I went to see Dr. Kenny today and she told me about a new things she’s been offering her patients. It’s called exercise with oxygen therapy. Knowing how much Nathan’s benefited from HBOT thus far I was really interested in hearing about it. But instead of telling me about it – she made me try it.

Basically she had me on an oxygen concentrator with a little bike pedal type thingy. I wore a nasal cannula so the oxygen was blowing directly into my nostrils.

Here’s kinda what it looked like:

With oxygen coming from a machine like this:

Pedaling a thingy like this:

The reason for it? Increasing oxygen supply and absorption to the body.

Here’s a brief explanation that I found on the internet:

Oxygen is our most important element for life. Wellness is totally dependent upon it. So far as body function is concerned, if you don’t use it you lose it. Any activity increases the human body’s need for oxygen. So we exercise with extra oxygen and whoopie!! Just a 30-60 minute session on our home model oxygen bar displaces harmful free radicals, neutralizes environmental toxins, and destroys anaerobic infectious bacteria, parasites, and microbes. Not to mention all the cellular repair you get.

Source: http://oxygen-therapy.biz/ Check out their page for a great explanation, or do a Google search, there’s quite a lot of info about it out there.

I have to admit that after about 15 min’s of this combination, I felt REALLY good! I left feeling more energized and with a sense of well-being. My interest and curiosity was piqued.

So as usual, my mind was off like a rocket. Hmmmm. Wouldn’t this be amazing for Nathan. This would be a fabulous complement to his home program. How can I get this set up for Nathan.

Then I remembered a conversation I had with another mom a couple of days ago. She was telling me that there is a way to modify the soft hyperbaric oxygen chambers to achieve a higher ATA. Currently Nathan is diving at 1.5 ATA in a hard chamber. The soft chamber that we have at home only goes up to 1.3 ATA. So after leaving Dr. Kenny’s, I was like..hmmm…if I can get this oxygen tank that Dr. Kenny has, and get that cannula into the chamber, and modify the chamber to go to 1.5 – VOILA! Nathan would get the same benefit from HBOT at HOME!

I started calling around and I had to admit that what I discovered made me laugh. It turns out that we ALREADY HAVE an oxygen concentrator! So all this time I could’ve been able to do BOTH of these ideas – diving in a hard chamber at 1.5 with 95% oxygen, and doing exercise with oxygen therapy! We had all the tools right in our own garage!

I had no idea that you could use the oxygen concentrator with a nasal cannula, I thought it could only “blow” oxygen into the chamber. I’ve had the chamber for over a year but we stopped using it because it didn’t seem to be working. It turns out there was a pot of gold in my own backyard and I didn’t even know it

Then I started thinking..well…how do I add in the exercise component?

I’ve solved one problem already – how to keep Nathan going with HBOT without having to go so far away. But what about the Exercise with Oxygen idea?

Two things occurred to me – what if I put him on the oxygen while I have him in the stander or the Merry Muscles? This way he is “exercising” WHILE receiving extra oxygen. The oxygen concentrator has wheels so I can move it around. It doesn’t have to stay with the chamber. So I can use it for dual purposes – in the HBOT chamber as well as while he’s “exercising”.

Then I remembered an infomercial I saw on TV a while back – exercise passively on a vibration platform! I started looking around and found this article: Whole Body Vibration Therapy.

I kept searching and found this study: Effects of Whole Body Vibration on a Child with Cerebral Palsy.

Of course once I started I couldn’t stop and I’ve been looking into this for a while now and … hmmm…. I think I’m on to something! No one’s ever mentioned this to me before (I’m surprised), but it seems to have a lot of potential!

Now think of this..what if we put it all together? One dive in the chamber in the morning before school, then in the afternoon, I can put him in the LiteGait to suspend him over a vibration plate, hook him up to the oxygen concentrator, and let him watch TV???!!!!!

Things that make me go…hmmmmmmmmmm…………….

PS – I didn’t paste too many links here about Whole Body Vibration or Exercise with Oxygen Therapy. There’s a TON of info on the internet about it so have a look around if you’re interested in knowing more!

I mostly try to post the good stuff. But sometimes you get things like this:

Yes, he’s fully and truly asleep.

And other times, you get this:

The good news: Nathan’s done 37 dives and only has 3 more to go!

My boys should be back home by Friday afternoon, hooooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve decided to expand this blog to new horizons. Thus far it’s been all about our journey with Nathan and learning how to deal with the world of special needs. I’ve mostly talked about our emotions, equipment, therapies, nutrition, and other aspects of having a disabled child.

This week I’ve decided to talk about my previous passion, the one I had before Nathan was born: Internet Marketing & Search Engine Optimization.

Back in early 2000, I took a break from college and found a job for a semester. It was at an internet marketing firm. I found myself fascinated by it and wanting to know more and more and more. This was a company in the “cutting edge” of the internet world at the time and they were building quite a network of sites. When I started with them they were running about 30 sites – by the time I left 3 years later, we were running and promoting over 4000 different websites. Their focus was on using Google, Yahoo, and other search engines to drive traffic to their websites, which offered a variety of products and services.

I started my own business in 2002, consulting at nights and weekends. It took off and after 1 year I had too much work to be able to afford to keep my job And it all grew from there. I started attending the SEO conferences, met all the gurus, traded secrets, tried out a variety of methods, learned everything from the “white hat” to the “black hat” techniques, in fact I helped create many of the industry standards today. I was always the shy type so I never made a name for myself, but all of the people who did, know me and know of me.

You might be wondering what exactly it is that I do? Search Engine Optimization revolves around methods to gain high rankings in search engines for desired keywords. So if I decided I wanted to sell “pink ribbons”, I would start a website selling pink ribbons, and then “work my magic” so that when people type “pink ribbons” into Google, Bing or Yahoo, my website appears at the top – not the sponsored, paid results, but the “organic” results coming from their algorithms. Of course I am also skilled in managing Pay Per Click campaigns, but my specialty is in the organic results.

This all probably sounds like mumbo-jumbo, especially after I’ve been talking about such different things on this blog for the last 3 years. But there’s a good reason why I decided to include these posts in the blog. It comes down to $$$$.

Taking care of a child with special needs is EXPENSIVE! Therapy costs, medical bills, equipment bills .. I don’t have to say it, all of you know it already. I know a lot of families then decide to try and find alternate sources of income..and of course, the obvious way to do it is online. It requires finding things to do/sell on the internet while we are home caring for our kids. And then the question always arises – how? If I create a website, how do I get people to visit it? Where do I get traffic?

And this, my friends, is my pre-Nathan obsession. It’s what I’ve done for 10 years. I am supremely good at it (excuse my lack of modesty It’s like 2nd nature to me, after working on literally thousands of sites/projects. I can do/talk SEO in my sleep.

So to wrap up this post. I’ve decided to start sharing articles, knowledge, resources about search engine optimization and internet marketing. For those of you that already have websites that you are trying to promote – you may choose to use this information to help you. If you don’t like this new “horizon” of Nathan’s blog – please skip all of these posts!

Also, as I venture into some of the “new” areas of internet marketing, such as social media marketing, I will share what I am learning. Since Nathan’s birth I’ve had little time to stay up to date with new techniques. But now that Nathan is older and in school, and things are much more settled with him, I plan on going back to the “research” stage and expanding my skill set to all of the “new media” techniques that are now out there. Hence my post about Twitter the other day.

My goal for this new category of Nathan’s blog: to help empower and support other families to gain greater financial stability and success. Perhaps this information may help you create/increase revenue streams which you can then use in taking care of your child with special needs.

I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter of Nathan’s blog.