husband, he didn't see me for a good month. I was reading book after book and doing all this research, but I set a very clear intention that I was going to heal my child. So the purpose of me writing the book was to give parents and families hope and inspiration because I knew back then I felt I felt hopeless and lost when I first found out.

And I felt alone, even though I have a wonderful husband, I have a great family. and I just, I didn't know who was going to relate with me. So I put my story in there, and it's a story of trials and tribulations, as you already know, my husband fights big insurance for a living and wound up on the front page of the LA Times and a smear campaign because he exposed the insurance companies and the California State Insurance Commissioner for fraud and collusion. Yeah, that doesn't usually make you, you know, a big hit and, uh, in newspapers that are funded by insurance companies,

and in this case, doctors and things like that. You know, what I love about the book is it's sort of broken into the three sections. So, folks, you know, you want to get this book. I assure you, you know, you know somebody that you can hand this to. It's such a beautiful read. It's not invasive. But the three sections of the books sort of break down like this. You have part one.

It's my journey with Noah, Labor of Love, moving backwards. It's really the story, you know, of what you went through. And then part two is where to begin, signs and symptoms, like you just discussed. There's a lot of different versions of this, but there's similar areas and things to be looking for so that your doctor's like, oh, that's normal. This book is going to tell you what really is not normal, and you shouldn't be listening to that. And then you get into the statistics, the schools, all things you can do. And then finally, part three is all of the different things with healing autism, which is, you know, it's important to have that caveat. out there when you see all that list of things some things work for some in my

experience right here's some things work for this child didn't work for this child or as many autism parents said if you've met a child with autism you've met one child with autism right but so you know on this journey what is the what was the sort of there's one thing to read and you know to say oh there are people out there telling stories just doctors saying they can do something What was the moment of proof? Like was there one thing that you did where you said, oh my God, that just worked?

Diet. So I have so many parents tell me, I can't afford all these fancy treatments. And I'm like, well, I couldn't either. We lost our business, our house went into foreclosure. I bartered for treatments. But diet, really, because there's the gut brain connection. This is your number one brain actually. And your nervous system is connected from

your gut to your brain. And if this is messed up in any way, which I know Noah's was because he was put on antibiotics every month for ear infections. Hyperbaric was really good, but you have to be very cautious. My kid had tubes in his ears. He didn't need to learn how to clear his ears. So that's a very important thing. can't clear their ears. Let's talk about the diet for a second, because this is a huge component. When we're out there, for parents that are out there, that maybe you're already, like, I just need to get started.

I'll order the book, like, I'm sure they're feeling it right now, but let's talk about Dr. Andrew Wakefield just for a second. Because, I mean, this is the big batty of the vaccines. A lot of people would say he's the godfather of the, you know, the anti-vaxxers. But all he ever did, he was a gastroenterologist that did the first. study of 12 kids, tiny little, you know, just, is there an issue here because a mother said, your work on Crohn's disease is reminding me of the issue I'm having with my child. My child has autism. He says, well, I don't know anything about autism, but do you know Crohn's disease?

So he started the investigation and found that there was a connection between the gut health, which did look like a form of Crohn's disease, either, you know, diarrhea that was like chlorox burning the skin off of the children or a constipation that could last for weeks. And in that investigation of those kids, what he, and by the way, you know, 12 world-renowned scientists all concluded, as there appears to be a real connection between what we thought was just a psychological issue, right, or some sort of neurological disorder, but it actually may be a gut disease. We can't tell which is coming first. Is the gut coming from the brain or is the gut causing the brain issues?

But there is clearly a connection. Of course, his license is stripped, he's attacked, and just to sort of sum all this up, because I've done some investigation in this, really incredible studies have done in Arizona University, in California universities, looking at gut biome. Studies like taking, you know, the fecal matter of an autistic child, putting it in a mouse, and the mouse develops autistic tendencies. and what they discovered was the more severe the autism, the more severe the autism in the mouse that they put it in. All sorts of things like that. And every time I see these breaking headlines, I just think the headlines should say Andrew Wakefield was right,

because that's all he said. He never made the statement with this first study, the Lancet's study, vaccines are causing autism. He says, that can't be determined here, but more studies should be done on that. But what I can say is there does seem to be a gut biome connection to this disorder. order and lo and behold, there's a lot of science now backing it up.

Yes. And Andy is my hero. I absolutely, I have so much respect for Dr. Wakefield and everything that he's done to protect our kids, he's put his neck out there on the line. He forked up his medical license. He did not do the puppet show like he was asked to do to get his, license back. He said, you know, within all good consciousness, I cannot recommend that you get all these vaccines, the MMR all at once. He never said at that time, don't vaccinate. He just said,

don't get them all at once. And so I did write a piece in the vaccine section of my book. Now, when you go into the vaccine section of my book, I give you a lot of history. And, you and vaccines, and I paint a picture, and then I do talk about Dr. Wakefield's journey and everything that he's done. But the best book in regards to the link between autism and vaccines is how to end the autism epidemic by Jamie Hanley.

And you had to write your show. That book is amazing. So for those parents and family members or anybody who is looking for that, book that has that... I would say before you have, before you have your child, if you really want to ask the question, what's going on here, that is a brilliant book. If you are finding yourself in the situation where you are seeing reactions that aren't making sense, you feel like you're losing connection with your child, this is why you need to get on this immediately. So, you know,

you go through and there's all sorts of treatments, you know, which is why the book is here. People can read the book. What do you believe... what is your belief about what autism is now with all of the research that you've done? How would you describe it to somebody? Because I feel like science, we were told it's always been here. We're just diagnosing it better. Mark Blacksville has a brilliant book, Denial, that just rips that concept of shreds, going back historically.

Really, it's always been here. In Egypt, it was 1 in 44. You know, back when, you know, you had Charcotts. and Tourette's going into every insane asylum there was to describe the maladies. There's no description of autism in there. And you would imagine it was difficult back in those times, early, you know, over the last century or back, you would have just put your kid right into an insane asylum because it's not, they're doing these repetitive disorders, they're not speaking.

And yet none of these guys, none of the greatest diagnosticians in the world ever described this thing. So that has slowly fallen apart. In fact, we were looking into it. I was like, show me where they're saying that. not saying that anymore. Now they're saying, well, it's partly genetic, it's partly environmental, it's partly, you know, that's kind of where this thing is like in this gray area. But for you, what do you think it is? So you can have a genetic predisposition for anything, right?

You can have that cancer gene, whatever. And the chances of you actually getting a gene from your parent, as doctors don't typically say, is only about 3%. So, you're, you know, you're Environmental, it's going to take an environmental factor to trigger that genetic predisposition. So even in cancer, there's so many environmental triggers these days. But in autism, do I personally feel, and this is my personal opinion, I am not a doctor by any means. I've worked with some great doctors. Do I feel that vaccine slung shot my kid into regression, as they would call regressive autism? Right.

Which is just another label. But there's this broad spectrum and they're all unique and they're all their own beautiful, wonderful human beings. And they all got their own very good contribution that they give to society. But really, I truly believe, just how J.B. said it in this book, it is an epidemic. And every time the number of vaccines on the childhood vaccine schedule went up, then the rate of autism went up with it. And if you asked me as a parent, the reason I wasn't so sure what was going on with my kid is because my idea of autism was Dustin Hoffman's character in the rain man. I didn't see Noah like that.

He was a little more high functioning than that. And, you know, so I couldn't understand it and I couldn't put it together. But is it because they're just better at testing for it? That's a croc. That's, I don't believe that at all. And you know, maybe they should better test the vaccines and do an actual placebo study.

That'd be great. That'd be great. I'm not, I wouldn't be anti-vax. I'm just pro-health. Why can't they just call us pro-healthers? Because we would be fine with a safe vaccine if they actually were. In fact, I mean, just so let's talk about that for a second, because it really bothers me when, and by, you know,

when they sort of shut down all these parents saying, oh, you're anti-vax. Every parent that is claiming they're seeing autism in their child was at one point, Totally pro-vaccine. That's why they're in that issue, right? That's why that is happening. So obviously you're pro-vaccin, and you have a military background, right? So I stood in line. I got, it was probably around, you know, today it's 13 vaccinations. You know, you stand in line and you just go from one to another to another. And every year I got the flu shot. I got the flu, worse than I had ever gotten it before. And one year I questioned my supervisor when she told me. made to go get my flu shot. I said, well, I keep getting the flu. I don't understand. It doesn't work. And I got written up.

So I was not to question it. But then I was programmed to believe that this is what was keeping me safe. And they dump vaccines into our poor military. And they're getting sick. I was on the phone with a doctor last night. And I was listening to his story. Now he's reached out.

to me since my book, my e-book came out. And he was in the military for eight years. And he had to go on a mission. They gave him his set of vaccines. The next morning he woke up, and he was paralyzed, and he could not walk. And I think God, every day, this did not happen to my child,

or me, for that matter. I'm truly grateful that Noah was able to respond to biomegranateau. to biomedical. Not every child does. You know, there are so many parents, they throw everything at their kid, but the kitchens think to try to get them better, and they still can't speak, or even J.B. Hanley, he's gone the distance. He has. And he wrote the S2C portion in my book, because I didn't know a lot about S2C. Right. In fact, we were talking right as you were finishing up this book, the S2C, which is spelling to

communicate which J.B. We had J.B. on the show, a spectacular interview. If anyone hasn't seen it, look up to J.B. Hanley interview, where his son is nonverbal until, I think, about 18 years old, gets into spelling to communicate and through, you know, apparatus and mechanism and the whole approach, go watch the show, he finally gets to start talking to his father and his family. I mean, it's... Yeah, the video is actually, when you go to his book, he uploaded the video for where you purchase this book online. He has your video on there. It's really amazing. So I want people to read this book so I don't want to go through every part of it. It is so beautifully written. It's heartfelt. It's easy to read. But you said something. You said when I finally realized what it was, I just went to

Google and typed in Healing Autism. Is that all you have to do now? No, you can't do it anymore. So the internet's been scrubbed when it comes to healing in the word autism, you put those two words together. You know, you're going to get, they're going to start bashing you or Andy or whatever, saying the anti-vaxxers of the world or saying this. And back then I could. So what I'm really focusing my attention on is building out my website, warrior mom.org. so I can have as many resources as possible for parents. Now, it's not there yet.

It's almost there. We're getting there. Right, great. And so I can give that, because I couldn't fit everything in a book, honestly. I really can't. I meet new people, new organizations that are just phenomenal, and they're doing their due diligence for people in all different kinds of new treatments. You contacted me right before I turned everything into my publisher,

and you're like, there's this EEE system. Right, right, right, yeah. So I was able to reach out to Dr. Sandra Rose Michaels and, you know, she endorsed my book as well and I did a little research. So I have to, I'm not just going to put something like that in my book. I did a lot of research. I watched all the different videos.

She has a lot of scientific study on this system. and, you know, with kids with autism, and it making such a huge difference. Well, you've been through this journey, and I think the most important part is that, that you used to be able to Google these things. You know, we had an internet that was doing what it was supposed to do,

allowing one parent to write a book, one parent to say this is working for me. And one of the tragic moments is Adam Schiff, I remember, went and, you know, around this conversation, said to Facebook and YouTube and all, sent a letter, take down all these conversations

about the dangers of vaccines, and any books, and, you know, went to Amazon, stop from one of these books that say that you can heal vaccine injury or autism. I mean, it's so sick. It's so twisted. These parents are out there. The doctors don't know what they're talking about. They mislead you and say this is normal as your child has plunged deeper and deeper into the issues. I want to be clear. I don't think vaccines are the only cause of autism.

I think, you know, when we look at it, you know, There is, it seems to be a toxic load that these children are having trouble detoxing the way other kids can. Why your kid and not my kid, well, some kids can detox really well, others can't. And if it's building up, there's going to be that final insult or several of them that can drive them in this. It could be, I've had stories of a fluorescent light bulb falling and smashing on the floor, and the people lose their child after that. So there's multiple, you know, environmental toxicities that are happening. but the fact that parents can't talk to each other the way they did, that doctors that are finding treatments have to hide and be quiet about it.

There are treatments that parents are worried their child would be taken away for using them. I mean, this whole thing, the whole experience of an autism parent makes you the most spectacular individuals, those of you that have gotten through it. You're lied to, you watch the destruction of your healthy child, You're told you're crazy when you start really demanding saying I want to do something about it. I know what I'm seeing and then when you start doing that work, you're attacked for doing it and now you have our own government trying to make sure that you can't talk to each other. This is one of the biggest tragedies. I will never stop talking about this conversation.

And I'm truly grateful. I really am because there are so many parents out there. I had dinner with a very dear friend of mine last night or the night before and her son was normal functioning. He was doing so great. And then all of a sudden, he couldn't walk and he couldn't function. And his motor skills just literally plummeted. And then they're putting them on, you know, mild chemo treatments and this. And I'm like, oh my goodness.

And of course, her ex is a doctor, so that doesn't help. So it's working against her. And I just, I see the sadness in her. in her and how tired she is. Because, so the number one thing I tell parents, take care of yourself, please. I mean, if we're not 100%, then we can't help our children.

And I was told a few doctor's visits ago as I'm sitting in the doctor's office and I'm like, oh, but Steve needs this and no one needs this, and she said, Tracy, I know what your problem is. And I'm like what? And she said, you need to take care of you and let this visit me about you.

So I get it. I need to take my own advice at times. But it is really, you know, parents need to pick up books. People need to pick up books. You can't get any information if you want the truth. People are forced to write books anymore. I never at a million years saw myself writing a book. I mean, I always wanted to tell my story.

to help other parents. And it just, you know, I just never got to it. Obviously I was busy getting a PhD and how to heal my kids. Right, right. And organizations, they're good and then they're bad, and so you have to watch out for them. I just got fired from being a parent mentor

for networking at a conference. I'm like. You're amazing. And I'm glad you finally got around to write writing the book. It's going to be a huge difference maker. As we said, we are talking, you know, one in 35 children being diagnosed. Boys, it's even more prevalent. This is one of the great epidemics of our lifetime. It needs to be stopped. It can be stopped. But while we're working on that, making the lives of these children happier, healthier is so critical.

And I just love that you're out there doing that work. And I want to thank you for coming into sharing yourself and you're still in this book with us. And I thank you. I'm truly grateful. My son wanted me to say one thing to the public. Please. And that's to find that special thing in your child and just love on them and appreciate them because they all have so much to contribute.

And autism is not the end-all-be-all. And I don't claim in my book to, in my book to cure autism, I healed the underlying conditions that, you know, caused my son's autism as to where he could function again. Autism is still part of his life. He's very much honors that. And I am so grateful to you, to Dr. Andrew Wakefield, for not just writing my forward, but for standing up. And all the doctors, all of them. My doctor, Dr. Rachel West, she's so phenomenal. She's a sit fire and I love her and all her education. But all the doctors who are putting their necks out there to. Yeah, and they are. They're

putting the necks out there to do this very important work for a massive exploding population. But I feel God is leading us in the right direction and I truly believe as angels will watch over us and protect us on our journey. And I always say, if you believe it to be true, that's the first tackle, and then just leave the rest up to God. Amen. Thank you for joining us, Tracy. Thank you so much. Really great.

The book is Warrior Mom. Don't miss it. Even if you think, well, I mean, that's not my issue. Thank God. Say a prayer tonight. Thank God that this isn't something you've had to go through. But I know you know somebody that is, and this is a very gentle way to over.

approach the conversation. It's going to be so helpful for so many parents out there around the world. So warrior mom, go ahead and order your copy, get it right away.