Alex Giacobbe - A story of triumph and perseverance

by Maria Giacobbe (Alex's mom)

When Alex was in the 6th grade, he became ill during his last year of wrestling with the Blairstown Junior Wrestling team.  Up until this point in his life, Alex was a very healthy, happy, energetic and very intelligent child. You're probably thinking that this is just mom speak but really he was a great kid -- funny, loving, talented, artistic and smart, smart smart!!!

Below are baby pictures of Alex and a tribute poem that we wrote to our son:

Back to the wrestling season -- Alex began to notice that he was becoming very fatigued during practices and especially during matches. He was a good wrestler and a good technician and everyone noticed how he was struggling.  He began complaining of headaches. Normally, my husband, who is a chiropractor and vibrational energy practitioner, would give Alex a treatment and Alex would get better. Now things just weren't working! We took Alex to our medical doctor for a check up and blood work. He was diagnosed with mono. We were told that Alex should rest and since wrestling season was ending we did just that. But he didn't get better, in fact, he continued to get worse. We took him back to the doctor because he had more symptoms: severe fatigue - he was sleeping all the time, he had terrible nightmares and wasn't sleeping well at all. We noticed that he was mumbling and struggling with finding the right words. He was also having anxiety and becoming very angry over the slightest little things, especially at his younger brothers. Our doctor told us that physically he was fine. Alex began to become very frustrated at his situation. He was feeling so poorly and no one was listening to him. He kept telling us how he felt sick all the time. Everyone but me kept telling him to "suck it up" and that there was nothing wrong. Everyone was telling me to stop babying him and that he was just looking for attention.  Deep inside of me I knew that something was wrong and it was now up to me to be an advocate for my child. Even if I had to fight my own family!

During this time that Alex was struggling with his health, he was also struggling at his new school.  We had pulled him out of the public school system and enrolled him in a new alternative school at the start of six grade thinking that this would be great for our kids since they were all academically gifted but we felt they weren't getting enough physical and hands-on learning.

In the beginning, he really enjoyed his new school because of the hands on learning, outdoor adventures and the different perspective that the school had. Plus he was with his two best friends.  Little did we know that this would all change.

One day, in the fall, Alex came home and told us that a boy in his class had punched him severely while another boy held him. We contacted the school immediately and set-up a meeting with the teacher and the administration. Now this is a school that we had fully supported. The shock that we received at that meeting upon discovering that the school actually tried to cover up the incident and pretend that it was no big deal and that "boys will be boys" and " children need to work things out" was incredible. We made it known that we were not happy with the school's policies and we began to become more involved, even going so far as getting a professional speaker to give a lecture about "positive discipline."

The bottom line was that we discovered that the people running that school really didn't have a clue as to how to handle children with emotional and behavioral issues and my son was becoming the outlet that one boy in particular was using to get out his own frustrations and anger. Alex was simply miserable and an emotional wreck.  We decided to be proactive and pull him out of this school during Christmas break and re-enroll him in his old school.  He was emotionally drained and physically ill.  We also started seeing a wonderful counselor who practiced bio-feedback and felt that Alex would benefit from the counseling and lessons on bio-feedback pain management. The sessions were helping! 

I also started taking a very active roll in my son's health and began taking courses on nutrition because I felt that while my husband was very knowledgeable on the subject, I needed to know for myself and my children's benefit.

One day, I had a conversation with a friend who told me about the good results that her son was getting from a naturopath/homeopath/chiropractor that I had referred her to for her son's condition.

More to come soon!