Guy began to leave his bed for longer periods of time.  His appetite improved.  He became strong enough to participate in a sheltered workshop program.  Then he went to his workshop eagerly and more often.

The most amazing wonder of all was that after ten years, Guy Foster LEFT the nursing home to live in a Group Home setting, where he earns spending money from his job in a recycling center.  He has a network of people with whom he exchanges letters and jokes; he has a standing invitation to drum with a group of Indian friends. He even enjoys regular visitors to his apartment and phone chats.  He is proudly learning normal life skills.

At this writing, Guy Foster is 42 years young and full of vim, vinegar and vitality.  He encourages others every day with his greeting cards, his empathy and his love.  He also believes the world’s entire population should be drinking “his kind” of water!

What I would like to impart to anyone whose eyes have fallen on this page is this: Feed every family member organic whole foods when you can; pure, filtered water and lots of it.  Get adequate amounts of sleep and rest and balance that with movement, exercise.  Supplement everyone’s diets with whole foods supplements and add in green super foods and highly mineralized juices.  Not just fruit juices, but the supplemental juice products used by the ounce.  Use as much fresh, raw food as you possibly can because we all need the phytonutrients, anti-oxidants, enzymes and vitamin/mineral content that is so plentiful in fresh foods.  I’d also encourage anyone to boldly immerse yourselves in the study of body work-Reiki, Ortho-bionomy, massage therapy- whatever strikes your fancy.  Investigate the wonders of energy medicine.  Learn all you can about herbs, homeopathic remedies, Macrobiotic foods, Ayurvedic methods, and whatever else resonates with you.  Find a good chiropractor who understands that the body heals from the inside, not the other way around.  Any health practitioner worth his salt will teach you a variety of complementary ways of working with bodies that may not be “perfect” according to someone’s standard.  One more thing:  Make the kinds of memories that cause you to laugh so hard your face and belly hurt!

Families who avoid artificial sweeteners, MSG, soda pop, processed, packaged and micro waved food products as well as fluoride-laden dental products will notice a huge improvement in the quality of their lives.  These changes will be remarkable where issues are noted involving the nervous system, digestion, and elimination.

As soon as the physical body gets its needs met, the mental needs fall into line, along with the emotional and spiritual.  When those requirements are satisfied, fewer behavior issues are problematic, sleep is more refreshing, cheer is the order of the day and peace can reign in the busiest household!

Connie Baum

http://motherconniesez.blogspot.com

      Thank you Connie for sharing with us the experiences that you have had and the knowledge that you dont have to accept life as status quo…you can seek therapies that enrich the lives of our special needs loved ones.

        I think this is very unfair.  From what we have been able to understand so far, for those who insist upon a diploma as opposed to a certificate of completion…it will be almost impossible to attain.  In our school here in Michigan, the special education students will be blended into some regular education classes; and, then they will have what they are calling a workshop, which is supposed to be more like a 30 minute homestudy class, where they are supposed to get more help with problem classwork.  The issue is that many of those workshop teachers will be regular education teachers who are not trained to work with the special education students who require more help and in some cases specialized teaching techniques–something that will require more than 30 minutes time from a teacher who has to divide up those 30 minutes with a classroom of students who need help.

        This feels like a social experiment that is going to go horribly wrong.  I am frustrated because I have a child who is going to be caught up in the middle of these changes.  I have a son who also is a special education student who graduated in the last few weeks…he was able to get a diploma.  This is no small feat.  In this day and age of financial uncertainty, anything you can do to improve your employability is important…having a diploma is better for getting a job than a certificate of completion when it comes to getting hired.

        I was told by an administrative person that employers and schools of higher education are aware of these changes and are cooperating with these changes by honoring certificates of completion when it comes to going off to college or for getting jobs.  I do not believe this is true.  I firmly believe that most employers are unaware of these graduation requirement changes and will view a certificate of completion as being “less qualifying” for a job than a diploma. 

         First off, at this point…even many teachers and administrators are still trying to figure out exactly what all of these changes will mean for both staff and students.  Many parents of special education students are not understanding how these changes will impact their families.  It is the students who were already in high school and have completed a year or two or three towards graduation that are going to fall between the cracks.  I am already being told of students who were Juniors this year, who have discovered that this impacts when they will “graduate” and are dropping out of school because they do not wish to go to school for an additional year, or two longer, than they had expected.  When they also discover that many of them will not be able to get a diploma after all of their hard work….and will get something that appears to be less than a regular education student gets; I believe that even more students will drop out of school.

       This is devastating; special education students are already at a disadvantage in many areas socially and in the job market.  This is just one more (large) obstacle to having some level of independence and success.  There needs to be a public outcry at the injustice of it all…on a local level and on a larger scale.  Do you have any knowledge or experience with these changes?