Caleb is our 4 year toddler who was diagnosed with moderate Autism on October 2015.
Here’s a little bit of our story:
Denise, (Mom) had a pretty normal pregnancy. We were getting ready with all the things that you must have to receive a new born baby and our anticipation and excitement for Caleb’s arrival grew as well. The second week of December, by the way, a very cold December in San Diego, Caleb came into the world. After almost 48 hours of labor pain and waiting and some more pain and more waiting, Caleb was finally here and he was healthy. Other than having a little bit of jaundice, which kept us in the hospital a couple of days, everything was perfect.
One day in January we decided that we wanted to give Caleb an advantage. After a quick physical examination at the doctor’s office I explained to the doctor that we wanted to stimulate him and get him ready to school. She said that it was a good idea and started asking me questions about Caleb’s physical and intellectual development. After a few questions I could tell that something was not right. Her expression changed and after a few more questions to which the answers were mostly “no, he’s not doing that either” she advised me that those were red flags for autism….
Right away we started to work in his development. At one year of life he had a full schedule with, speech therapy, occupational therapy, early start and ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis). We had little time to waste. We had learned that the first 5 years in a child’s life is critical in terms of brain development. This, on top on the tons of anxiety and stress that we already had, created a sense of urgency that we couldn’t shake off, even when we felt we couldn’t do one more thing.
Even after all the work and time invested in therapies, we still hoped that autism would not be something that we would have to deal with. We still had hope that our hard work would have paid off and the official diagnosis would never come… We still believed that autism was not a reality in our lives. It wasn’t until two months before Caleb’s third birthday, that reality would set in. An evaluation to determine his official diagnosis took place. One of the first things the therapist said was “ok, I’m not going to refer to Caleb as if he could be autistic, He is Autistic”. The evaluation, took about three hours. Both Denise and I kept our composure but as soon as we got into the car to go home we felt like the weight of the world came down on our shoulders. We felt pain, not physical, but emotional pain like we’ve had never experienced before.
After the diagnosis, we continued with speech therapy and ABA, but deep down we felt that the therapies weren’t enough. Thanks to Adrian and Laura Muñoz we recently found a place in Philadelphia called The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential. The institute creates set of physical programs for him, a nutritional program (organic and gluten free), a physical program, a reading program and most recently, respiratory and oxygen enrichment programs. It is required by the institute that his programs get updated every six months for better results and gosh have we seen results. Before we attended the institute he had no words, no meaningful sounds, his eating was really really poor and he was sick all the time. Six months after implementing all the programs he now has more than 50 words, so many sounds we cannot count anymore, he is eating food he had never wanted to try like chicken and vegetables and he has not gotten sick in over six months. It’s been very hard because we work non-stop on his recovery but we have made incredible progress and along the way our faith in God has been renewed and strengthened.
These results are the reason why we are seeking your help. We had been looking for these type of results since he was one and we will continue to work tirelessly to help Caleb continue to improve. However, our efforts have come short when it comes to our finances. We are required to travel to Philadelphia every six months and that means we must pay the institute’s tuition (very expensive), our airfare, our stay at Philadelphia among other expenses incurred.
On behalf of my wife, my son and myself along with both of our mothers who have been an incredible emotional, spiritual and financial support to Caleb, we would like to ask you to consider the possibility of a financial donation. Your donation will mean that Caleb will continue with his therapies and not only will he continue to improve he will have the opportunity to strive for a normal life something we long for him every day. Our next trip to Philadelphia will be in August, please help us make that trip a reality!
Thank you so much and many blessings to you all.
David, Denise & Caleb Aguiar.