I recently listened to Steve Kirsch’s interview with Dr. Andrew Wakefield. (One of the original hey-something’s-not-going-right-with-the-kids-and-vaccines doctors.) So that got me thinking.
At about 9:25 into the interview, Steve asks him what his key takeaways would be for anyone listening. Dr. Wakefield proceeds to say that doctors need to go back to their roots of listening to their patients. And then pleads with mothers to please listen to their instincts. Listen to that inner voice. Trust the instinct that says something’s not right. No one knows your kid like you do.
That whole segment is so spot-on.
Steve seemed pretty surprised that this is the thing he wanted to highlight most of all.
But it didn’t really surprise me. I had just had a Zoom call with what I call our “NY doc” where he reiterated the same to me. He was stern. Listen to yourself.
I wonder how the world would be going right now if doctors actually behaved that way in general. If they approached every parent and patient as a partner with a common goal of health and wellness, and not just a record showing vaccines given and laughably flawed nutrition advice dispensed.
Now that I reread that sentence, it’s incredibly depressing that this is not actually how it typically works.
I found Dr. E four years ago. We were in rough shape. I had been through no less than a dozen specialists with W, trying to get someone, anyone, to take a deeper dive into what was going so horribly wrong.
We had been dismissed with a shrug of, “well, he has autism, that’s how it goes,” by at least half of those doctors. A few others wanted to medicate him even more than he was. (I’ll come back to this topic at some point in the future, as medication played heavily in the trauma he was experiencing at the time.)
And a few others were harsh with me, telling me we were chasing phantoms, nothing was wrong, and passed our name around among themselves as people who were trying to “cure” autism, or make a case for access to medicinal marijuana.
With the exception of our pediatrician, we were thoroughly disenchanted with the medical profession. Frustrated. Angry. And defeated.
We were also in dire straits. W’s behaviors were so bad that we felt like we were coming apart at the seams as a family.
We took a chance on an integrative physician, an out of state one, where we would have to do everything remotely and pay out of pocket. We had nowhere else to go.
(Isn’t that how it goes sometimes? You have to hit bottom before you find what you actually need?)
Enter Dr. E. We met him on Skype in the fall of 2018. He’s a brash, gray-haired man from Long Island. He started his independent practice many years before because he had seen too many sick kids that mainstream medicine was making worse, and no one was taking them seriously. He uses rough language and tells funny stories. But to us, he could not be more angelic.
I don’t remember much from that first meeting, except that he looked at me and said, “Listen, your kids are sick. Very sick. But we’re gonna do this. So let’s get started.”
I’m pretty sure I broke down weeping because he was the first one to acknowledge that we weren’t making it up. Our kids were actually sick. Not “neurodivergent.” SICK.
Dr. E has spent the last four years teaching me to trust myself again. He’s angry at insurance-owned medicine. He’s super angry that people are sicker and sicker and what should be a healing profession is just drugging them. He uses vitamins and naturopathic concepts alongside medications. He laughs at me when I go a little rogue and try things, but he listens and either corrects me or learns from what I’ve discovered.
Sometimes I doubt the direction he’s suggesting, but I do it anyways. And more often than not, he’s right. So I’ve learned to trust him. He earned it.
When we spoke this week, I made the comment that when X happened Y followed, and I was not sure why that was. He said, “Stop it. You do too know why. Listen to yourself. You know.”
So again, how would our children be faring these days if all doctors approached their patients like Dr. E? For some people, that is how it works. But not nearly enough people can say that.
God bless those doctors. Like Dr. Wakefield. Like Dr. E. They take such a risk to do what they do. But they’re the best hope we have.
I just wanted to let you know I came over here to check out your site based on your comment at Dr. Toby's place. I myself just today really felt as if mental violence was project out to me, but here is the thing about me - I'm not a kid anymore and I fight back and I play to win!
Peace is easy is what I think, but it don't come easy.
Peace,
Ken