Help Braxton Find His Voice

Braxton was born March 29, 2013. He was a healthy 7 lbs. 3 oz. with no complications.  During Braxton’s first year, he hit all his developmental milestones.   He lifted his head by 2 months, rolled over by 4 months, began to sit up and crawl at 6 months, and began to babble at 7 months. He even used to say “Dada”. We would have never imaged that we would end up where we are today.   Shortly after Braxton’s first birthday, we became concerned as he wasn't trying to talk more and that he stopped saying “Dada” all together. We began to notice he wasn’t making eye contact like he used to, wasn't pointing at things (or able to follow where we were pointing) and wouldn't respond consistently when his name was called. We knew each child develops at their own pace but as Braxton approached 18 months, he had officially regressed. Then Braxton started stimming. Stimming is the repetition of physical movements, sounds, words, or moving objects. These behaviors are common in people with developmental disabilities and most prevalent in those on the autism spectrum. They are uncontrollable and compulsive in nature.  About every 6 months, Braxton develops a new stim; each one become more aggressive than the last. First he started out by turning his cars upside down and spinning the wheels, lining up objects in a row and tapping his hand repetitively against the table. If you try to stop him from stimming, he would melt down or will cover his ears.  After waiting about a year to see if he was just a "late talker", we finally had him evaluated for speech.  Then on December 15, 2015 at age 2.5, Braxton was officially diagnosed with non-verbal Autism Spectrum Disorder.  It felt like our world came to a halt but regardless, from that moment on we never stopped trying to help our son; we have never given up hope. We've immediately immersed ourselves in every article, newsletter, video and book until we were drowning in information. The first thing we did was change his diet. We went organic as well as Gluten Free-Casein Free. When that didn’t work, we saw (and continue to see) every specialist including speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapist, chiropractors and pediatric neurologist as well a developmental pediatrician. We have tried vitamins, homeopathic remedies, massage therapy, SSI medicine and CBD oils/gummies/creams. Then in December 2017, we came across a study that was being done by Duke University. They were using cord blood to inject stem cells in hopes to find a cure for Autism. The published results were astounding. Children were being near-cured of this disorder. Naturally, I wanted in on this study so we reached out to Duke to find out who we can get Braxton in on the next phase. At the time, Duke had already completed their first phase and was entering into their second phase. For phase 2, Duke was only accepting children who had banked their own cord-blood. I called the facility where we banked our son’s blood and found out that the reserve we put aside did not contain enough cells to use. Duke said that we can wait for phase 3 which will use donor cells.  The trouble was she did not know when phase 3 would start but asked that we check back each month and that’s exactly what we did; relentlessly. We checked back every month for the last 20 months. Then 2 weeks ago, Duke finally emailed us about starting the screening process. Within days we submitted everything they requested: videos, photos, IEP, ETR, medical records, ADOS test results and notes from all his specialists and teachers. One week later we received an apologetic email from Duke letting us know that Braxton does not qualify for phase 3 because he is non-verbal. Duke decided for phase 3 they are only accepting children who are verbal in order to obtain direct feedback from the patients on how they are feeling throughout the process. We were devastated but understood. This was the risk that we took waiting 20 months for qualification.  The dream was crushed but the reality remains. Since Braxton does not qualify for the Duke Stem Cell study, we are now turning to the Stem Cell Institute in Panama City, Panama. The facility has treated autism with donor mesenchymal adult stem cells derived from cord tissue from healthy live births for the past 12 years. It is the most reputable stem cell clinic in the world. The rationale behind treating autism with umbilical cord tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells is that autism, and its degree of severity, has been significantly correlated inflammatory and neuro-inflammatory cytokines including macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC) and thymus and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC). Intravenous administration of umbilical cord MSCs has been shown in multiple clinical trials to decrease inflammation. Decreasing inflammation in the autistic patient may alleviate symptoms of autism. While we were waiting to hear back from Duke, we had been researching and speaking to pare