Sid:  My guest is Senior Pastor of Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Billy Joe Daugherty and I got a hold of his book called “You Can be Healed.”  And as you know I’m very very interested in healing and I have to tell you this is such a clear presentation that will just pump you with faith and answer the questions, the nagging questions that are probably stopping you from being healed and allow you to be used by others to pray for the sick.  And you use a word you’re talking about, Billy Joe, you’re talking about the woman with the issue of blood and you were teaching on that in this book, “You Can be Healed” and there was something that jumped out at me.  And you used the word drawing the healing out of the Messiah; it just jumped out at me; that’s in affect what we have to do is draw that healing out.

Billy Joe:  You know when that woman was healed and she fell at Jesus’ feet and told him all that she had done, Jesus said to her, “Woman your faith has made you whole.”  That woman had heard about Jesus, she wasn’t present when she heard, but she at a distance but someone told her that Jesus was healing and faith arose inside of her heart and she believed and she began to say to herself, “If I can but touch the hem of His garment I’ll be made well, I’ll be healed.”  She said it, she spoke it because she believed it and then she took action.  She went to where Jesus was coming through a little village and she pressed through the crowd and that’s faith.  Faith believes, faith speaks, faith takes action, but she didn’t stop there.  As Jesus walked by she did exactly what she said, and the Bible said, “She said in her heart,” so this was a heart word, a declaration she was making came right out of her spirit.  And she reached out and touched the very hem of His garment, robe that He was wearing and as she did healing power flowed into her body and Jesus turned around and said, “Who touched Me?”  Well, “The disciples all said, Master they’re all touching you.”  There were people packed in and crowding around, but Jesus declared, “I felt healing virtue flow from my body.”  He knew that someone had connected and there’s a difference.  You can be all around Jesus, a person can be hearing about Jesus, can be in a church, but if the switch of faith is not turned on.  It’s just like a light switch, you can have electricity wired to a house but if the switch is off the lights aren’t going to come on.  What happens when you flip the switch?  You draw the electrical power that was already in that house that had been connected to wires up to some type of power source, either nuclear power, or hydropower by water, or wind power, whatever way that was generated in many places today by the heating of coal and energy that’s burned in some type of a plant, that generates electricity.  It was already in the house, you flipped the switch and you drew it out and that’s a picture for us, that’s very similar to how faith works Sid.  When we say, “Lord, I believe in you.”  People today say, “Well I can’t touch the hem of His garment.”  That’s right we have something better, we have the name of Jesus.  He said, “In My name the sick will be healed, in My name the devils will be cast out.  So we can touch the name, people say, “Why’s that better?”  Well, in the day that Jesus lived and she could touch the hem of His garment, if she happened to be in another village she couldn’t touch it.  If she was in another country she could surely not have touched it.  But today, no matter what village, what tribe, what nation, state or providence that we live in we can touch the name of Jesus; we can call on His name.  And Sid, there’s healing power flowing right now for blind eyes to be opened; for deaf ears to hear; for the cripple to walk again.  Each of you that are hearing this message, I pray that the power of God floods you now, in Jesus name be healed and rise up from that bed of affliction.  There’s someone this very moment, you’ve had a long term illness, something that has held you down and kept you in captivity and the power of faith is being released inside of your spirit and through that faith you’re drawing on the authority of Jesus name.  You see He was raised up and seated in the heavenly places and we’re seated with Him.  He was giving the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that He’s Lord.  Name it right now and whatever that name is greater.

Sid:  You know Billy Joe, I feel what I’m sure you’re feeling right now, and I’m feeling the Spirit of God is just radiating from your words right now and that if someone could draw the Spirit of God that’s radiating from your words of healing right now they could be healed of anything.  But some of my friends that are very strong in healing, they tell people to do an action of some sort, is that very important?

Billy Joe:   Yes, what’s important and I’m so glad you interjected that, is that people do what they have not been able to do before.  If you couldn’t wiggle a finger, made an effort to wiggle if.  If someone’s been in paralysis; whatever you could not do, take an action to do it.  If you couldn’t breathe clearly then take a deep breath, if you couldn’t bend your neck then bend it as far as you could.  If you couldn’t stand up, make an effort to do it, yes it’s important that there’s some effort to take action to do what we could not do before.  And we should rejoice in every part or every inch of improvement that we get. The blind person when Jesus said, “What do you see?”  He said, “I see man as trees walking,” so He touched him a second time.  That means that there was a process, and Mark 16 says “Believer’s will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.”  So there’s a process, so we should thank God for every bit of improvement in that process.  And I speak to you that are hearing this word and you just heard what Sid, shared; wherever you could not do take that step right now in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.  Someone with severe problems in your jaw, that you’ve had great difficulty even opening your mouth. The power of God is coming in you this moment to take that action and make the effort, “Tell our brain that I’m going to open my jaw,” and begin to open it in Jesus name.  You that have not been able to hear clearly and accurately out of both ears test the ear that’s not been performing as good as it should.  Test it, both of them in Jesus name the power of God is not limited to a location; it is not restricted by time or distance.  Right now, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is raising you up to wholeness.  The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God I pray into you and upon you by the authority of Jesus name chains in your mental, emotional, and physiological realm, those chains of bondages are being broken right now.  Healing in your soul, healing in your mind; we speak even healing in relationships, in every part of our existence Jesus came to make us whole.  That was his message, He said, He was anointed to heal the broken hearted, but He didn’t stop there He said to release the captives; to set at liberty those who are bruised; to bring sight to the blind, that’s whole person healing.  Every part of your being, moving from brokenness and disease into wholeness and right where you are listening, just declare it out loud, “Lord, I receive your healing; I receive You as my savior; I receive You as the restorer of my soul in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth I pray, Amen.”

Sid:  Well, Billy Joe I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I feel like I’m in a river, I’m in a river of healing.  And I know that anyone that can reach out and some they may have heart trouble, high blood presser, diabetes, they’re not going to know by not doing something they couldn’t do.  But I have friends and what one of my friends says that I want you to run around the auditorium; another one says just do a little dance, just jump up and down a little bit.  There’s something about an action that allow you to draw the healing.

Billy Joe:  That’s it, we had two crippled people that both had strokes who came to our church. One just for the first time and another had been there a time or two; but there was one who saw this person that could not move get up and walk out of our building completely whole.  And they were standing there watching it you know, someone oh well in that case, let me say it, they were sitting there watching it and after they saw it I said, “Do you want to get up?”  And you know it was like it hadn’t dawned on them and they stood up and so now they’re standing there.  And now they are standing there, and I said “Do you want to walk?”  And those first steps began to take place since that stroke and movement came.

Sid:  But you know what?  If they had not taken that first step, they would never had their healing.

Billy Joe:  No, that’s right, it’s important to do something, I’m so glad you brought that out.

Sid:  And as I said that, “Someone’s back was just healed and someone’s neck was just healed in the name of Yeshua, in the name of Jesus.”  My guest is Don Dickerman and we’re finding out, we’re getting quite an education on the field of deliverance.  And Jesus spent a great deal of His ministry in the New Testament in the gospels, casting demons out of people.  We don’t hear much about that today, I guess the demons don’t want us to know that it’s really a legal right that every Christian has and once you find out you’re legal reasons why you can be free and how to handle it, the devil can’t take the heat and he leaves.  And the only fear you have is coming from that demon.  And if you give him no places guess how much fear you have, you have no fear.  So I’m speaking with Don Dickerman about his brand new book, just literally off the press, it’s called “When Pigs Move In.”  And it’s a workbook, you will have your own self deliverance or you can pray for other people and I love the fact that you have so many examples in this book Don.  But so people might understand there is a lot of symptoms that perhaps you have a deliverance problems; would you tell us some of these symptoms?

Don:  You know I actually just sat down one day and kind of made a list of things that I had seen, so many times.  One of the things that I want people to know is, just because you have one of these symptoms doesn’t necessarily mean you have a demon.  But when there’s a combination that’s a pretty good indication.  One of the symptoms is a compulsion to blaspheme God and sometimes that’s just a thought that comes; a revulsion against the Bible including a desire to tear it up or destroy it or compulsive thoughts of suicide or murder.  Deep feeling of bitterness and hatred towards others without reason, like Jewish people or other races, church leaders, strong Christian leaders.  They are people who have hatred for these people and they don’t know why, compulsive temptations, thoughts and behaviors of what you really don’t want to do, but you find you’re doing.  Desires to criticize and tear other people down, lying.  Lying that’s a symptom we see so common; demons are all liars and the truth’s not in them.  Terrifying feelings of guilt that people may have even though they confessed but they’re still overwhelmed by feelings of guild and condemnation.  Sometimes physical symptoms that may appear suddenly and leave quickly and there is not really a physical of physiological reason.  Migraine headaches, choking sensations, feeling of tightness about the head and the eyes or deep depression, despondency, all of these things can be symptoms that are caused by demons.  Surges of violent rage and uncontrollable anger, doubt of your salvation and that’s one we see so common, people are just plagued by doubt, doubt of God’s love, seizures of panic, overwhelming panic and anxiety.  And nightmares that are horrific in nature and sometimes about demons or occasionally clairvoyant dreams might even come true can be demonic.  Abnormal, perverted sexual desires, questions and challenges to God’s word.  And that’s another one we see a lot, virtually any disorder, anything that described as a disorder.  Well we know that God put’s things in order, demons take them out of order and many times there’s a source of disorders, one of the things we see healed in children, teenagers is ADD.  Confusion, confusion is a big indicator of demonic influence, rebellion and hatred toward authority, fascination with the occult and involvement in criminal activity sometimes that’s an obvious symptom.  Low self image, unworthiness, an inability to believe even when you want to.

Sid:  What about failing at every job they try?

Don:  Oh yes, failure or fear of failure, yes, that’s a big issue and you know one of the things that the people feel like is a curse in their life is poverty and it certainly can be.  It can be a generational curse.

Sid:  And a lot of people don’t understand these generational curses, some relative whose name you don’t know four generations back could have sinned and that curse can go up to four generations forward.

Don:  Right.

Sid:  And something you haven’t done personally, but you’re carrying that baggage until you’re set free.  And there’s so many people today that have been exposed since childhood to the New Age or the occult, do you find a lot of people have demons from that?

Don:  Absolutely, and those people generally know it, where they have been involved in occultic activities or witchcraft, New Age Witchcraft, New Age Healing, this type of things.  Any organization that involves oaths and vows and ceremonies.

Sid:  Now I hear Masons yet most people I know that are Masons have never done anything evil.

Don:  No, and there generally good people, that’s never the issue.

Sid:  Well, what’s the issue then?

Don:  The issue is the oath and the vows that they take, the secret society, I’ve had some people tell me that they don’t know anything about the masons.  When I command the demon to reveal his permission answerer will be something like “They wore the apron; they spoke the name, but it has to do with the oaths and the vows.”  And they generally involve demonic names, some of their secret passwords, but I want to be quick to say I know many many masons that are good people and they don’t get involved in this to be a part of evil, but it’s not just freemasonry, it’s anything similar to that where oaths and vows were involved.  And we have people many times who go into deliverance the demons will say that their permission is druid worship in the ancestry.  David Berkowitz,

Sid:  Son of Sam.

Don:  Yeah, the cult that he was in they worshipped Druid demons and I don’t want to say all of their names but they called on demon spirits.  Some of these organizations, fraternal organizations speak some of these same names in their ceremonies and so we see that and we see a lot of particular sicknesses through that generational permission.  Asthma is many times has that as the root is something in the ancestry that had to do with vows and ceremonies and pledges.  Sometimes college fraternities, the pledges and so on their ungodly and even though they’re usually done and people say “Well, it’s just something we do and it’s just a tradition.”  But it can be an invitation to demons.

Sid:  What is the most common symptom that you know of?

Don:  Probably fear, and rejection.  Rejection is probably one of the deepest that we see and of course sexual perversions and addictions.  Addictions now is pretty common, I had one I mentioned fear and rejection.  I’ve had people ask me what’s the most powerful spirit you ever dealt with, and there is one.  It’s the human spirit because the human spirit’s not really subject to the name of Jesus.  It can bow or not bow, so when a person’s human spirit is involved and they don’t really want deliverance.  But when the human spirit…

Sid:  That’s why you like to pray for people that are all ready born again.

Don:  Oh well, yeah.

Sid Roth:  Oh you know what, our time is slipping away.

Sid:  You could not help, but be red hot for the Messiah if you had read the book that I just read called “Anointing for Healing” because this is one of these books where the two authors have done the best job I have seen of documenting and researching, the most amazing miracles.  And I have one of the authors on the telephone Melanie Hemry and Melanie what happens when someone is not healed?

Melanie:  That happens when they give up too soon, when we were doing the stories we wrote stories about Brian Wills healed of Burkitt’s lymphoma the fastest growing cancer in the world.  About someone healed of Lou Gehrig’s disease, someone healed of Multiple Sclerosis and a fast growing tumor in their eye.  These people stood very often for at least two years and in spite of incredible symptoms that were screaming louder than the Word of God they probably would not have lived if they didn’t stay in the word of God and make the promises louder than their symptoms.

Sid:  And you see the way we think it because so many instant miracles in the gospels, because if it’s not instant God doesn’t want to heal me.  I mean that’s stinking thinking, but that’s the way that people think.

Melanie:  Right, I would say the people that die give up too soon.

Sid:  So it’s sort of like a baseball game where it’s not three strikes and you’re out; it’s when you quit that you’re out.

Melanie:  That’s it.

Sid:   Okay, let’s talk about the testimonies in this book, there are so many exciting ones, tell be about Anita Siddiki.

Melanie:  Anita is a friend of mine and she at the time was twenty-six years old a wife, a mother of an infant when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.  She was a classical pianist; she lost the ability to use her fingers; she went blind in one eye; partially blind in the other paralyzed on one side of her body.  She couldn’t feel any sensation in her body; she could not see or feel her son; she could not feel her son, she could not hold him.  She became so weak that when her husband took her to church she laid on a pew and could lift one little finger in praise to God.  And she was doubly hindered because her mother had had cancer and they had prayed and she had died so she was like, “Okay what’s this about Lord?”  And she, the doctor’s told her, “Anita, here’s what we can do for you, a wheelchair and a catheter,” at twenty-six were her only options.  And so she and her husband got into the word of God and they started playing the Bible on tape twenty-four a day beside her bed and she studied healing scriptures so much that she became convinced that she was healed on Calvary.  That Jesus paid the price for that the same way He did her healing.  She would lay in bed and say “Lord, even though I can’t see this morning, and I can’t lift my legs off this bed, I believe I was healed on Calvary.”  And she stood on that word and she fought through those symptoms screaming at her for two years.  And one of the biggest things that Anita had to do is change the channel in her mind because the enemy would show her pictures of her own funeral and so she would force herself to see herself playing that classical piano again, playing tennis, running in the park with her children and it was hard to do.  But she battled that for two years, there was nothing sudden about it, but it very gradually every one of her symptoms went away.  She was totally healed, she had to go back and get another MRI and every symptom and every sign of Multiple Sclerosis left her body and they told her whatever you do do not have another child and she had another child and her children are teenagers and she’s been well ever since.

Sid:  So I thing the message that you are going to try and get across by the Holy Spirit is don’t give up.

Melanie:  Don’t give up!  Do not give up; do not give up, but stay on the Word.  All of these people got their healing in spite of horrible diagnosis’s because they clung to the Word of God by Jesus stripes we were healed.  And believed they were healed when every symptom in their body was screaming the opposite.

Sid:  Speaking of every symptom screaming the opposite we’re going to hear from one of the people in the book who had one of the most deadly form of cancer imaginable.  I’m on the telephone with Brian Wills of Richmond, Virginia you were twenty-four years of age when you thought you were invincible you were a star tennis player, as a matter of fact at you’re University Drury College where you graduated from you won more tennis games than anyone in their history.  You were going on the professional circuit in Europe; all of a sudden a pain started hitting you and things started getting worse and what did the doctors diagnosis this as?

Brian Wills:  Well, at first they thought I had a kidney stone or appendicitis, but I was in a hospital in Richmond for nine days and on the ninth day a doctor walked into my hospital room and said, “Brian I’ve got really bad news to tell you.  “What we thought was a kidney stone or appendicitis we realized it’s far more serious than that.”  And the doctor gathered our family around and he said, “You’ve got a rare terminal cancer, you’ve got actually the fastest growing cancer known to man, it’s called Burkitt’s lymphoma.  And you’ve got a mass in your abdomen and this type of cancer grows very very fast; in the medical field that is considered incurable is considered terminal and the rate that this cancer is likely to grow you know you may have two weeks or less to live.

Sid:  Now you had grown up in a Christian family, you had seen miracles, you went to your church, they prayed for you; anything special happen, did you feel anything?  Or was it just totally, they prayed for you and did you believe that you would be healed?

Brian Wells:  Well, I had certainly seen healings personally, but this was the first time for me and for our family where we had ever faced the life and death situation; where we had ever been given a diagnosis of cancer and in particularly one that was considered terminal and incurable.  So for me as well as our family this was the first test that we faced in our Christian journey.

Sid:  It’s easy to preach a good game when it’s someone else.

Brian Wells:  That’s right, that’s right, but when it hits you personally that’s when you realize what faith you do have, you know.  And the only thing we need to do is really turn to the Word of God and to find our answer in the Word of God which we knew that He is Jehovah Rophe, the Lord our healer.

Sid:  Okay, so you’re prayed for and things rather than getting better they got worse.

Brian Wells:  Right, we took that weekend to pray and it just seemed like even though we had people come over our house and praying and throughout that weekend, I actually in the natural the tumor was growing in my body, my kidney’s had already started to shut down and so within about seventy-two hours I had a tumor that grew from the size of a golf ball to over nine inches in diameter.

Sid:  And the doctors finally said, “You’ve have about ten hours to live.”  It was at that point you dedicated your life to God and God spoke to you.

Brian Wells:  That’s right that Tuesday they told my parents, they said, “Your son will not be alive by Friday, so go ahead and make the funeral arrangements.”  And so I called unto the Lord, I said, “Lord, if You’ll heal me I’ll go where ever You want me to go, I’ll speak to whoever You want me to, I’ll do whatever You want me to do.”   And you know it was at that moment that I said that prayer that all of a sudden in my hospital room the presence of God just began to fill that place and I in that moment the Lord spoke to me, not as an audible voice, but just that still small voice on the inside, he spoke to me He said, “Son, I will heal you if you do the steps I tell you to take.” And so I could feel His presence in that room and I could feel that love, I could feel that assurance.

Sid:  What were the two things that you had to do?

Brian Wells:  Well, that’s when I first said, “Well, Lord what’s the first step then?”  And I knew immediately that He as showing me that I had some unforgiveness that hadn’t been dealt with, needed to be dealt with and so I knew in my heart that I needed to call someone and get my heart right with that person.  And little did they know where I was at the time, they didn’t know that I was in a hospital room, but I got my heart right and I asked them for forgiveness.  And the second thing the Lord had me to do was He showed me that I had not been tithing.  And so I turned to my parents and I figured it out over the last six months that I had been working and I said, “I want you to take this amount which represented a tithe and I want you to take it out of my bank account and I want you to give it to the church.”

Sid Roth:  Okay, you had a CT scan and the doctors came back and told you the results, what did they say?

Brian Wells:  Yes, about 6:00 that evening after I had come back into the hospital room, my doctor walked in my room carrying the x-rays and he had a strange look on his face and he came over and he sat on the edge of my bed and he said, “Brian” he said, “This afternoon when you were at the radiologist  the radiologist called me and he said, “Doctor, I’ve checked this young man three times from head to toe and we can’t find any evidence of cancer in his body.”

Sid:  My guest is red hot for the Messiah; if you had had an experience like she had you’d be red hot for the Messiah.  Her name is Karen Mayer Cunningham and Karen, when you had little James you were such an excited mother up to fifteen months describe what James was like.

Karen:  Oh, he was wonderful, very first child, boy, blond hair blue eyes, he was very big, he was nine six and a half and he just came out perfect.  Ten fingers, ten toes, happy, we were so happy to have him and we got him home and of course, he progressed just right on chart like every mother wants their children to do.  He rolled over at nine days, he sat up at four and half months, and he was just a picture of health, happy, peaceful, one of those children that would go to anybody and be happy.   He walked at nine months, we had every opportunity, we took every single picture we could of him and he was adorable and happy until about fifteen months.

Sid:  What happened that caused the change?

Karen:  Well, we took him for his regular check-ups like all parents do and then one day all of the sudden he ran to this spot in the hall and he would stand backwards and start to beat his head in the wall.  Now I didn’t think that was normal behavior but I didn’t know this was my first child, so I had plenty of woman that came to my salon and said, “Oh, that’s just the terrible twos, that’s what boys do, they’re really rough and they gave me all explanations of why he was doing this.  And being a first time mother I was sure that these other woman must have known what they were talking about and nobody seemed to think it was much much to do about anything.

Sid:  But things began to get progressively worse.

Karen:  Things began to get progressively worse very quickly.  When he would hit his head on the sheet rock, it was first just a few times and we would re you know just redirect him.  And you know, pat him on the head and send him on his way and tell him to stop doing that; that it was not a good choice.  And then before you know it he had actually made a hole in the wall with the back of his head.  And from that he started to pick off little pieces of the sheet rock and eat them.  I think it is one of those things that when you go through as a parent you don’t really want to share with others the severity of your situation, I don’t know if it’s shame, blame or other peoples condemnation, but you sort of sort of try to joke it off.

Sid:  But what did the doctors say about this?

Karen: Um, the doctors, you know I think the doctors see tons of mothers in their pediatric visits who bring them every little situation and the doctors try to settle the mothers and say “Don’t worry about it, it’s just a phase, it’s a season, this will pass, little kids are funny, they’re funny that way, they all do different little things.”  And so the doctors who have gone to medical school seem fine about it, and I had eighty clients that came to me every two weeks, they didn’t seem to be upset about it.  So surely all this seasoned veteran information around me was much better than my first mother experience.  So I assumed that at some point soon this would stop, it was just a phase that he was going through.

Sid:  But you actually had him in Special Ed and then one day you were accused of child neglect and the child protective services came to visit you.

Karen:  Well, between the fifteen months and he turned three a lot transpired, we had, we had taken him to the doctor and the doctor started to maybe agree that there was a possibility that something might not be right.  But I don’t think that any doctor or a pediatric doctor wants to say that once they say something it’s permanent and it’s on your files.  So we went to a place called Star Bright Pediatrics’ a wonderful specialty facility in Austin and had him have an intake.  And I’ve never been around anybody with Special Ed I just hadn’t been around anybody who had a Special Ed child.  I knew some people with handicapped, physically handicapped children but not with emotional or mental needs.  And so we took him to Star Bright Pediatrics and I was very happy because I thought these people will tell me what’s wrong and we’ll just fix it.  And as we sat there at intake when he was two and a half years old I knew; I knew that this was not good.  I think that mother instinctively know that something is really really wrong and we sat there and he sat on a little bay chair and this specialist, this clinician took down information.  She gave him a toy and then she would snatch it back from him.  Well, he didn’t like that and so then he began to tantrum, but his tantrums weren’t like other two year olds tantrums, they were without a beginning and usually without an end.  And he began to sit on the floor and rock and rock and rock until finally he was laying on the floor hitting his head on the floor until she gave the toy back.  And then as she did these little things, in my opinion to set him off, which was what she was trying to do, she was trying to see his action and then reaction, she made notes, she made notes, she made notes.  She didn’t really talk to us, but I guess that’s her job and at the very end she said, “Well, I can tell you that James is classically autistic.”  And the only time that you want to hear classically is when someone is a soloist in orchestra, but you don’t want to hear that about autism.  I didn’t know what autism was, but this is what she said to me.  “There’s no treatment, there’s no cure, he’ll always have it, he’ll never play with other boys and girls, he’ll always need one on one attention, he probably won’t graduate high school and we’ll send this report to you in the mail in a few days.”  “Thanks for coming in.”

Sid:  Now, since that time, you’ve found out a great deal about autism.  You were telling me one in one hundred and fifty children in America have autism.

Karen:  That’s correct and one in ninety-eight of those Sid are males.  It’s a very male dominated disorder.  Autism is on the spectrum called PED, Pervasive Development Disorder and on that spectrum on the very left side of it the least worse, if that’s a category is a little thing called ADD.  And on the very right of that on the very worse of the spectrum is the thing called autism.  And so between those two things are the largest issue that this generation possibly the last twenty years has faced with their children.

Sid:   And you’re telling me that there’s no cure?

Karen:  I’m telling you they said that there is no cure by doctors and that is currently the case, there is no cure, there is no treatment.  Part of that is because it is a disorder, it’s not a disease.  I have a blue eye, if you cut me open I have a gene for a blue eye.  If you have diabetes we can do a like test, a like treatment, it’s inside of you.  There’s nothing inside of you autistic, that’s why I said, “Disorder.”  And it’s not a disease, its disorder and so that’s what they say, “There is something out of order with your child.”  They can assume, they can gather data and look at the general things that happened to him in a set period of time.  It could be possibilities why these behaviors exist in your child, but there is no pin point beginning.  There is no “You did this and this happened.”

Sid:  Okay, so you come to grips, he’s got this problem; it’s not going to get better.  There is no cure for it, how did you deal with it?

Karen:   Well, I dealt with it the way I’ve always dealt with things in my life, I didn’t believe them.  I’ve always been able to control, manipulate, lead, coheres, get my way in life, sort of a strong willed person, strong willed mother.  I thought, well that can’t be true, I’ll just figure this out, I’ll look on Oprah, I’ll look on Larry King live; they don’t know what they’re talking about.  No hope is not a diagnosis that we have my family; I don’t believe that, I don’t receive that, I don’t participate in that.  So I’ll just ask somebody else, now having a wonderful database of clients in my salon, I had wonderful women that came to me and ministered to me literally.  And one of my clients told me about this thing called preschool for children that are speech delayed in Texas.  And I was very very excited because each time I got some nugget of information or hope I thought, “That this is the one thing that I need, this is the way out of this dark valley.”  And so my client told me that in Texas, “That if you’re speech delayed you start Special Ed.”  Well, James was a summer baby so in the summer of ’97 we took him for an intake at the school district there in Austin.  My husband took him because I was too upset I couldn’t take any more doctors telling me that I had a bad apple.  I just couldn’t take it, I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t take it and so my husband took him and then he came back and he said “He was accepted.”  And I was like, “That’s great.”  So the next month August of ’97 he started his PPCD, his preschool preparation for children with disabilities.  Of course I didn’t liken that title was applicable to by son, but if that’s the category that’s fine; we’ll just get him the help he needs and he’ll be just fine.  So he went to the school for a thing called an ARD which is an Assessment, Review and Dismissal.  And as we sat around this big round table with principals and consultants and occupational therapist and they had a lot of paper work, I felt really pushed up against the wall.  I think for mothers when there’s something wrong with your child there’s a lot of shame and blame whether it’s spoken or inferred, or just it’ self set induced.  And so they had all this paperwork and I said, “You know, he qualifies he can start in August and he’ll get all his Special Ed and he’ll get help.  And I said, “Well, if he behaves badly are you going to kick him out of school?”  Because I didn’t know, I knew when I went to school if you behaved badly, if you ate the wall, you’d be kicked out of school.  And they just looked at me with their heads turned like, “What are you talking about?”  They said, “Of course not!  He’s handicapped.”  Ah, when they said that it broke my heart, it just broke my heart, because he’s not handicapped he just needs a little help.

Sid:  I don’t know about a little help, describe to me graphically exactly what his behavior was like.

Karen:  At that point in ’97 he was three years old and a little help yes.  He was eating the sheet rock, he ate all the rubber off the back of all of our bathroom mats, he’d eaten the rubber liner out of where your door closes on your car, eaten the entire thing.  It looked like somebody had taken a sledge hammer to our walls in our house.  And if you were standing up and you had a pair of flip-flops on your feet he might just drop down and start picking pieces of that off.  At that point we were buying this roll of rubber product from Pediatrics, Star Bright Pediatrics that we would tie in a knot, it was inperbus rubber and he would chew on it for hours.  And so this war zone that we lived in had become our normal.

Sid:  He would also get out of your house and wander in your neighborhood.

Karen:  Yep, he would just let himself out and run up and down the streets until the neighbors brought him back.  He was like a raccoon; he was like a little wild animal in our house.  It was…anything could set him off.

Sid:  This sounds like more of a diagnosis than handicapped.

Karen:  Yes.

Sid:  It sounds worse to me.

Karen:  It felt worse to me, it felt like living with death, death of dreams, death of hopes for your child, death of possibilities.  But I kept hanging on to the next little nugget I got from anybody thinking, This is all we need to turn this train around from going off the cliff.”

Sid Roth:  But unfortunately it gets progressive worse.  We’ll pick up right here on tomorrow broadcast.