If  you are in a legal battle or any other big battle listen to God and take HIS WORD.  It can be difficult to hear him when you are being bomarded by life noises that can deceive you..

The big battles in your life will test you in many areas and its not easy, its hard! If you are in a big battle of your life don’t battle alone..you are not that tough! You may get knocked down, beat up, told you can’t do it, you will lose, let it go…if its a battle that needs to be confronted than get your shield of armour on and keep going. You keep going with Faith and the faith builds over time… you may not win every battle but you don’t give up, keep going, keep building…keep reaching out to others that will help you. You may have enemies thru the battle by standing up for what you truly believe in…so what.. don’t fear enemies…and keep striving to work together for a better good.

Reach out to your family, church family, friends, that will help build you. We all get knocked down and maybe knocked down repeatedly but what is awesome as you build your relationship with God and surround yourself with loved ones you only get stronger in spirit and then some battles that use to be a big deal to you are nothing! That is AWESOME! 

FORGIVE…forgive others and yourself. If you can’t then give the tiger a bath and pretend the tiger is the baggage you will not forgive…yep its going to hurt…let go.

Life is a journey.   There are hazards on the way, learn the truths and enjoy the wonderful blessings!

 There is more spontaneous language that comes out when they are together.  When lela crowds Victor’s space he does tell her to get back, whoa and she listens.  One day Lela while was biting my boot Victor yelled at her “Stop!” “Biting is bad”  Lela did stop and I was in delight that Victor communicated.  I look foward to more days of play therapy with the horses!

Lela and Victor taking a break in their walk in the snow.

A custody battle over the science of autism
• Many physicians warn against the treatment a father approved, but a local court backs him
http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111127/NEWS01/111270369/-1
By Betsy Q. Cliff
/ The Bulletin
Suzy Combs went along with the treatment plan for her son Victor Probert in the beginning.
Indeed, she was desperate to do anything to help the autistic boy live a more normal life.
But as time went on, she became increasingly doubtful the multiple supplements, prescription drugs and intravenous treatments benefited him.
In doing research, she realized many of her concerns were supported by medical research, which suggested Victor’s regimen likely did no good and perhaps could cause harm.
Yet, unlike most parents who might simply change physicians, Combs has been court-ordered to follow the treatment plan she disagrees with.
Combs is divorced from Victor’s father, Randy Probert. Probert has full custody of Victor, which allows him to make medical decisions for the boy.
Probert said he believes in Victor’s regimen.
The Deschutes County case illustrates the complex interplay of medical science and the legal system. While mainstream medicine favors Combs, experts said legal standards made it unlikely she would win custody or keep her son from his current treatment.
Autism is a serious developmental disorder that affects a child’s brain in the early years of life. An estimated one in 110 children in the United States develops the disorder, characterized by difficulties with social and communication skills. Its exact causes are unknown, and no single treatment has been proved to work best.
Still, doctors around the country have criticized the type of treatment Victor is receiving. Dr. Kyle Steinman, medical director of the University of Washington’s Autism Center who was not involved in the case but was told about it by a reporter, called the order compelling Combs to follow that treatment “horrible.”
“For a mom to be ordered to do treatments that are not based in scientific evidence and that many doctors would say are inappropriate or dangerous” seems wrong, Steinman said.
Family law experts, however, said judges consider a number of factors in cases involving child custody and family law. Because Combs brought up her concerns in an effort to modify the existing order giving Probert custody, her burden of proof was much higher than it may have been otherwise, experts said.
“For the purposes of modification, there generally has to be a significant change in circumstances. Courts don’t modify just because (one parent believes) ‘I can do something better,’ ” said Leslie Harris, a family law professor at the University of Oregon.
A theoretical danger may not be enough, particularly for a modification, she said. “Some judges say I really need to see that there is harm to the child before I’m going to change custody.”
In this case, Deschutes County Circuit Judge Stephen Tiktin, who adjudicated the case, said in an opinion he did not find evidence of harm that would compel him to modify the order. Tiktin said he had considered both sides and found “no showing that Victor does not continue to improve or that he is harmed in any way” by his physician’s care.
Tiktin declined to comment further on the case, he said through his judicial assistant, Mathew Farlow.
Combs said she is now concerned for her son’s health. She continues to take steps to try to halt Victor’s treatment, including filing multiple complaints against his physician with the Oregon Medical Board.
“It’s a mess,” Combs said. “It boggles my mind” that Tiktin did not find evidence of harm.
Probert, on the other hand, lauded Victor’s physician, Dr. John Green, who has an independent clinic in Oregon City. “I believe in the man so much,” he said. “He’s so compassionate. … He’s all about helping these kids.”
The divorce
Combs and Probert filed for divorce in 2003, and Tiktin had the case from the beginning. Combs was living in Redmond at the time and Probert in Powell Butte, according to court documents. They were granted joint custody of their two sons, Victor, who is now 16, and his brother, 17.
Around the time of the divorce, according to court documents, both Combs and Probert started bringing Victor to see Green. They agreed on the treatment for him then, Combs said. In a note filed in court, Green praises the two for working together despite their divorce.
The divorce got ugly quickly. Each side accused the other of intimidation and abuse, according to court documents. Both filed for sole custody of the boys.
At that time, around 2007, the treatment for Victor was still unquestioned by his parents. In fact, each parent used adherence to Green’s regimen as evidence of being the better parent.
In 2008, Probert was awarded custody of both boys, though Combs saw them regularly. Later that year, Probert notified the court that he lost his job and had begun to look for work out of the area.
In 2010, Probert found a job in Kennewick, Wash. Even with custody, he had to get permission from the court to move the boys. The older son at this point had stopped spending time with his father, and Probert petitioned to take only Victor with him.
“Randy is an extremely involved father,” said Linda Reed Haase, Probert’s lawyer. “He was the one who understood the treatment better and who was better able to follow through with what treatments were ordered.”
Green testified at three hearings during the case and recommended Probert have custody, Haase said. It was in large part because of that support that Probert was granted it, she said.
Combs said she started to grow skeptical of Green’s treatments a couple of years ago, about the time Probert petitioned to take Victor to Kennewick. She didn’t like the numerous nutritional supplements Victor was taking and wanted to back off. For example, she said, Green was recently giving the boy between 2,000 and 3,000 milligrams of vitamin C per day, which Combs said caused Victor to have diarrhea, a potential side effect of too much of the vitamin, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The recommended daily intake for a boy of Victor’s age, according to the federal government, is between 63 and 75 milligrams per day.
She said she brought up her concerns in court. At this time, having run out of money, she was representing herself. She did not have an expert on her behalf or any outside support for her contention that Green’s treatment was not the best.
That can be a huge issue, said Krystal Callaway Jaime, the supervising attorney for the family protection clinic at the University of California, Davis, School of Law.
To question a medical treatment, she said, “you are going to have to come in with a highly qualified medical expert … and you are going to have to hire someone.”
Typically, “that is going to be exorbitantly expensive,” Jaime said, but important. “That can make or break a case.”
According to court documents, Probert argued he was a more conscientious parent when it came to following treatment protocols. He also argued Kennewick had more resources than Central Oregon for children with developmental disorders.
He was successful. Victor moved to Kennewick in summer 2010 and kept seeing Green.
With Victor under Green’s care, Probert said, he’s seen “tremendous” improvement. “We look forward to things now that we wouldn’t have been able to do without Dr. Green.” He cited the example of Victor’s now being able to make pancakes and clean up after himself.
Unproven methods
Green is the only medical physician in Oregon listed as a clinician on the website of the Autism Research Institute, though there are a few Oregon naturopathic or chiropractic physicians also listed on the site. According to the website, physicians on the list have asked to be put there.
The Autism Research Institute supports looking at environmental factors that may cause or exacerbate autism, a goal many find laudable. Their way of approaching autism treatment is commonly referred to as DAN!, after the work done by some physicians became known as Defeat Autism Now!
It has many supporters, both within the medical community and among parents of autistic children. Most notable, perhaps, is model Jenny McCarthy, who wrote a book about her experience.
But some clinicians associated with the group use treatments that many medical physicians find at best benign and at worst harmful.
That protocol “is based on theories concerning autism that are either entirely speculative or rely on ‘scientific data’ that has been entirely discredited,” Dr. Robert Rust, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at the University of Virginia, wrote in an email to Combs.
Dr. Bob Nickel, a developmental pediatrician at Oregon Health & Science University and member of the Oregon Commission on Autism Spectrum Disorder, agreed with Rust. Many of the therapies suggested to families, he said, come from anecdotal reports.
That may suggest an approach, Nickel said, but does not prove its validity. “You need to do the science. You need to do the clinical trials. And that’s what’s been missing in the alternative therapies.”
For example, physician notes submitted to the court show Victor has taken gentamicin, an antibiotic. Typically, antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections.
Though he declined to comment on the Probert case directly, citing patient privacy laws, Green said in an interview he uses antibiotics to treat an overgrowth of harmful bacteria sometimes found in the gut of an autistic child.
Dr. Peter Boehm, a pediatrician at Mosaic Medical who treats many autistic children in Central Oregon, said antibiotics have been used in autism treatment, “but without much evidence.”
According to medical records, Green has also suggested Victor take secretin, a hormone. Combs said Victor has taken it and that he had a bad reaction.
The hormone has been the subject of considerable research and, according to practice guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than a dozen well-done studies have failed to demonstrate that it is an effective treatment for autism.
Green said most studies have shown secretin ineffective but that he still uses it because “the occasional child will show great improvements.”
On the whole, Green said mainstream medicine “in a way” didn’t get his approach. “There is so much need for help (for autistic children), and there’s so few physicians that are willing to relearn biochemistry and nutrition and diet.”
The physician said he’s had success in treating many autistic children. “I have lots of kids that have no longer had a diagnosis of autism,” Green said. “It bothers me that people are willing to come to conclusions without seriously studying the issues.”
In court documents, Green defends his treatment of Victor. He said it would be best if he continued to care for him, without “the threat of further attack” by his mother.
The parents of three of Green’s other patients also submitted declarations to the court supporting his work. All said he had significantly improved their children’s symptoms, and two of the three attributed the abating of all symptoms of autism to Green’s treatment.
Probert, in his declaration, said the same thing about Victor. He and his ex-wife “have been particularly fortunate that Dr. Green agreed to treat Victor,” he wrote. “Victor has benefited tremendously from Dr. Green’s skills and treatments.”
About ‘chelation’
A cornerstone of Victor’s treatment is chelation, a medical process that removes heavy metals and some minerals from the body using chemicals that bind to the metals and allow them to be excreted, primarily through urine.
Chelation is typically done when someone is determined to have heavy metal poisoning. Indeed, in some cases, it can be lifesaving, and hospitals regularly stock chelating medications.
But some physicians said it has been used in autism without much evidence of benefit. Because the treatment, like many medical interventions, presents some risk, these doctors contend it should not be done in autistic children. According to the National Institutes of Health, rare side effects include heart failure and permanent kidney damage.
Victor has been doing chelation treatments for at least as long as he has been seeing Green, about eight years, according to Combs and Probert. According to medical records, the chelation is done to treat the toxic effects of an excess of lead in the boy’s body.
Whether Victor could benefit from chelation depends on whether he does, in fact, have too much lead in his body.
Here is where Green’s view diverges from the mainstream approach.
Green said he disagreed with the mainstream approach to lead testing because blood lead levels only show recent, not total lifetime, exposure. He also said he treats what he calls lead “toxicity,” which he distinguished from lead poisoning. “There’s no safe level of lead,” Green said. “If you find lead in the system, it’s a problem.”
To test for lead toxicity, Green gave Victor a test called a provoked urine test, which uses a compound to flush heavy metals out of the body through urine. According to test results, Victor has had elevated levels of lead for several years.
That type of test has been heavily criticized as inaccurate by medical authorities.
The problem with the provoked urine test, said Dr. Sarah Present, a family physician who helped author Oregon’s lead guidelines, is that there are no standards for what would be considered an abnormally high lead level.
In other words, she said, there is no way to interpret a result. A patient will get a number back from the test, but it’s not clear what that number means or if it signifies a high enough level of lead to warrant chelation.
The American College of Medical Toxicology, an organization made up of physicians with expertise in testing for toxic elements, issued a statement in 2009 saying the provoked urine test “has not been scientifically validated, has no demonstrated benefit, and may be harmful when applied in the assessment and treatment of patients in whom there is a concern for metal poisoning.”
Instead, most authorities recommend a blood lead level test. When Victor underwent that test earlier this year, it showed he had a blood lead level of 2 micrograms per deciliter.
The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers a level of 10 or higher elevated, and the Oregon Health Authority, the state’s health department, may recommend chelation at 20 to 25 micrograms of lead per deciliter or higher, said Barbara Zeal, a public health educator in the state’s lead program.
According to court documents, Green determined that, based on the results of Victor’s provoked urine test and several indirect measures of heavy metal toxicity, the boy would benefit from chelation.
Mainstream physicians have been particularly disparaging about using this treatment in autistic children. Most say it carries risk without any benefit.
“It’s being applied in situations where there’s little to no evidence that it’s an appropriate treatment,” said Steinman, the University of Washington physician. “I would say it’s one of the (treatments) I most strongly caution families against.”
Rust, the University of Virginia doctor, called chelation “dangerous” and said it should not be used.
Nickel, the developmental pediatrician in Oregon, said he didn’t use it and cited the fact that children have died in the treatment.
Death can occur if the treatment pulls too much calcium out of the body, perhaps by using excessively strong chelating agents or incorrect dosing, according to the CDC. Calcium is essential for the regulation of all muscles, including the heart, and without it the heart can become fatally impaired.
In one case, an autistic boy in Pennsylvania died from the effects of chelation. The boy’s doctor, an investigation found, had likely mixed up the forms of a chelating drug to use, giving him the wrong one.
Green, according to medical records, has used a different chelating drug with Victor than the one used in that incident. The drug he uses, succimer, has been approved by the federal government to treat blood lead levels above 45 micrograms per deciliter. It was not implicated in the deaths made public, though it does have a long list of potential side effects, including vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, pain, fevers, headaches and elevated cholesterol.
The National Institutes of Health had planned to study chelation in autistic children but canceled the study in 2008. According to news reports, the NIH said there was “no clear evidence for direct benefit … and the study presents more than a minimal risk.”
Even some practitioners who have been associated with the Autism Research Institute – an oft-cited one is Harvard’s Dr. Martha Herbert – have distanced themselves from chelation. She told a Chicago newspaper in 2009: “I’m not defending chelation. … I will sue you if you say that.”
Changing situation
Combs did not introduce all these doubts in court and did not use these experts. The outside evidence she did introduce was not mentioned until 2011, a full eight years after the divorce began.
“I complained about it, but I didn’t do very good questioning,” she said. “I didn’t know what type of questions to ask.”
In March of this year, she filed through attorney Dan Strausbaugh a motion to reopen the case to introduce evidence of the controversy around Victor’s medical treatment.
In support of the motion, she filed her own affidavit, as did two independent physicians, Drs. Stephen Barrett and James Laidler. The physicians’ affidavits largely echo the concerns of other mainstream physicians, noting that chelation can have significant risk and that some of the supplements and medications may have side effects without much evidence of benefit in autism.
At the same time, Green also filed a declaration opposing the motion to reopen the case and defending his treatment. He questioned the credentials of Combs’ two experts, neither of whom currently treat autistic children.
In considering whether to modify an existing custody order, judges will look for whether there has been a significant change in circumstance of the child’s situation, said Jaime, the UC Davis attorney.
In this case, she said, the child has had autism, the child was seeing the primary care physician, and “Mom was aware of all this stuff. So what’s changed?”
Had Combs brought her concerns into court in the initial custody hearing, said UO’s Harris, it might have been different. When parents are first divorcing and figuring out custody, “you are not going to be able to maintain the status quo definitionally. … It’s going to be easier to make an argument at the point of the initial change.”
Last May, Tiktin denied Combs’ motion. In an opinion, Tiktin said, “the court can find not one word in her entire declaration which even suggests that Victor is not doing well and is not benefiting from current treatment.”
Besides failing to find harm in Victor’s treatment protocol, Tiktin said he could not find evidence of how a change might improve the situation. “There (is not) any suggestion that there is a better or more effective course of treatment or therapy which Victor could become engaged in and what that might be.”
He footnotes part of Green’s declaration in his decision, affirming that Probert is the best person to care for and make decisions about Victor’s treatment.
Combs said she does not know what she will do next. She moved to Montana this summer, for her husband’s job, and now lives even farther from her son.
When Victor turns 18, she will need to go through another court battle for guardianship, she said, so she may wait for that.
Strausbaugh said some decisions in the hearing had largely been built on the assumption that Victor was getting appropriate treatment.
“The question became, what if the underlying assumption, what if that’s wrong?” he said. “That could change everything.”
— Reporter: 541-383-0375, bcliff@bendbulletin.com
——
From bendbulletin.com – published daily in Bend, Oregon, by Western Communications, Inc. Copyright 2005.
 

Here is a beautiful valley not far from Boulder, Montana. We pulled over and ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwich admiring the views, funny how simple foods taste so much better in nature.

My son Victor and I took a stroll in the welcoming town taking pictures of the City Hall, Courthouse and downtown.

We look foward to our new ventures in this beautiful state!