Story from KOMU News at 10 - December 9, 2007

This story is now on http://www.komu.com/ on the series page.

This is part two of the Weinmaster family. We show you what Linda is doing to help Adam with his autism by alternative and natural treatments...

You can watch the story here

You will find video, script, and web extras...in the meantime... comment here about it!

Weinmaster Story Airs

The portion of the series about the Weinmaster family aired. I'm so excited to finally share this with you all.
They are a big football family trying to recover their son from autism. The family believes autism caused by mercury in vaccines.





I did a behind the scenes story and slide show of the family.
You can see it here.

Adam

Be sure to watch Sunday night for part 2 of Adam's story!

Please comment and tell us what you think of Adam's story.

Weinmaster-First View

Here is a sneak peek from our webcam when we went to Kansas. Thanks Jessica for doing this!

Weinmaster

To be honest with you, after we got back from Kansas I was emotionally exhausted. I had to take a few days to let my mind relax before expressing my thoughts about the trip.

I have been talking to Linda since my first story in July. She brought to the forefront that there is an entire autism community that rarely if ever gets its voice heard. She has watched our entire series unfold. It was a pleasure to finally meet her.

This family's courage and determination to "bring back their son" struck a cord with me. They are doing everything in their power to get Adam to recover from autism the best he can.

While I don't have children, I can't imagine the pain Linda has gone through when doctors told her to institutionalize Adam. By alternative methods, Adam lives at home and needs assistance, but more or less has made great strides in progressing to what his parents hope to be close to independent.

Adam is not your typical teenager. He loves Ninga Turtles, Batman, and Nintendo games. It was hard for me to see this guy who is taller and bigger than me act like a person half his age.

At the same time, Adam is extremely likable and funny. He showed us his house. His basement is a really cool hideout with all of his toys. He was so talkative. Scott, our photog really hit it off with him. Adam got to talk all about his games to him. Unfortunately, I am not an expert on boy-geared Nintendo games. ;-)

We spent the night in Lawrence. The following day we went to the clinic with Adam and Linda. This was a very hard--but needed--experience for me. Adam had a mini meltdown. There were some issues of not getting enough blood for a sample. Linda says this overloaded his sensors and he got worked up.

We had a wireless mic on Linda the entire time. The raw footage is hard to watch. Adam begins to get upset then leaves the room. It is nearly impossible to control someone his size. He went into the hallway screaming and crying. Linda followed to calm him down. Scott was brilliant in shooting this private moment. He stayed in one hallway while Linda and Adam were in another. Scott only shot Linda. Adam wasn't aware he was being filmed. I thought this was a smart move by Scott because we didn't want to trigger him to get more upset. However, we did want to capture all of this because of the importance for other people to see it.

In less than ten minutes, the episode was done and over with. Adam apologizes to Linda and they hug. This entire experience was beyond compelling. I wasn't even in the room due to space, but to hear this account was emotional.

Needless to say, this was moving trip. I can't wait to tell you the rest of their story.

Weinmaster pictures

Pictures from the Weinmaster family in Kansas.

Weinmaster-Mark

This is the second family I have traveled with Ashley to interview. While I only experienced a tiny clip of the Weinmaster family life, I now understand a little bit about the daily struggles that parents and children with autism tackle.

I heard Linda share her story about moving to Kansas in order for Adam to receive better schooling; I listened to Adam's older brother talk about the difficulty he has connecting with Adam; I was struck by the variety of alternative medication Linda has sought out, but what hit me the hardest was Linda saying that she wants to see Adam have a friend. For me, that phrase captured the sense of not belonging and loneliness that comes with having autism.

Sure, Adam has tried to fill that loneliness with a fascination for ninja turtles and hobbies like defeating the next level on his nintendo game, but plastic toys and television characters can only fulfill a person so much. Adam's mom wants him to have a friend.

Adam's mom, Linda, also briefly described Adam's schooling, which caught my ear because of the reading I have done concerning the transition from schooling to adulthood. She mentioned that it is not uncommon for Adam's entire class to break out in a tantrum. It is a chain affect: one student becomes upset and soon the entire class is throwing a fit. These shared tantrums may lead people to think that students with autism connect on some level, but Linda did not view it that way.

There Adam is in school, surrounded by students like himself, yet no connection, not a single friend. My hope for this portion of our series is that our viewers develop an understanding for the unique bond that a mother shares with her son; most importanly, I hope they see how fragile that bond is when the son has autism.

Weinmaster-Jessica

Just to re-introduce myself, my name is Jessica Mustain and I work along side Ashley Reynolds doing research for the series Combating Autism from Within. My latest project has been compiling information on a family from Lawrence, KS that we went to interview this weekend.

The team of Ashley, Scott, Mark, and myself left Sunday afternoon and returned today (Monday the 29th). Our first stop was at the house where we interviewed Adam and the rest of his family. Right away we heard about the struggles that the family had faced with their decision to move to Kansas, from Nebraska, all to help Adam with his health and education.

Adam was VERY talkative and really knew his facts about his disorder and what his mother was doing to help inform people. I found it very interesting to hear Linda talk about the connection genetics played in Adams disorder along with his heavy mercury levels, that she claims are from vaccines.

In the basement of the house, the family has a sauna to help with Adam excrete toxins. Adam loves ninja turtles, batman, Nintendo, and anything a young boy would typically like. He was fun to be around and hardly had any outbursts until Monday morning when we followed him and his mother to his doctors appointment to have blood drawn.

At the doctors appointment Adam was uneasy and seemed in a completely different mood than from the night before. Right when we arrived, Linda told us that we were in for an entirely different side of him and that it hadn't been an good morning.

Inside the doctors office, Adam began getting nervous and really upset that we (as a crew) were filming him. There was one instance when he shouted for me (calling me by name) to stop filming him. This shocked me for a few minutes, not because he wanted me to stop filming, but because he remembered my name after only hearing it once the day before. Thats another amazing thing about Adam, he remembers names and dates like nobody's business!

He began getting his blood taken but after only 4 out of the 8 viles, his blood slowed from flowing and eventually stopped. Adam threw a tantrum but luckily the nurse said that there was enough blood and that he didn't have to "get stuck" again.

Linda told us that he was brave. There's no way I could sit through some of the things he goes through!

Overall, it was a great learning experience for me. I got to actually witness what a family goes through when one member has autism. It was truly amazing getting to spend a significant amount of time with the family and be able to talk to them on and off camera about our project.

I can't wait for you all to see this family's story in the series.

Weinmaster shoot

Here are some pictures from our latest shoot in Kansas...blogs, first view video, and more pictures will be up in a few days..