My adorable son, Luca Kei The first time Luca said I love you Mommy to me….. a big step for any little boy who overcame autism due to mercury poisoning from the vaccines he received when he was 18 months old. After his second shot of DTP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Polio) followed by the flu vaccine (the worst with MMR), he went until a shock and he has never been the same afterward. He would spend his days looking at one object close by his eyes and spinning it around, he would scream and cry, bite us and hit us like a wild animal. We would be covered with bruises on our body and had to protect his brother from him 24 hours a day. Luca was in so much pain because of the poisoning that he became furious and restless. We found out later that he had holes in his intestines also food was making him sick, and that the mercury had attached to all his essential organs and most scarily into his little brain. He would stare out by the window for hours rocking his body with the same pattern, aligning his little toys and become mad if we ever moved one around. He never looked into our eyes anymore, he was deeply absent. He never heard us calling him anymore, we thought he became deaf, but the tests denied it. He was like possessed and living in a different word from us. It was heartbreaking, devastating. Our entire family was grieving. After countless testings, doctors in Japan told us he would have to live in a special home in the future and that there was nothing we could do. Until he was 4 years old, Luca did not say any word, zero, he was not mute but could only make noises or scream in a high pitch voice. I refused this diagnostic and swear to Luca at night when he finally had felt asleep, that I would do anything I could possibly do to have him back. I wrote a poem one night, I know it is saved somewhere in one of my computers, office or home. I will try to find it, it was beautiful what I wrote… I was not even sure Luca would ever been able to read it someday. I must find it because now he surely can! Luca did not know until he was 4 years old, that I was his mother, and used to address me as “Noa’s Mom”. (Noa is his middle brother, Ben his oldest). This was after he could talk a little when he passed his 4th birthday….. Noa’s Mom, how painful…. it used to break my heart, but I kept believing that one day he will know that I am his mother, that I love him so much and that everything will be fine, that Luca will live a normal life. It was hard because I had to work during the day and study some more at night time, hours on my computer, trying to find help or a miraculous cure for Luca. Looking back I can say that we did everything we could. We traveled to Europe, USA, Asia to meet with doctors and non-doctors, therapists and parents with a child in the same condition as ours. I felt I would not sleep until Luca would be ok. And yes, in the meantime, I had to train the finalists, my winners, sell sponsorship, run the office, attend TV and magazines shoots, implement events…. I do not know now how I could survive with the all thing. Well… I had no choice, if I stopped working I had to lay off people working for me. I was worried if I was to stop working, I has become insane and also we spent so much money with treatments of all sorts that we would have been bankrupted by now and end up homeless in a country where everything is so expensive! I always say that I graduated from Google University of Medicine, because honestly I learned everything throughout the internet, searching constantly for new therapies or treatments that I could try on Luca. Without internet, it would not have been possible. I would never have learn from doctors, or people living on the other side of the world from us. I came back home, after the doctor in Tokyo told me, that there was nothing HE or WE could do, that we had to accept Luca’s condition and that he would be handicapped for the rest of HIS, OUR lives. I cried and even vomit. I remember passing out in the kitchen late at night, and waking up later in agony, crying still on our kitchen floor because I was bleeding inside. My baby had been taken away from me, he was screaming for help but i did not know yet what to do…… And then everything started in my journey to recover my son. I felt this immense rage inside of me growing like volcano ready to erupt, I felt invincible , some kind of bionic-mom, a warrior ready to fight against injustice and fatality. From the kitchen. I walked to our computer, it must have been midnight, I took a deep breath and then I typed the word AUTISM on the Google search engines. So many links came up, about the condition, the treatments that were available, about parents’ testimonies. Most interestingly, the majority was saying that there child was not born like this, but that they had found out that he/she had been mercury or heavy metal poisoned!? And this gave me hope. Because I knew that Luca was born like any other regular child, he was “normal”, he blew his candles for his 1st birthday and then something terribly wrong had happened later on, suddenly. Also it gave me hope that I could do something to recover him. My mission had started, one day at a time, a week, then months, then years,,,, it took us 5 years! When Luca became sick, early February of 2003. Miyako Miyazaki had just won and was preparing to compete at Miss Universe in Panama. She can tell you how it was at home with Luca, she leaved every moments with us because she used to be with us at home a lot. Now we are in 2009 and the great news is that Luca is officially a regular little boy, with an incredible memory, sense of humor, social skills, sports skills, leadership and extremely independent. If I wrote this topic today it is because I would like my story to be an inspiration for parents out there. Also, if you have someone with a little one, boy or girl with the same problem, or if you know a family with an angel like Luca, please ask me any questions, feel free to connect with me. Leave your email address with questions in a comment on my blog and I promise I will reply to you personally. I also speak at seminars for parents with a child with Autism related symptom in Japan, and I can invite you to attend. I will share with you everything we did to turn Luca’s destiny around. He now lives a completely normal life and people would never tell that one day this little boy could not relate at all with the world that we live in. Oh… and I have a big favor to ask one of you…. I would love to have someone translating this post in Japanese for me. I of course wish to help Japanese families. Thank you so much in advance. You can write the translation as a comment below and I will copy and past it in this post with your full name. Love, ines see this…