Hi I'm Desi - the mother of Melanie with AUTISM - a great fighter, survived so much for her tender age!!!

I want to tell you about Melanie. A sunny child now 11 and a half years old who has brightened my life. She was born a healthy, smiling and loving baby with no health issues. Smiling was her baby name - "Grandma" - because she watched her so I could work.

Like any baby she showed where the lamp was, how to cough grandma, etc. This idyll ended with the vaccine at 1 year and 1 month. In about 4 days the child stopped reflecting everything around her, the whole world around her and me included! Changed from today to tomorrow her whole previous life, food preferences and habits, sleep disappeared. Everything I knew in my childhood was gone, just gone. It was there across from me in body, but it was gone in spirit. There was only a blank stare.

The difficulties began from that day on. When we walked we had to follow a certain route, when someone would tease her or just look at her she would get very upset. Her games became very stereotypical and strange to others, for example she would pick up a pram turn it over with the wheels up and start spinning them around and watch them for hours, arranging toys and figurines in her own way, size, colour and no one would change what she had made. Speech was absent and nothing changed despite the daily activities at home. I consoled myself with the fact that her father had spoken late and she probably just looked like him. I was also one of those "It can't happen to me!" people.

After 7 months of waiting for an appointment with a specialist, I heard my first diagnosis when Melanie was 2 years and 7 months old. It crushed me mentally. I had planned our future until she went to University but alas it all fell apart in an instant. It all changed our whole lives permanently. We have tried many therapies over the years and only ABA and occupational therapy have worked. Melanie has problems with social communication, is hyperactive at times to an unbearable degree, speaks very little, has a pronounced apraxia which makes her speech even more difficult, and huge sensory deficits. She was terrified of even running the hair dryer, the vacuum cleaner, the hood, the sound of the waves in the sea or the wind. She wouldn't let us touch her or wanted us to do it very forcefully. For almost 2 years she walked with a heavy vest so we could control her hyperactivity and proprioception. Sleep - that important thing for any nervous system - was generally lacking between the ages of 2 and 5 1/2. We woke for months...years...she slept 1-2 hours a night. Then I was still going to work and everything was getting harder. Melanie is an artist in addition to a fighter. She draws a lot and very well, and loves to do it. This at this point brings her back to reality and keeps her awake in our world. About a year after the diagnosis everything escalated and her father and I separated. That changed everything and made it even harder. My mission as Melanie's mother is to improve her condition to the point where she can be an independent individual when she grows up, enjoying life!

This is my biggest fear "What will happen to her when I am gone?" Perhaps this is what every parent of a child with a disability asks themselves and for everyone the fear is huge. She only has me! As of 2018. I work from home with floating hours and a very complicated schedule. Running to therapies, centres, speech therapists combined with work is quite a complicated thing. 24/7 Melanie and I are together - laughing, crying, not sleeping, riding and doing everything together. She has been on a special diet for about 7 years which is also a special and expensive thing, but we have all gotten used to it at home - No Gluten, Sugar, Casein(dairy) and Soy. Difficult but not impossible. I manage to sort things out financially but therapies like Stem Cells, I couldn't do at this stage. We were expecting financial help from Melanie's relatives who eventually gave up. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion whether to support her or not. The child has progressed a lot in the last 2-3 years and I know that any more serious therapies would help her - I believe in Stem Cells and their power to restore Melanie to a great extent.

I have researched everything on the subject of Stem Cells, communicated with many parents both here in Bulgaria and abroad. Panama, Mexico and Ukraine have the highest % success rate with stem cell infusion. Our target is Ukraine. We have done an infusion in Ukraine, but the finances are not sufficient for another one. We started intravenous chelation with Dr. Axtonucci also August 2023 and the child started to calm down. The crises gradually started to decrease, but the cost per month is prohibitive!!! And we have to move on - I have to try to help my child have a better life, not a life in a cell of AUTISM! I believe we will succeed! I was terrified to write this publicly, but for Melanie's sake I did. I will be grateful to everyone who responded and pray that what happened to Melanie never happens to anyone else EVER!