Vaccines Destroyed our Daughter Elizabeth’s Life
My youngest daughter Elizabeth is profoundly and permanently disabled from vaccine injury. She requires a 24-hour wake staff to care for her in the highest level care facility that California offers. Her care costs over $6000 a month.
She can no longer talk as she did before the vaccinations that damaged her at just under 18 months of age. She spends most of her time drooling, rocking back and forth, or staring off into space, and she must be medicated to ensure her safety and the safety of those around her.
Elizabeth was a happy, thriving, neurotypical, healthy, and vibrant little girl who sang, danced, talked, giggled, and played with her family and friends right up until the catastrophic day that it all changed when she received six vaccines at her well-baby check-up. Until that day, Elizabeth enjoyed traveling extensively all over the world with our family. She loved Veggie Tales, horseback riding, pumpkin patches, music, dancing, Disneyland, cruises, and swimming.
That fateful vaccination day, we lost Elizabeth. Her life was stolen. This is her story. This is our story. Tragically it is the story of countless other families I have coached over the past 17 years.
When people ask me if I am an “anti-vaxxer,” I always answer truthfully by saying that I truly wish I was “anti-vax” and not “post-vax,” “ex-vax,” “vax-aware,” “vax-educated,” or “woke” as many choose to label parents of vaccine casualties. If I was “anti-vax,” I wouldn’t have to share this gruesome story.
Sharing my daughter’s story is the hardest thing I have ever been compelled to write. I am an accomplished author, columnist, and radio talk show host with over 5000 published articles and seven books spanning the past twenty-five years as a member of the working media. So when I say this story is the most difficult story I have ever written or talked about, I speak from vast experience.
Nothing compares to losing a child while they are still alive. And unless someone has experienced the relentless heartache first hand, they will likely not understand the lack of closure to the pain, loss, and suffering. I am certain that many of the families I have coached who have lost their children to death from vaccines, most likely wished their precious children had fared more like my Elizabeth.
I’m also equally certain that many parents whose maimed children didn’t physically die, have had moments when they wished their children had gone on to heaven to end the unfathomable suffering. For those who may choose to judge, I can only hope that they are never tormented by the unimaginable anguish that both sides have suffered. I hope many families will learn from my daughter’s story and the stories of countless others with similar tragic endings. I hope they will have the courage to research thoroughly and to call the shots with their own children.
The event that would change our lives for eternity was all over and done, in mere seconds, before I could even argue. We left the pediatrician’s office with Elizabeth donning multiple band-aids and with some Disney princess and Veggie Tales stickers for her and her 4 year-old sister Faith, to carry out to the car.
Little did I know that ride home from Elizabeth’s pediatrician’s office, would be the very last car ride that my heart would ever sing from the immense joy of hearing my two precious toddlers both clapping and singing together to their favorite songs, from the back seat, in their side by side car seats.
Elizabeth arrived home from her pediatric well-baby check-up later that day, cranky, fussy, and out of sorts. I breastfed her and put her to bed in her crib. I had raised four other children and nanny-ed three others and I was still uneasy about the conversation I had had with our pediatrician earlier that day when the nurse had prepared to inject Elizabeth with six vaccines at her well-baby visit.
None of our three older children nor the ones we had fostered, nor the three I had nanny-ed in college, had ever received that many vaccinations at once. When I expressed my dire concerns to the doctor, she hurriedly assured me that this administration of multiple vaccines, was perfectly safe and that, that was simply, the way it was done now. It was all over in a flash, and we were quickly escorted out for lollipops and stickers.
As usual, I prepared dinner that night for our family in our little cottage in the woods. But when we awoke Elizabeth for dinner, she was not interested in eating for the first time in her little life. She was running a fever. I called the pediatric office. The pediatrician on call, instructed me to give her Tylenol, which I did. I had no idea that acetaminophen makes vaccine injury worse by lowering glutathione levels. I did what I was advised to do. Later I would learn from several vaccine injury physicians that acetaminophen, in fact, locks in the toxins by depleting the vital glutathione levels necessary for detoxification. Several vaccine injury specialists have since told me that the kids they treat, who get Tylenol immediately after vaccine injury, are usually the hardest cases to recover.
The next day was my husband’s day off, We slept in, got up, and sat out on our deck overlooking the gorgeous Tahoe National Forest, just as we normally did on most Saturday mornings. We ate breakfast and watched Elizabeth’s big sister, Faith, play happily. Normally the girls would play together in the mornings, but Elizabeth was still sleeping. We checked on Elizabeth several times and decided to let her sleep off the fever.
After she had slept well into the afternoon, we finally got Elizabeth up. Instead of the normal, bubbly, grinning toddler who stood in her crib every single morning with her arms outstretched, smiling, giggling, and saying “Up, Mama, up,” we found a quiet, blank staring toddler, sitting in her crib, who had absolutely no connection to the world around her. Then the high pitched, deafening, and sickening shrieking started. This would continue for over TWO YEARS STRAIGHT until I shook like a leaf, couldn’t keep food down, and could rarely sleep, from the trauma of listening to her high-pitch, deafening screaming, which often persisted 12-20 hours per day.
Fast forward over the next few days as I stood in the same pediatrician’s office begging for answers and the pediatrician’s reply was, “Gosh, I have five kids and this is exactly why I don’t vaccinate my kids.” It took me a few years to fully forgive that cavalier and cruel statement. I still recall it clearly, to this day.
She also refused to report it to VAERS as is the case with most physicians. Only 1% of adverse events are ever reported.
The pediatrician who lied to me and coerced me into six vaccines in one visit, was now no help whatsoever and attempted to placate me by suggesting that Elizabeth would likely begin speaking, playing, walking, singing, and functioning again normally, in time. She couldn’t even examine Elizabeth. Elizabeth thrashed, bit, kicked, screamed, flailed, and banged her head into the walls and floor. She had huge lumps on her head from the self-inflicted head trauma she had sustained just that week. Elizabeth tore at the doctor’s hair and threw and kicked everything she could reach in the exam room. I honestly, didn’t feel one shred of remorse for the chaos that ensued, as the doctor was equally as bruised and bloodied as my four year-old and me, by the end of the exasperating office visit.
Years later an ethical vaccine injury specialist finally reported Elizabeth’s injury.
This dishonest and corrupt pediatrician referred us to a pediatric neurologist who ordered an EEG. However, the diagnostic test was impossible to complete as Elizabeth would not comply and the neurologist could get no further than the pediatrician had. All the pediatric neurologist could offer was a psychotropic medication that was not approved for children Elizabeth’s age. After a short, unsuccessful trial we thankfully, discontinued it.
Within weeks, our home was being destroyed and everyone in the home was being injured. My husband had to install bars on the windows and bolt all furniture to the walls in order to keep Elizabeth from mortally wounding herself. She no longer slept 10 hours per night peacefully but rather stayed up all night and into the morning, shrieking and screaming and trying to harm herself and others while doing severe property damage.
Elizabeth now had a peculiar fascination with head banging into windows, walls, and floors. I could hardly sleep anymore at night from the clangor. I was always imagining and wondering each morning, if that would be ‘the one.’ I was truly terrified and almost certain that I would wake one day to find Elizabeth with her head split open from banging her head if I didn’t get to her fast enough.
We lived on a farm out in the country and an hour from any help. A lot of scenarios crossed my mind late at night and into the wee hours of the morning when I was bone-aching, butt-dragging, sleep-deprived but wouldn’t allow myself to sleep for fear of what could happen quickly.
Normal bowel habits were a faint memory. Elizabeth would take her diaper off every time she filled it with diarrhea which was several times a day. She would spread feces all over herself, the walls, and her bedding. The only way I could get a few hours of sleep each night was to duct tape her diaper, which I doubled, and secured with strong electrical tape to buy me a few extra moments to get into her room and attend to her diarrhea.
She no longer could be contained in her crib. We had to bolt her toddler bed and dresser to the walls as she tried to injure herself daily, using any means she could, including furniture or windows. I dreaded going to sleep every night knowing that no matter how fast I awoke and made it to her room, I would face the inevitable mess all over her walls, carpets, bedding, and clothes while she continued to shriek. My days were spent cleaning the unimaginable and doing loads of laundry as I was bit, scratched, and hit continuously. Taking a shower to clean myself properly after cleaning her messes, was simply not an option. Elizabeth could not be left unattended even for a moment for me to shower, and if I attempted to take her in the shower with me, she would endanger us both.
The only time her screaming diminished was in the bath tub. She was her happiest there which was no surprise when you consider she was born a healthy, happy 8-pound baby, delivered via water birth, with absolutely no complications or medication. But at this point, she required at least two baths a day due to her constant diaper blow outs. I choked down most of my nourishment sitting on the edge of the tub while I bathed her. It was the one and only time I could actually digest bits of food and stop shaking from listening to her incessant, high-pitched shrieking.
Fortunately, very soon after her vaccine injury, I was visiting a friend of mine who is a physician. When Dr. Rich saw Elizabeth, and Faith, and I for the first time in months, he immediately pegged it. “This is vaccine injury,” Dr. Rich told us without any hesitation. He referred me to a couple of vaccine injury specialists to whom his sister had taken his own nephew. His nephew, Robbie had the same vaccine injury reaction and presentation as Elizabeth. Dr. Rich gave me a book on vaccine injury and the phone numbers of a couple of local parents he knew personally who were dealing with the same, post-vaccine injuries.
Coincidentally, a few days later, while I was researching vaccine injury specialists and getting Elizabeth on a waiting list to see one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I met another mom, Polly, at Faith’s play group. Polly’s son Weston, who was closer to Faith’s age, appeared to be behaving much the same way as Elizabeth, just far less violently. Polly and I both left the play group together after meeting and introducing ourselves. I didn’t know this woman but we both recognized the similarities in our children and we immediately bonded out of desperation. I noticed her son Weston, lacked any eye contact or language, and he was toe-walking and stemming with repetitive movements just like Elizabeth. Polly suggested we meet privately to talk that day after play group was over.
I’m not one to ever ask personal questions especially to strangers. But I wasted no time, and ventured far out of my comfort zone, to ask Polly if Weston was vaccine injured as well. This woman I had known for an hour, immediately lost all composure, breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing. Polly told me that she and her husband were certain that Weston was vaccine injured, but that nobody knew what to do or how to help him. Their pediatrician had suggested it was likely just some sort of developmental delay or regression; yet her son had been developing exactly on schedule, right up until the day he had his vaccines, just as Elizabeth had as well.
As Polly and I shared our tragic stories, I confided with her all that I had learned in the previous weeks. The next day, I helped her to get an appointment for Weston with the same vaccine injury specialist in Baton Rouge. Our friendship grew quickly as we were both starved for understanding and acceptance. Both of us had been largely isolated due to the unmanageable behaviors both of our children displayed. We helped each other survive while we waited and counted the days until we could fly together to Louisiana, on our quest to heal our children.
In Louisiana it was confirmed through extensive testing that our kids had both suffered vaccine injury and encephalopathy. Both our kids were diagnosed with severe heavy metal toxicity, digestion and gut issues, and tested positive for a common genetic variant that one in every three people has, which impedes effective methylation and detoxification.
The specialist also explained that since I have Rh negative blood and had received Rhogam shots with every pregnancy, as most women with negative blood types do, Elizabeth had also been exposed to all the toxins and heavy metals from those Rhogam shots as well. This doctor explained that this had only added to Elizabeth’s toxic load and every human being has a breaking point where the toxins are just too much. Six vaccines had clearly been Elizabeth’s tipping point.
This MD had recovered hundreds of vaccine injured kids and was the leading specialist in the country at the time, having written books and appeared on CNN. She suggested we file a vaccine injury claim immediately with VAERS which we did. She also referred us to a prominent and very successful vaccine injury attorney who took our case pro bono. He explained up front that less than 3% of the families who filed a vaccine injury claim ever prevailed against the crooked system. However, he was ready and willing to try on our behalf.
We filed and began our wait of many years for our day in Federal Vaccine Court. Polly never got the opportunity to file a vaccine injury claim for Weston as they had missed the narrow envelope of time to file such a claim. Her pediatrician, just like ours, had never even presented the option to her.
Polly and I began a two-year process, costing tens of thousands of out-of-pocket dollars, of cutting-edge protocols for vaccine injury and detoxification. Transdermal, oral, and IV chelation using DMPS, DMSA, EDTA, malic acid, clay baths, and many other prescribed detox protocols and biomedical interventions began, including Trimethylglycine, Dimethylglycine, liposomal glutathione, specially compounded supplements, B12 injections and so many more.
One blessing is that through Elizabeth’s testing and treatment we discovered that Faith, who was two years older than Elizabeth, also had toxic levels of heavy metals in her tissues as well. This finally explained Faith’s previous presentation of facial asymmetry ADD, OCD, and projectile vomiting that had begun immediately following her vaccines, a couple of years previously. So while Elizabeth was treated, Faith underwent detox treatment as well.
A couple of years before, Faith had been hospitalized right after her vaccinations when she would not stop projectile vomiting and when her face twisted up on one side like Popeye. However, the treating physicians had claimed they had no idea what was causing her symptoms and they assured us, that it was only coincidental that she had just had her vaccines that week. They had tried to pressure me into exploratory surgery, which thankfully I had the sense to decline. Over time, Faith had improved substantially, on her own. Her face returned to normal after many months and the vomiting eventually stopped. But after her vaccines, Faith had suddenly displayed all the symptoms of ADD and OCD whereas she had never shown any symptoms prior. However, after Faith was detoxed alongside her sister Elizabeth, Faith recovered completely and rather quickly, which gave me hope for her sister, that Elizabeth might soon follow suit on her own road to recovery.
The Louisiana MD who initiated our treatment, eventually found us a physician near Palo Alto, California who also treated and specialized in vaccine injury using the same protocols. Treatments were set up for us to continue there, closer to home. Polly and I could manage to drive the four hours there and back together once a month for our kids’ continued treatment because traveling to Baton Rouge was a nightmare where both our kids had to be sedated to travel by air. Even with sedation, I had been flipped off by angry passengers on our flights while Elizabeth shrieked.
Compounding pharmacies provided us with prescribed methylated B12 injections to give our kids nightly. If I hadn’t hardly slept before, now I slept even less as I had to wait until 2 or 3 AM for Elizabeth to finally stop shrieking and fall asleep each night so I could numb her leg with the prescribed numbing cream, and administer the B12 injections which sometimes woke her up to more shrieking, head banging, biting, and screaming.
Both Polly and I began implementing the gluten free/casein free diet as medically prescribed, to begin to heal our childrens’ leaky guts from the vaccine damage. Within days on the diet, Elizabeth’s screaming diminished from 16 hours or more per day down to an almost manageable 5-8 hours. I was able to eat, keep food down, and sleep for the first time in months, along with the rest of the family. There was still daily property damage and violent behavior to manage, but it was drastically reduced to where we could finally get a few hours of sleep per night.
That Christmas season was one of the saddest in my life. My five year-old Faith, decorated the gigantic Christmas tree at the UC Davis MIND Institute and played with volunteer aides in the waiting rooms while Polly and I entered our severely vaccine injured kids into a research study with hopes of getting a formal “diagnosis” that would allow them to get additional therapies through the regional center in our area. We met a dozen or more other families in the waiting room that day, all with identical stories and tears of mirroring pain and loss, all children that had been immediately lost in a void after vaccination.
We filled out scores of hundreds of questions about their vaccines and exposure to toxic heavy metals. Our kids were evaluated by numerous specialists. While Elizabeth and Polly’s son, both did not fit all the typical criteria for autism, the psychiatrists reluctantly gave a diagnosis of ASD to both our kids. We could finally get our children early intervention therapies.
Right before we left, a kind and helpful aide who had entertained Faith all day, brought Faith over to me. Faith was smiling brightly, excited to show me the gigantic Christmas tree that she and the aide had enjoyed decorating together in the enormous foyer of the UC Davis MIND Institute while Elizabeth was being evaluated. Numb and shell-shocked from the formal diagnosis Elizabeth had just received, I distinctly remember looking up at the spectacular Christmas tree in that grand foyer, and thinking how Elizabeth was never going to go to college, have a boyfriend, get married, have a family, or even get a job. All of my dreams and hopes for Elizabeth’s life flew out those gigantic foyer windows that day as I stared at the enormous Christmas tree that Faith had decorated.
With each of my children, I have always kept a cherished daily journal of every nuance of my pregnancies, my hopes, dreams, sensations, and adventures of each pregnancy and delivery along with what I deeply desired for each child. Each journal also chronicled each child’s firsts and daily life through toddlerhood. My hope that Elizabeth would one day read her journal I had made for her, vanished that day.
I remember the drive home with Polly that night, both of us crying, as we tried to hold onto even a shred of hope for our precious children. Three weeks later, on a beautiful white snowy Christmas morning in our cottage in the woods, Elizabeth sat in a big white plastic laundry basket rocking and blankly staring out the window, while the rest of us opened presents with my mother who was visiting. Elizabeth no longer connected to the tree, presents, her favorite Christmas music, our family dog, cat, or even with any of us, as she had always done before.
Polly’s and my goal to finally receive a formal diagnosis for our kids, allowed them to finally qualify for services like ABA therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and respite. With a respite person coming into my home for few hours a week I could once again do a few normal things like go the bank, grocery store, shave my legs in the shower, garden, do an exercise video, or walk the dog.
Everything normal had vanished for so many months, that I wasn’t sure what normal even looked like any more. Simply walking outside to gather eggs from the chickens or to fill the dog’s water dish had become impossibilities for months. Every second of my life was consumed with keeping Elizabeth alive and keeping her sister Faith, safe from her sister’s violence. But with respite a few hours a week, I began to see a shred of normalcy return.
Elizabeth, my formerly most social child, could no longer tolerate being in public. This child who had previously traveled all over the world with us, and on 5 cruises in her first year and a half of life, was no longer safe to take anywhere in public. My husband worked 10 hour shifts with a 90 minute commute on both ends, as he desperately worked himself to the bone trying his best to hold it all together and pay for treatments.
Prior to Elizabeth’s vaccine injury, I traveled 1-2 times a month, usually with my children, because I was a family travel columnist. We were all blessed to travel the world for free, as much as we desired, due to the nature of my work. I had taught thousands how to do the same in my seminars and books, but I was now entirely isolated at home unless a friend or family member could relieve me. Few people could manage Elizabeth. There were moments when I resented the fact that my husband could escape the insanity to eat a meal in peace or just think his own thoughts while driving to and from work. But I kept myself in check knowing he was doing all he could to provide for our family and to cope the best way he knew how.
No church childcare or daycare could manage Elizabeth and friends and family were not equipped to manage or keep her safe. The constant stream of ABA workers coming in and out of our home 8 hours a day on various shifts along with respite providers allowed me to regain a bit of my life; however, it was difficult to adjust to the lack of privacy and the constant interruptions in our home.
ABA workers had reports, meetings, training, tests, and supervision that were required in our home. I was in charge of managing all of them and for managing all of Elizabeth’s other therapies and for training the respite workers as well. It was supremely difficult to find any respite workers who would last more than one or two visits, as Elizabeth was extremely difficult to care for. While all this was going on, I was also homeschooling Faith and working part-time from home writing my columns, coaching, and producing my radio show.
Prior to respite services, my writing, travel columns, coaching, consulting, radio, and seminars could only be done on the weekends or very late at night when my husband could stay home and care for Elizabeth while I worked. Suddenly, respite allowed me the ability to work from home again. Faith was once more, enjoying moments of a normal childhood with play dates and sleepovers between our trips to San Francisco and Palo Alto for Elizabeth’s continued IV chelation treatments each month.
Polly’s son Weston began to show steady improvement as we got the heavy metals and toxins to come out of him, but Elizabeth did not improve. Tests showed her toxins were not being eliminated from her body as they had for Faith or Polly’s son.
One winter night, my husband watched Elizabeth at home while Faith and I went over to Polly’s house for a much needed break. Polly’s son looked at his mom and me, as he picked up one of the fireplace tools on their hearth, and asked, “What is this and what does it do?” It was the first time Weston had spoken a complete sentence since his vaccines when he had lost all vocabulary, like Elizabeth. We all stood there in absolute and utter shock.
That was his breakthrough moment and the beginning of his recovery and healing. Urine challenge, blood, and hair sample tests showed the toxins were coming out of him effectively. Elizabeth’s toxins and heavy metals were not. As Weston effectively detoxed, his speech and eye contact gradually improved over the months that followed. Eventually, when he could finally speak in full, complex sentences, he told us eloquently, what it was like being trapped in a body and mind that would not cooperate and could not form words.
Weston and Faith became best friends as he slowly improved. How could they not become close pals with countless hours traveling together all over the nation for treatments and therapies? Almost 18 years later, they are still best friends and call each other “adopted cousins.”
I had always been a researcher. With a PhD and having been a writer, journalist, and author for over 20 years, I was accustomed to spending countless nights researching; however, vaccine injury was now my focus of study. In the months that followed, I researched another expensive cutting-edge treatment in Bethesda, Maryland that was recovering hundreds of children with vaccine injury and autism. I enrolled both Elizabeth and Polly’s son, although we had to go at different times.
I had become friends with many parents of vaccine injured children across the nation by this point. I was also coaching many others in the various treatments and services available and even published a book about vaccine injury and biomedical treatment options. I eventually sat on the board of directors for a non-profit that allowed me to write grants totaling in the millions for special needs projects and therapies, serving vaccine injured children.
I managed to write grants and secure funding for over 20 families to partake in this new therapy in Bethesda, Maryland, along with us. I had interviewed the people who had created the therapy, along with dozens of families whose kids were healed and fully recovered. Polly and I left for three months of this intensive therapy in Bethesda, Maryland for our kids, hoping our kids might fully recover, as so many others had.
Faith was only six years-old, but she bravely helped me push Elizabeth who was strapped and locked into a wheel chair through the Dulles Airport as I pushed my mom’s and grandmother’s wheelchairs. I secured a rental minivan large enough to accommodate all their carry-ons and medications to go back and forth to treatments and to the hotel room where I single-handedly cared for everyone until late into the night.
The only way to keep Elizabeth contained and prevent her from harming herself or others in parking lots or public spaces, was with her 5 point harness car seat. It was strapped and locked down into a wheelchair as we navigated from airport to airport making flight connections. Over those past few months I had become the full-time sole caregiver for my newly disabled mother and dying grandmother. I was not about to give up the opportunity to try this new and promising treatment for Elizabeth even if that meant my hauling all four generations in three wheel chairs, from the west coast to the east coast and back again.
Elizabeth had to be heavily sedated for air travel. Even when sedated, she shrieked, screamed, and flailed until other passengers on our various flights often flipped us off and called us names. Eventually, I passed out ear plugs and apology-information cards to everyone around us on our flights. Dealing with her severe diarrhea, diaper blow-outs, and screaming, on a four-hour crowded flight was a whole trauma of its own. My disabled mom, dying grandmother, and six year-old were a piece of cake to manage compared to Elizabeth’s behavior.
I made many life-long friends in Bethesda as I sat caring for my mom and grandmother while homeschooling Faith in the waiting room every day, for weeks on end, while Elizabeth underwent her therapies. I heard dozens of stories from families just like ours and watched mothers sob and pray together. We were all trying to make sense of how we’d lost our normal, vibrant, and healthy children into a black abyss immediately after vaccination.
In those three months in Bethesda, I saw countless miracles and am friends with many of those families today. Kids walked in who had quit speaking, had no eye contact, and screamed, and three months later after concluding this therapy, many walked out talking in full sentences. Some of them no longer had a diagnosis of “autism spectrum disorder.” Polly’s son was one of those lucky ones. Weston is now in college and a bright young man. Elizabeth was not so lucky. She did speak a few words, mid-way through the therapy, and we thought we might see a breakthrough. But those tiny strides didn’t last, and once home, she returned to baseline.
In fact, about a year later, Elizabeth was much worse and much stronger. Respite workers could not manage her anymore due to her growing size, strength, and daily violence. ABA therapists could no longer work with her either. ABA, speech, and occupational therapy were not helping after giving them all a fair try for two full years.
I will never forget standing in line at an optical department with my dying grandmother sitting in her wheelchair, waiting for my grandmother’s prescription glasses. I had Elizabeth strapped into a stroller, hoping to contain her, in the store. She bolted loose and threw herself down on the ground shrieking and attempting to injure Faith and me who both tried to console her. My grandmother sat in her wheelchair helpless. People began to point and glare and say hideous things even when we tried to explain over the screaming that Elizabeth was disabled.
Someone shouted obscenities and threatened to call security which they eventually did. Faith just stood there at 7 years-old with tears streaming down her face begging for compassion, “My sister is disabled. Please help us and stop saying mean things. I love my sister.”
The state, regional centers, and doctors recommended we place Elizabeth in a full-time care facility that could keep her managed for both her safety and for ours. Elizabeth was five. I had just lost both my mom and grandmother in one month’s time. We made one of the toughest choices of our lives and placed Elizabeth in the highest level of care facility available with full time, 24/7 wake staff.
On the day we placed her, her beautiful face was covered in swollen contusions where she had slammed her head into walls and pavement. My previously vibrant health was failing, and my body was broken and injured from full-time care giving.
Elizabeth’s first night in the care home, away from us, I cried myself to sleep and slept nine hours for the first time in years. I knew deep inside that Faith needed her mom back and my husband needed his wife back. My closest friends later told me that they knew they would have lost me if I hadn’t made that horrific choice. My body, soul, and spirit had finally broken down. There was just no more of me left to give. I was spent.
It took many months for me to get my health and strength back. I had to learn how to sleep again. We visited Elizabeth every week at the care facility and the couple who owned and administrated it became my dear friends and suggested that I open up my own facility. There was a huge need as there simply were not enough of these high-level care homes available for all the children who needed them. Elizabeth’s emergency placement had been escalated due to her severity, crisis status, and the immediate dangers to our family. Most kids in her situation were waiting several years for a suitable placement.
I liked the idea of helping other kids and being able to administrate my own facility while being hands on for Elizabeth’s care. I liked the idea of hiring and training my own staff. Polly agreed to go into business with me so we embarked on the many months of costly training, vendoring, and licensing to open up and administrate two care homes together.
Just weeks before opening, Polly and I decided against the project for personal reasons that I won’t explain here. It all worked out for the best, and my extensive training has allowed me to be very proactive in overseeing care at the five care facilities where Elizabeth has been placed over the past thirteen years. Knowing all the laws and regulations has turned out to be a huge blessing and allowed me to be an effective advocate for Elizabeth and countless other vaccine-injured families and clients I have coached.
The next few years after placement were difficult as it became impossible to take Elizabeth anywhere in public during our weekly visits. Law enforcement or security was frequently called on us due to Elizabeth’s violent behavior in stores, restaurants, public pools, parks, malls, or anywhere else we attempted to take her during our weekly visits. She would often injure us or run off.
Many times we would drive over an hour and a half to pick her up and we were simply relegated to sit in a locked car somewhere in the rain or in the shade at a nearby park during the heat of summer. We would drive nearly two hours just to hold her or hug her or listen to music in the car with her and then take her back to the care home and drive more than 90 minutes home.
What do you do with a tall, pre-teen child who cannot interact, talk, read, play, attend a movie, shop, look at Christmas lights, dine in a restaurant, color, draw, ride on a kiddie ride, or handle any normal activity in a safe manner? An adolescent child who just rocks and moans and at any moment can become unsafe and violent poses a threat to herself and others. I cannot begin to explain the anguish of missing your child and aching to see her, yet at the same time, dreading the injuries and traumatic events that often resulted during our weekly visits.
Eventually, I had an idea that perhaps if I could train our exceedingly loyal, protective, and intelligent dog to be Elizabeth’s service dog, there might be a chance we could do something simple in public. Even walking in a mall or visiting a pumpkin patch had proved disastrous and dangerous to us all. I began to train our dog in utter desperation.
Within months, using common sense, instinct, and from reading many books and interviewing service dog trainers, I trained our dog to tether to Elizabeth when we were out in public. The moment the dog felt Elizabeth begin to run or bolt away, Shadow was trained to reliably drop to the ground and anchor in place to hold Elizabeth tethered and harnessed. It worked like a dream. Eventually, Elizabeth began to realize she could not get away and she stopped bolting altogether.
I asked the care facility to store some of Elizabeth’s well-worn and ready-for-the-washing machine, dirty pajamas in a Ziploc bag, for me to pick up during visits. I used them successfully at home to train Shadow to Elizabeth’s scent. If Elizabeth was not tethered and was out of sight, Shadow could lead us to Elizabeth in seconds purely by scent tracking. That gave us extra peace of mind that we could find her quickly if she somehow got away. Finally, I taught Shadow how to give Elizabeth redirection and deep pressure therapy whenever she began the first few critical seconds of a meltdown or violent behavior.
We were finally able to take Elizabeth to parks, restaurants, pumpkin patches, and malls without strangers flipping us off and calling security and law enforcement on us. Even when Elizabeth was stable, the service dog gave strangers a clue that our beautiful child was disabled which allowed most people to exercise some compassion rather than constant cruelty and glares when she moaned, flapped, or screamed.
Within months of Shadow’s completion of training, many parents I coached saw what a lifesaver Elizabeth’s service dog had become. A few families begged me for help. My husband, Faith, and I ended up training 53 autism and seizure alert dogs for other families all over the country over the next seven years. I led a group of puppy raisers at UC Davis Veterinary School as well as a service dog chapter for 4H. Several dogs we trained even saved childrens’ lives, and the stories spread around the country. I am friends with many of those parents and grandparents to this day. Countless families credited those special dogs as the only reason their children and grandchildren could finally visit Disneyland, board flights, or go on camping trips, safely.
When Elizabeth hit her teenage years, things took a turn for the worse. She became so violent that she was expelled from several special needs schools. Her care home could no longer manage her even with additional support and emergency behavioral intervention plans and specialists. We tried many different medications, but nothing helped to stabilize her. She was continually injuring herself as well as caregivers and teachers to the point that even neighborhood residents near the care facility were regularly calling law enforcement on the care facility to report suspected abuse.
Neither the state nor the regional center could figure out what to do as nobody could manage Elizabeth’s care or her behavior any longer. We certainly could not safely manage her when they had a staff and we didn’t. My husband still worked long hours with a commute on either side and Faith was a working adult now. I certainly could not manage Elizabeth alone in our home or in public.
Although my husband, Faith, and I have never smoked pot or even tried any illegal drugs, we reluctantly decided to try a medically prescribed cannabis oil, CBD/THC blend for Elizabeth. It immediately stabilized Elizabeth, and the care home and school could manage her once again. It cost over $2000 a month for the special blend of oil, but a wonderful non-profit supplied it to her, free of cost, for two years. It bought us some time through this exceptionally scary and volatile period.
After two years, a new California law was passed in 2018 that prohibited the medically prescribed cannabis oil from being supplied by the non-profit organization. As soon as Elizabeth stopped taking it, she immediately went into crisis again. She was expelled from two special needs schools, kicked out of her care home and was placed into an emergency respite care facility. Nobody could manage her, and the state, regional center, and everyone involved with her care were at a loss as to what to do.
Medically prescribed cannabis oil was now out of the question as no new care facilities in the state of California were willing to take Elizabeth for placement even if she had been on it. For her to be accepted for any permanent placement, they required she be medicated, sedated, and stable, but none would allow medically prescribed cannabis. This was something we had tried to avoid at all costs. It was pharmaceuticals and the medical system that had destroyed her life in the first place, and now hard core pharmaceuticals were our last resort.
After many months of injuries, crisis, and property damage, along with visits to numerous psychiatrists, we found a psychotropic medication that finally worked for her and managed her to the point that she could attend a new, private, special needs school that costs $26,000 a year. We were able to find a new residential placement for her in an excellent facility that was administrated by a friend of mine. That facility is the highest level of care available and currently costs over $70,000 per year.
Elizabeth is now 20 years-old. As always, I am an ever-present advocate and member of her planning team. My husband, Faith, and I are now, all, co-conservators for Elizabeth. I have groomed Faith so that one day she can continue to advocate for her little sister’s care, education, and life decisions when my husband and I are no longer able. At 22 years-old, Faith is fiercely protective of her baby sister and extremely knowledgeable about her condition and care. I could not ask for a better sibling to look out for Elizabeth’s best interests in all areas of her life.
We spent a total of 8 years and over $40,000 out-of-pocket trying every single reasonable biomedical treatment and cutting-edge therapy for Elizabeth. Unlike many families I have coached whose kids either improved or recovered, Elizabeth did not respond, improve, or recover.
We eventually got our day in federal vaccine injury court. Even with all the videos, documentation, and proof of Elizabeth’s normal development prior to vaccines and the medical opinions and records of over a half dozen highly regarded MD’s, we did not get a settlement. Most families never prevail. The system has paid out nearly 5 billion dollars in the past 30 years but more than 95% of parents who file, are never compensated. We fell into that percentile. Most parents, like my friend Polly, never even know they have an option to file a claim. It’s estimated that less than 1% of all vaccine injuries and death are even reported as such. At least I know we tried.
Every time I drive 90 minutes to hug and kiss Elizabeth, to tell her I love her and watch her stare off into the distance, rocking and moaning, I hope for that rare moment when I get a fleeting smile or get to see some spark of life in her mostly blank, heavily-medicated face and empty eyes. Occasionally, a Disney song I play or sing to her will spur a momentary grin or reaction. I also brace myself each afternoon to read my email and see if her teacher will be reporting an injury or property damage at school that day.
Since the current Plandemic started two years ago, her excellent care facility has been in “indefinite lockdown” due to state tyranny. We have never gone five weeks, let alone months without seeing Elizabeth since she was born. We ached for months to see her and she missed us terribly. For many months we could only call a couple of times a week just to sing her a song, to let her hear our voices, or to see us on FaceTime. She can’t have a conversation. Usually she rocks and moans. Occasionally, we get a fleeting smile or she hums a few notes from a movie. I truly can’t describe what this was like for all of us. I fought ‘the system’ long and hard for many months, to exercise Elizabeth’s legal rights to see her family. We prevailed and finally get to see her again, for long-awaited and long-overdue visits.
I have poured over dozens of peer-reviewed studies that show that autism is, in fact, caused by vaccine injuries, along with encephalopathy, seizures, deafness, Bell’s palsy, mitochondrial disorder, eczema, allergies, asthma, SIDS, ulcerative colitis, Tourette’s, Lupus, Guillian Barre, peripheral facial palsy, stroke, narcolepsy, transverse myelitis, and much more. Surprisingly, they are ALL listed as side effects right on the vaccine inserts, themselves. I have links to hundreds and hundreds of these studies on my website vaccine resource page.
I never read those vaccine inserts prior to Elizabeth’s vaccine injury. Most parents never do. I’m not referring to the single immunization information sheet that your doctor provides. Rather I am referring to the full manufacturer’s insert that most physicians and nurses throw out without reading and certainly never offer their patients for review.
I am referencing the long one, in tiny, nearly-microscopic print, that would likely take you over an hour to read. It also lists the ingredients that you and your nurse and doctor are likely not privy to: aborted fetal tissue, aluminum, mercury, formaldehyde, canine kidney cells and DNA, chicken, eagle, pig, and bovine serum/DNA/cells, phenol, latex and a long list of other carcinogens and neurotoxins. I won’t bore you with them all.
It wasn’t until quite some time, after Elizabeth was maimed that I ever knew they existed. No pediatrician had ever offered me a single insert to read with any of our older children nor the kids I had fostered or nanny-ed. Until I had consoled countless parents whose healthy babies died of suspected “SIDS” within a few days of their vaccines, I never took the time to read one or to note that SIDS is actually listed as an adverse reaction to vaccines on the very inserts.
Prior to Elizabeth’s devastating injury, I had thought my friend Brenda, whose daughter lost all her hair and contracted an autoimmune disorder from her vaccinations, was just a parent, experiencing a rare occurrence when I had heard her story so many times over the years.
Growing up in the 60’s, my own best friend and toddler playmate, Janie, became so ill from one vaccine that she was hospitalized and nearly died. I was too little to understand when my mom said my friend was crippled and could no longer come to play. For years after, I erroneously believed that was a rare anomaly.
In 1999 when my middle daughter Faith was hospitalized from her ‘moderate’ vaccine reaction as a baby, I again, thought that was just another rare fluke. When Faith’s mouth and face distorted and drooped with facial asymmetry, lasting for over a year after her vaccines, and she had projectile vomiting for weeks following vaccination, I believed the “white coats” when they said these were just normal reactions to vaccination and that the benefits outweighed the risks.
However, a few years ago when my friend’s healthy teen son died immediately after his HPV vaccination I had finally seen enough carnage and I finally knew better. When my college friend’s teen daughter died a slow, gruesome, and tragic death five years ago from mitochondrial disorder after her vaccines, I knew the truth. When my hairdresser lost her first grandchild to SIDS, immediately after vaccination, I understood why.
When I stood in line for sushi on a cruise ship several years ago, I met a woman in line next to me who was grieving deeply from losing her precious infant the month before to SIDS, just days after vaccination. I looked at her dead baby’s photos she carried in her purse. I listened to her story. I held her, a perfect stranger, as she sobbed and shared her story. I comprehended the depth of pain, that no parent should ever have to endure.
Since Elizabeth’s life was destroyed, I have coached hundreds of special needs families who have all suffered vaccine injury or vaccine induced death. Their stories are much the same. The pain and devastation are palpable.
I simply know too much now. It may be much too late for Elizabeth, but sharing her story and the devastation our family endured might possibly save another child or another family unimaginable heartache and loss. I wish someone had been bold enough to educate me. I will not debate or argue. I’ll simply point people to the research, data, studies, and proof for them to do their own research.
I paid a tremendous and unfathomable cost for not connecting the dots sooner, but I know better now. I am awake. Are you? Will you call the shots?
