Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Dr. Megan McGavern on Reclaiming Hope, Creating Saving Her Son, and Changing Medicine from Within | Ep 25

Transcript

Dr. Megan McGavern on Reclaiming Hope, Creating Saving Her Son, and Changing Medicine from Within | Ep 25 · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
• 0:05
  author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
• 0:12
  thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really helps us get this work done.
• 0:24
  As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
• 0:27
  And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
• 0:31
  equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
• 0:35
  If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
• 0:40
  com.
• 0:41
  So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
• 0:44
  Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:47
  Today I have autism Mum and Director of Chats in Virginia, which is an extremely
• 0:59
  cutting edge equine assisted outfit.
• 1:04
  Megan McGovern, doctor Megan McGovern, and by doctor I don't
• 1:09
  mean PhD, I mean physician,
• 1:13
  but also as I said, autism mum.
• 1:16
  And she has a very interesting story to tell, not dissimilar from mine in
• 1:24
  some ways, in terms of being forced to do this out of necessity rather
• 1:29
  than because she woke up in the morning saying, well, I want to run a
• 1:34
  equine assisted equine therapy unit.
• 1:36
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:36
  I don't
• 1:37
  Rupert Isaacson: think that was ever really on her list of dreams.
• 1:39
  However, what she's done with it over the last almost decade has brought our line
• 1:49
  of work into the mainstream for medicine.
• 1:54
  So, I think we should let Megan talk about this.
• 1:58
  Hey Megan, thanks for coming on.
• 2:01
  Tell us who you are, what you do.
• 2:03
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 2:03
  I am an internal medicine physician, and I previously was an active duty
• 2:09
  Navy doctor before, like I served my time and got out and then I've been
• 2:12
  in, in private practice ever since.
• 2:15
  And my first son, his name is Cole, and he's 13 now, but
• 2:20
  he's the one that's autistic.
• 2:22
  And then I have neurotypical twin boys, Sebastian and Ashton.
• 2:26
  They're eight.
• 2:28
  And Cole was not responding to the normal therapies that are
• 2:33
  recommended by physicians, whether they're family practice, pediatrician
• 2:38
  developmentalist, neurologist.
• 2:41
  He, he wasn't, or as a matter of fact, I, he continued to regress as
• 2:45
  I added on therapy after therapy.
• 2:48
  He got diagnosed at age four, and by age five he became failure to thrive.
• 2:55
  Pretty much fully nonverbal.
• 2:57
  He might say five or 10 things in a day, but half of 'em were the same thing.
• 3:02
  May have been like go I remember go.
• 3:05
  But and then they threatened a feeding tube.
• 3:07
  They offered me inpatient care at a major medical center about an hour from here.
• 3:13
  And things got pretty bad by the age of five.
• 3:17
  I read all the books from I.
• 3:20
  Cleveland Clinic and Harvard and all that stuff.
• 3:23
  And I was already doing all those things.
• 3:24
  And then I read Rupert's book, the Horseplay, and it was the only book,
• 3:29
  hi, been, he was like the seventh or eighth book in and it was the only
• 3:32
  one, like within 20, 25 pages, I was like, I've gotta contact this man.
• 3:37
  And I happened to be on vacation and I emailed him from the plane before it
• 3:43
  took off and eagerly awaited a response.
• 3:47
  And then it took cold to new trails in October with my husband.
• 3:53
  And, you know, that's sort of a wrap.
• 3:56
  That's sort of how it all started.
• 4:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Let's just dial back a little bit.
• 4:02
  When you say you tried all the therapies or the recommended therapies and Cole
• 4:09
  regressed, can you be a bit more specific?
• 4:12
  What did you try?
• 4:15
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 4:15
  Okay.
• 4:15
  Rupert Isaacson: And then how and why do you think he regressed?
• 4:20
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 4:20
  Well I think that he was just one of the many autistic children that
• 4:24
  don't necessarily respond to the few therapies that are, you know,
• 4:30
  proven supposedly in clinical trials.
• 4:32
  But he was in special education in the school system.
• 4:36
  He was getting speech and OT at the school.
• 4:39
  He was getting speech and OT privately.
• 4:42
  He was getting a, B, a, A, B, A to the point that our insurance did
• 4:47
  not cover a, b, A at that time.
• 4:49
  So we were paying about $5,000 a month for a BA, which made him, made him purely
• 4:57
  upset and pissed off like the whole time.
• 5:00
  I mean, he'd stand there and have, be made to brush his teeth for 30
• 5:04
  minutes and if, I mean, it was just, it was just not a great scenario.
• 5:10
  It, he was I know that it can help m many children, but it
• 5:14
  just, it was not helping Cole.
• 5:16
  But we, you know, when I say we gave it our best effort, you know, my
• 5:19
  husband was working tons of extra shifts to pay for the A BA because
• 5:23
  that was pretty much the only thing we hadn't been doing prior to getting
• 5:27
  diagnosed at four, we were already doing speech, OT and the special education.
• 5:31
  We also added on Brain Balance, which is a I thought a pretty well researched
• 5:35
  neuroscience based program, program.
• 5:37
  And we did that for like two and a half years.
• 5:40
  I drove him, you know, 45 minutes there and back twice a week.
• 5:45
  I also then had him in a feeding clinic that was an hour and a
• 5:48
  half hour-ish away once a week when he became Failure to Thrive.
• 5:53
  Did that for two years.
• 5:55
  So I was doing all of those things and he continued to worse.
• 5:59
  Him and I, I will say that occupational therapy, that has
• 6:04
  definitely helped him over time.
• 6:06
  I've actually followed and kept the same occupational therapist the entire time.
• 6:11
  He's only been with one person, and that has definitely helped, but like early on
• 6:17
  it wasn't, it wasn't getting him anywhere.
• 6:19
  It wasn't, it was not helping the overall picture.
• 6:25
  Rupert Isaacson: Why do you think he regressed and worsened
• 6:29
  under these therapies to the point of needing a feeding tube?
• 6:34
  And what do you think was going on with that?
• 6:37
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 6:37
  Well, I mean, one of the major, there were a lot of, there were a lot of things
• 6:42
  going on then, you know, he would have meltdowns all the time, and at that point
• 6:47
  we didn't know why or what, what was, you know, but it was like he would have
• 6:51
  a meltdown for 45 minutes, couldn't do anything about it, and then you were okay.
• 6:57
  You know, finally it was okay and then, and then it would
• 7:00
  happen again like an hour later.
• 7:02
  It was just like you were in a war zone all the time.
• 7:05
  One of the things that was going on with school was he would not eat at school.
• 7:08
  I mean, what, what kid can like function throughout the day and actually like,
• 7:12
  have any progress when you won't eat.
• 7:15
  But he wouldn't eat for other people, it just, his eating
• 7:19
  just got more and more narrow.
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  It had to be with the exact person at the exact right time and the exact.
• 7:26
  Car seat or chair.
• 7:27
  I mean, if, if something was off he then he just wouldn't eat and
• 7:31
  he surely wouldn't eat at school.
• 7:32
  We, we even tried so you to always wanna get chili from Chili's restaurant,
• 7:38
  the grilled cheese and french fries.
• 7:40
  So I even literally like sort getting that to go and then taking that to school.
• 7:47
  They even were nice enough and gave us, they knew us so well
• 7:50
  because we would take him there.
• 7:52
  Cassie actually would take him there like every day after school.
• 7:55
  My
• 7:56
  Rupert Isaacson: caregiver.
• 7:57
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 7:57
  Yep.
• 7:57
  She would take him to Chili's from school so that he would finally, finally eat
• 8:02
  and then they like gave us the exact red baskets that they used the paper so that
• 8:05
  we could try and mimic it at school.
• 8:08
  And he just, he just, he just wouldn't also, you know, he, he
• 8:12
  took longer to potty train like you mostly hear, but he did very well.
• 8:15
  I mean, he was potty trained by four, four and a half, which, you
• 8:20
  know, I think that's reasonable.
• 8:22
  But, you know, he'd be at school and they'd tell me he peed his pants.
• 8:25
  Yeah.
• 8:25
  It just was I just think it was the environment, you know, they do
• 8:29
  their best, but I'm not putting any school system down or sha you know,
• 8:34
  I just, they have limited resources.
• 8:36
  They have limited they have limited help and I just don't think it
• 8:41
  was the right environment for him.
• 8:43
  Yeah, I, I get phone calls all the time.
• 8:46
  Oh, he bit somebody again.
• 8:48
  Oh, he won't come back into the classroom after you tried to transition.
• 8:52
  I think the, the, the just the overall environment was too stressful for him.
• 8:56
  And then also just not eating all day.
• 8:57
  I mean, who, who can, who can function like that, you know?
• 9:01
  Yeah.
• 9:03
  I also found out like, I mean, this is what it is, but being in a specialized
• 9:08
  education classroom, you know, you have various special needs kids in there.
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  Some are screaming all day, some are banging their heads all day.
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  Some are, some are aggressive, you know, and, and I found out after
• 9:22
  the fact that you know, that there were some aggressive kids with him.
• 9:25
  You know, he, he would come home and he'd have marks on him, and the teachers
• 9:28
  wouldn't know where it was from.
• 9:31
  Like, you know, I think one of the reasons why when he transitioned to say
• 9:35
  music and then he'd have to go back into his main room, I think he didn't wanna
• 9:38
  go back in because of the, the high stimulation that he was getting in there.
• 9:43
  That was just too much for him.
• 9:46
  I don't know.
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  It was, it was, it was very, very miserable.
• 9:50
  And, and he could never, it's not like I could say Cole, you know,
• 9:53
  how was your day or what happened?
• 9:55
  I mean, there's there, there's nothing like, you know, so, you know,
• 9:57
  sending your kid to a school where you don't know what's happening, you
• 10:02
  don't know how they're responding to when he, when he bites one of
• 10:05
  the teachers or bites somebody else.
• 10:07
  Like it is just very I.
• 10:10
  Just always on edge, always feeling like, I don't know if I should be doing this.
• 10:15
  Maybe I should keep him home.
• 10:17
  Maybe I need to figure out how to homeschool him, even though I am a
• 10:20
  full-time career person and wanted nothing to do with homeschooling.
• 10:26
  Not that I think anything bad about it, I just, I didn't wanna give up
• 10:30
  my career to, to homeschool him, but it turns out I didn't have to.
• 10:34
  But, you know, that was like a very big fear for me then to, to figure
• 10:41
  out how the heck was I gonna do that?
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  And then when he turned five, another thing that could've, you know, made
• 10:46
  him go worse, I don't know, was, was that the twins were born when he
• 10:52
  was five, so I'm sure that was, you know, potentially stressful for him.
• 10:58
  Yeah.
• 10:59
  Not right now.
• 11:00
  Cole, go read a book.
• 11:03
  No.
• 11:03
  No.
• 11:04
  Okay.
• 11:07
  Rupert Isaacson: So, okay, so school, I, I can understand this because Rowan, my
• 11:12
  son, went through a very similar thing.
• 11:14
  He began to, you know, cry as I was driving him up to school,
• 11:18
  he began to really, really, really not want to go in there.
• 11:22
  And it got worse.
• 11:24
  And it got worse.
• 11:25
  And then after we took a break from the local, I.
• 11:32
  Special ed school.
• 11:32
  We tried again at sort of the Hippiest school we could find in
• 11:36
  a lovely naturey place in Austin.
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  And he just, at that point, just flat out, he was verbal enough to say he took off
• 11:45
  all his clothes, rolled around in the dirt and said, I want to be a countryside boy.
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  And that was even with him being sent with a caregiver.
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  And I was like, dude, I hear you loud and clear.
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  Alright, we'll do it.
• 11:55
  And of course we'd never look back, but like you, I was like,
• 11:58
  I do not wanna homeschool.
• 11:59
  Yeah.
• 12:00
  But I kind of did.
• 12:04
  But like you, and we'll get listeners, we'll get there that
• 12:07
  you can kind of homeschool and not homeschool at the same time.
• 12:11
  It's actually possible to hit this really interesting middle ground, but we'll,
• 12:15
  we'll, we'll get there in a minute.
• 12:18
  So just hold on for that.
• 12:21
  Let's go to the a BA.
• 12:22
  Why do you think the therapists were so pushy with him and so uncompromising?
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  Why, why do you think they were not willing to work around and take
• 12:37
  a less pressure-filled approach?
• 12:40
  What was going on with it?
• 12:41
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 12:41
  I'm not sure, but I do know that that we were getting therapists
• 12:45
  that were barely even trained.
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  Like, it was in, at least in our area there were not, there was a long
• 12:52
  wait list, and then you'd get in with somebody and they'd say, oh yeah,
• 12:55
  they have somebody come out for you.
• 12:57
  And then and then he, and then the person that would come out, like
• 13:01
  literally just started, literally just finished their training.
• 13:04
  And I, I just don't think they had the experience to I don't
• 13:08
  think they had the experience.
• 13:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 13:12
  But it seems that, I mean, 'cause we went through this as well with
• 13:16
  Rowan, that we had a very experienced a, BA therapist, for example.
• 13:21
  But this person was not only unwilling to modify anything for R no matter
• 13:29
  as you, you know, you were talking about how distressed Cole was getting,
• 13:33
  you know, Rowan would literally try to climb through the wall.
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  And I remember thinking, wow, I'm a horse trainer.
• 13:40
  If I am in a ramp him with a horse, and the horse is trying to climb out over
• 13:44
  the fence to get away from me, I will at least change something that I'm doing.
• 13:49
  Because just from a purely selfish perspective, I could
• 13:52
  get killed in that situation.
• 13:54
  But that's such an extreme reaction that it's telling one loud and clear that
• 13:58
  something needs to change, something needs to be modified, something, you
• 14:00
  know, and I remember when we would suggest this, the, we would get a
• 14:07
  very aggressive pushback rather than.
• 14:10
  Well, okay.
• 14:10
  I dunno, your kid, you know, I'm not terribly experienced.
• 14:12
  What do you suggest?
• 14:13
  Or can we talk about this together?
• 14:15
  And there was no allowance of the family, the parent, the
• 14:21
  kid, to have any kind of voice.
• 14:24
  So that, I can imagine that, you know, some of these people coming out to you
• 14:27
  sure we're young and inexperienced they're also human beings with some common sense.
• 14:33
  What do you think was preventing them from just being able to exercise that
• 14:40
  compassion and common sense and just,
• 14:41
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 14:41
  I think that they were just trying to follow the protocol of what they
• 14:47
  were supposed to do and what they were learn, what, what they were taught.
• 14:50
  And I don't think they knew how I, I, I don't, yeah.
• 14:57
  To be honest, I, I think that a lot A, BCBA gets paid a lot of
• 15:02
  money compared to like some other things in the medical field.
• 15:05
  And I think a lot of people look at that and like, oh,
• 15:08
  well I can get trained quickly.
• 15:09
  It's like 10, $12 more per hour than what I would be able to make was
• 15:14
  with a different type of medical job.
• 15:18
  And I, and I honestly, I see that frequently just as a physician.
• 15:22
  So I'm not even sure the people that are.
• 15:25
  You know, coming in that profession are necessarily people that really
• 15:29
  have the heart for what they're doing.
• 15:32
  You know, I think it, it, it pays well, I mean, it does.
• 15:35
  It's a well paying job and they train you and it's a quick doesn't take
• 15:40
  as, I mean, I, again, I'm not trying to, I don't wanna, I don't wanna
• 15:46
  put down a BA at all because I know plenty of kids where it has totally
• 15:49
  helped them and they are, you know, fully functional now and independent.
• 15:53
  I'm, I'm not trying to, this, this is just my experience with it for about two
• 15:59
  and a half years that that's all I had.
• 16:01
  We had multiple people come because they could, I don't know, it
• 16:05
  was just not a great experience.
• 16:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:09
  Okay.
• 16:09
  So then he ends up on a feeding tube and he
• 16:12
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 16:12
  does not, he does not.
• 16:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Sorry, he ended up on as failure to thrive.
• 16:17
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 16:17
  He was, yep.
• 16:18
  He lost eight pounds at a, at five years of age.
• 16:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 16:22
  That's a lot at that age.
• 16:24
  Yeah.
• 16:25
  Yeah.
• 16:25
  And then you're headed, you're looking into, you're sort of looking down the
• 16:27
  barrel of a, of a feeding tube basically.
• 16:30
  Then you came out to new trails and I remember when we first met that two
• 16:39
  things really stood out, obviously, apart from the, you know, just how big of a.
• 16:47
  Struggle you were going through?
• 16:49
  One was, when I first met Cole was I remember thinking,
• 16:52
  wow, this is a tough cookie.
• 16:55
  This is somebody who, I dunno, I dunno if I can do anything here.
• 17:01
  And I remember being pretty upfront about that and just be like, I, I
• 17:05
  don't know, but let's give it a try.
• 17:07
  At least the environment will be different.
• 17:08
  This we know and that there'll be certain things that can happen with the horse.
• 17:12
  This we know.
• 17:15
  But I was rather worried that he would hand me my ass.
• 17:19
  And, uh, but the other thing which I remember you saying to me, and correct me
• 17:24
  if I'm wrong, was that you had actually been told, or at least advised not to
• 17:30
  give physical or to withhold physical affection from him if he didn't comply.
• 17:35
  I remember that being said, and I remember thinking,
• 17:42
  I can't compute why any sort of mental health professional for children
• 17:50
  would say something like that.
• 17:53
  And that, that brought me up short.
• 17:55
  Because I had also had these bad experiences, the, the same experiences
• 17:59
  as you with a, b, a and some other.
• 18:02
  Behavioral types of, of therapy.
• 18:04
  And at that point I remember thinking, ah,
• 18:08
  the paradigm needs to shift because it's as if people are saying the kids
• 18:13
  are naughty as if they're making some sort of decision here to be bad as
• 18:17
  if they can actually understand and follow top down instruction and are
• 18:21
  just somehow deciding not to, which means that the entire landscape is
• 18:27
  just being so completely misunderstood.
• 18:30
  Yeah.
• 18:31
  You know,
• 18:35
  and you know, I remember thinking, gosh, you know, if, if even a
• 18:42
  Navy physician can be kind of pushed into that corner a little bit,
• 18:50
  then it just shows the power of
• 18:54
  the influence that people can wield over people that are desperate.
• 19:01
  And that made me sad and it also made me angry and it made
• 19:06
  me determined to not give up.
• 19:10
  Can you give us in your words, like you were at trials for five days,
• 19:16
  I believe, and this was of course, a radically different environment.
• 19:19
  You'd had to take this very, very difficult.
• 19:23
  Human from Virginia to Texas.
• 19:26
  That's a, a long way and into the unknown.
• 19:32
  You arrive, there's a bunch of hippies, you know, with ponies in the fields.
• 19:36
  What were you, what are you, what were your impressions of those five days?
• 19:39
  I,
• 19:41
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 19:41
  I remember
• 19:43
  so this is what I vividly remember was first day, I think we talked at
• 19:51
  the, towards the end of the morning or something, and I remember that I
• 19:57
  was so overwhelmed by, and I started to well up with tears and, you know,
• 20:03
  and I was telling you that I was doing speech therapy and occupational
• 20:06
  therapy and special education.
• 20:07
  He was getting that at the school.
• 20:08
  And I'm doing brain balance and I'm, I'm going to the feeding clinic and
• 20:11
  I don't, in the brain balance stuff was not just two days a week there.
• 20:14
  It was also every day at home I had to do all these exercises and have them
• 20:17
  smell these different oils and have them listen to this certain vibration.
• 20:22
  I mean, I mean it was like my life was consumed by all of this.
• 20:26
  And you know, I just remember like you saying, it's okay to.
• 20:34
  Like, take, take a step back and reevaluate and
• 20:39
  maybe all this isn't needed.
• 20:41
  And there's a different way to sort of look at it.
• 20:44
  And then I remember also that first morning where we were, there was a
• 20:49
  swing set there and what's the name?
• 20:53
  Vonda I can't remember the girl's name.
• 20:55
  But she.
• 20:57
  He didn't wanna go on the swing set, and I didn't really know what
• 21:00
  movement method was at that point.
• 21:01
  And, and she was just trying to follow the child, right?
• 21:04
  And I'm like, Cole loves the swing set.
• 21:06
  Come on Cole.
• 21:07
  You would go on the swing.
• 21:08
  Come on here, take this swing.
• 21:09
  You know?
• 21:09
  Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be like, I didn't know what movement method was
• 21:13
  at this point where, and, and Vonda was just trying to follow him and
• 21:16
  f you know, and so I was like, no, no, he really likes to swing here.
• 21:20
  Come on, cope.
• 21:21
  And I put him on the swing, you know, and I, and then I realized
• 21:23
  like by the end of the week, I was like, oh gosh, Megan, you're stupid.
• 21:26
  You're doing the exact wrong thing.
• 21:28
  And then that same morning, and I still like, will post a video of this
• 21:33
  on social media when it comes up, but he went on the horse and, and the
• 21:39
  biggest smile like that you can imagine from cheek to cheek, and he laughed.
• 21:44
  And I mean, my God, I never, like, I hardly ever heard it.
• 21:48
  I hardly ever saw a smile.
• 21:50
  I hardly ever heard the laugh.
• 21:51
  I mean, he was just always like, it was just hell, like all the
• 21:55
  time and sadness, you know, you couldn't do any normal stuff.
• 21:59
  And, and I was just like, oh my gosh.
• 22:01
  Oh my, you know, we and I were like, and I, on the video,
• 22:03
  I'm like, look, he's smiling.
• 22:06
  Look, he's laughing.
• 22:07
  You know, like I was just like, you know, the mom voice
• 22:10
  like screaming loud like I do.
• 22:12
  And and I was just like, oh my gosh.
• 22:14
  And then the next day it was like the same thing.
• 22:16
  So we, we came in the morning for five days straight and it was
• 22:20
  like three hour sessions, I think.
• 22:22
  And so by the end of the second day.
• 22:25
  That session we called, we called home and canceled a BA.
• 22:30
  It was just like a clear, I, you know, I felt empowered by you saying, well, you
• 22:35
  know, it's okay to try and change it.
• 22:36
  Just because this isn't working doesn't mean there's not something else.
• 22:39
  Or maybe, you know, pull back on some of these things and
• 22:41
  just focus on this one thing.
• 22:42
  It doesn't have to be all this like 7,000 things that you're
• 22:46
  trying to do all the time.
• 22:47
  And and so I felt like empowered that, yeah, you know, I already was
• 22:52
  following my gut, but I was, I was so worried that if I wasn't doing all
• 22:56
  these treatments that, you know, are supposed to help that, then what if
• 23:01
  that, what if he wouldn't get somewhere?
• 23:03
  Because I stopped one of them because I felt like it wasn't working.
• 23:07
  So I just sort of needed somebody else to say that to me.
• 23:09
  And then, yeah, so we called home that afternoon and canceled a BA, which was
• 23:14
  like a big, that was a big decision to make after, you know, 'cause you felt
• 23:18
  like that's what you're just told over and over you know, to do a, BA to help
• 23:22
  with all the behavioral part of it.
• 23:24
  So, that was like the biggest things I remember from, from that from that week.
• 23:33
  Rupert Isaacson: And then what happened when you did go home?
• 23:36
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 23:36
  Well, funny enough, so when, when I, when I came home, the plan was, you know,
• 23:42
  always a plan, but the plan never happens.
• 23:44
  The plan was that we were gonna take him outta school come January, so
• 23:48
  we were gonna have him finish his, he was just starting first grade.
• 23:51
  He'd only been in it for like six weeks.
• 23:53
  And so I'm like, okay, this is gonna gimme some time.
• 23:56
  You know, I wanna prepare, I wanna find people to help me implement
• 24:00
  movement method and implement a movement method program here.
• 24:03
  And what happens, like, about a week and a half after we get back, he, I
• 24:08
  get a phone call from the school again, he bit a teacher and the teacher's
• 24:12
  pregnant because, you know, he didn't wanna go back into the classroom again.
• 24:16
  It was like a transition thing.
• 24:18
  And it was like mid-morning, I'm at work, I'm in the middle of seeing patients and
• 24:22
  you know, it's just like, you feel bad.
• 24:24
  And I'm like, I'm so sorry, you know, but at the same time it's like,
• 24:27
  enough is enough and I'm not gonna swear, but enough is effing enough.
• 24:33
  And I called my husband and I'm crying and I'm like, done.
• 24:39
  Done.
• 24:39
  Like, we can't do the same way.
• 24:40
  I can't, I can't get another phone call.
• 24:43
  I can't do this anymore.
• 24:44
  He's not okay there.
• 24:45
  This isn't okay.
• 24:46
  I'm gonna take him out.
• 24:47
  And my husband agreed with me and then all of a sudden.
• 24:51
  I take 'em out and there was no preparation.
• 24:54
  And then I call you and I'm flipping out and I'm like, this was like a Thursday.
• 24:59
  And I call Rupert and I'm like, and oh, then you're talking about, well, there's a
• 25:04
  whole books on unschooling, the schooling, and you could go to your favorite places
• 25:08
  like Florida and whatever, and teaching about the ocean and all this stuff.
• 25:12
  And I'm like, I didn't know you well enough then.
• 25:14
  But I was like, I'm gonna murder you ripper.
• 25:16
  I'm gonna murder you.
• 25:16
  I wanna plan, I wanna plan Now.
• 25:19
  I am a preparer.
• 25:20
  I'm Type A.
• 25:21
  Like I don't wanna hear about unschooling.
• 25:23
  I need to know, like, how do I figure out the curriculum?
• 25:26
  How do I blah, blah, blah.
• 25:28
  And I was like, freaking out.
• 25:29
  And your phone call was just like trying to get me to like
• 25:33
  totally get out of that mindset.
• 25:34
  And, and it was, you were all like, correct about all that.
• 25:37
  But it was very hard to just have this big open, oh, what the hell am I doing now?
• 25:44
  Like, oh my gosh, what am I doing now?
• 25:46
  Like, how, how am I gonna do this?
• 25:48
  You know?
• 25:49
  And also mind you, at the same time I had n newborn while they were
• 25:52
  like 12 months old twins taking care of and still working full time.
• 25:57
  So I mean, I was just like, I don't know how the hell I'm gonna do this.
• 26:02
  But that's pretty much what happened not long after I went to New Trails.
• 26:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Now you did have one secret weapon at home.
• 26:10
  You had a, a very important person who's still I.
• 26:15
  Very, very big in Cole's life.
• 26:18
  You had Cassie, right?
• 26:19
  You, you had a caregiver who was by happy accident, by chance, by
• 26:28
  God, whatever, but devoted when you had to pull Cole out of school.
• 26:36
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 26:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:37
  Rupert Isaacson: You presumably also, you didn't just ring me,
• 26:39
  you also sat down with Cassie.
• 26:41
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 26:41
  Yeah.
• 26:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Talk us through that conversation because both of you must
• 26:47
  have been thinking shit, you know, okay.
• 26:50
  What are we gonna do?
• 26:50
  This is sort of outside of both our experiences, but here it is.
• 26:54
  Alright.
• 26:55
  You know, talk, talk, talk us through a little bit that, that Well,
• 27:00
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 27:00
  I, I mean, I would say first she was very supportive and she was also, you know,
• 27:05
  she was also experiencing the same thing I was going through with him and seeing him,
• 27:10
  you know, it was just, it was very sad.
• 27:12
  It was very hard.
• 27:13
  And, you know, I think she just she stayed supportive, but that
• 27:16
  wasn't a hard thing at all.
• 27:18
  The harder part was, at that time, I was still very private about his diagnosis.
• 27:23
  Like, my family still didn't even know, because for me, I'm
• 27:27
  like, oh, I'm a smart doctor.
• 27:28
  You know, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna implement all these therapies.
• 27:31
  Certainly by this birthday, he's gonna be talking again.
• 27:34
  I kept, you know, not fix him in, you know, I'm gonna say that in quotes,
• 27:38
  but like, I'm gonna fix the issue.
• 27:40
  Like, I, I'm doing, I'm, I'm, I'm reading everything.
• 27:43
  I'm trying to, and I kept thinking, oh, we'll, surely buy six.
• 27:46
  Surely, honestly, surely buy three.
• 27:49
  Then every birthday that came, it was just Saturn and Saturn.
• 27:52
  So I didn't, I didn't really have the desire or I thought it would be a
• 27:59
  bad idea because if family found out from me advertising that I'm looking
• 28:03
  for, you know, someone, a homeschool assistant that's interested in
• 28:08
  being trained in movement method and stuff, that then they would find out.
• 28:11
  And I just wasn't ready to tell.
• 28:13
  I just wasn't ready to tell 'em yet.
• 28:15
  I was, you know, I, I am still a very private person, but this,
• 28:18
  all this has had to make me.
• 28:21
  Be very public.
• 28:22
  And that was a, that was a difficult transition.
• 28:25
  But now I realize like how alone I was then.
• 28:29
  And I have these moms that come out, you know, especially on sensory Saturdays.
• 28:32
  I, I spend a lot of time with the parents there while their
• 28:35
  kids are enjoying the event.
• 28:37
  And I'm just like, everything that they're saying, especially like the
• 28:40
  newly, you know, diagnosed kids with their moms and how lonely they feel
• 28:45
  and how so upsetting, you know, the best friend, their kids neurotypical.
• 28:49
  But, you know, we can't, we can't do anything together, you know, whatever.
• 28:52
  And I, I, I realize now how lonely that was and, you know, probably
• 28:59
  would've gone, maybe I wouldn't have felt so sad if, if I had opened up
• 29:04
  to a bigger support group, but that just wasn't, just wasn't on my radar.
• 29:09
  This is one of the
• 29:09
  Rupert Isaacson: big, this is one of the big issues and I think anyone
• 29:11
  who's working in our field because you and I are colleagues now knows
• 29:15
  this, which is the, the big kicker is loneliness as you say, and isolation.
• 29:19
  Because if you've got the kid who takes the shit in the supermarket
• 29:22
  while you're at, you know, standing in line it, that you can only do that
• 29:25
  so many times with everybody looking at you before you start not going to
• 29:28
  the supermarket if you can avoid it.
• 29:30
  And so it's, and you know, at most therapy places, the, the
• 29:36
  parents don't meet each other.
• 29:37
  So there, there isn't any possibility for community or connection.
• 29:42
  And the online community is okay, well, they're better than
• 29:45
  nothing, but it's not the same.
• 29:47
  So you,
• 29:50
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 29:50
  oh, may I interject there too also I did go to like a s like a support
• 29:57
  thing where like they were met at Panera and we, and I went one time
• 30:02
  Rupert Isaacson: we being your husband, right?
• 30:04
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 30:04
  Yes.
• 30:04
  We uhhuh and I felt we
• 30:05
  Rupert Isaacson: listeners he's Vietnamese.
• 30:07
  American.
• 30:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:08
  So his name we is from there.
• 30:10
  So if you're just wondering, you know, if that's an exotic sounding
• 30:14
  name, that's where it comes from.
• 30:15
  Okay.
• 30:15
  So you, you're at Panera and
• 30:17
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 30:17
  Yeah, we're at Panera.
• 30:18
  And then it was just like, as soon as they found out we were
• 30:21
  physicians, ah, I don't know.
• 30:24
  I just, you know, then there, there were medical questions being asked of
• 30:27
  me and all this, and, and then I was no longer there as the parent, right.
• 30:31
  I was there as, oh, well what do you, you know, what do you think about,
• 30:34
  they was not supportive at all.
• 30:35
  I never went back again, so, you know, so, I just I just felt even more
• 30:40
  violated from a privacy standpoint because now all these people in
• 30:44
  this particular area know that Dr.
• 30:45
  McGovern, whose office is right there her son's alter.
• 30:48
  I don't know.
• 30:48
  I mean, there's nothing wrong with it.
• 30:49
  I just, I just felt so private about it then.
• 30:52
  Well,
• 30:53
  Rupert Isaacson: as you say that, that that's, it's, it's all about timing.
• 30:55
  One, one is ready for, yeah.
• 30:57
  Ready for emotionally when one's ready for it and not before.
• 31:00
  What can you say?
• 31:01
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 31:01
  Yeah.
• 31:02
  Rupert Isaacson: You know, I hear you.
• 31:03
  So, okay, so you take the big step, you, you stop the a BA,
• 31:07
  you implement movement method.
• 31:09
  Presumably it's working or you wouldn't have kept going with it.
• 31:12
  Oh
• 31:13
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 31:13
  yeah.
• 31:13
  Rupert Isaacson: So what were the first things?
• 31:15
  'cause at this stage there's no horses involved, so listeners don't worry.
• 31:19
  Horses are gonna come into the picture and they're gonna come
• 31:22
  into the picture in a big way.
• 31:25
  But early on, you know, picture, this is suburban America, it's, it's a nice suburb
• 31:32
  and yes, sure the countryside isn't far away, but it's, this is not farm country.
• 31:36
  And so Megan, you are there and talk us through a little bit your, the issues
• 31:47
  you would have at home and talk us through a little bit what you did with
• 31:52
  Movement Method in those early stages.
• 31:55
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 31:55
  Okay.
• 31:57
  Well, so one of the first things that happened after that was that you
• 32:00
  sent Julia and Julian to me and they stayed in my house for three weeks.
• 32:04
  Yeah.
• 32:05
  And so they basically helped me set up, you know, they went to local places.
• 32:09
  They, they started it and started taking coal every morning to some nature area.
• 32:15
  I, I spent, you know, a good bit of money, like getting a membership at the
• 32:20
  Virginia Living Museum when, where I took you one time and he used to, you know,
• 32:24
  he doesn't go there as much anymore, but that used to be a very common spot.
• 32:27
  And you know, just money on, like, setting up the homeschooling stuff and what, what,
• 32:32
  what I needed to get and all of that.
• 32:34
  And that, that was very helpful.
• 32:37
  And then I just was trying to hire people sort of on the down low just
• 32:42
  because again, I didn't want it to be.
• 32:43
  Publicly advertised.
• 32:45
  And I went through a couple people, Cassie was sort of overseeing you know, what was
• 32:50
  going on and involved and, and knowing, you know, knowing what was going on.
• 32:55
  And so, you know, pretty much he'd have sessions every morning and
• 32:58
  that's still what he does to date.
• 32:59
  He has, he has sessions every morning pretty much from like, say eight to 12,
• 33:05
  where he's, you know, outside somewhere or, or you know, whatever, whatever it is.
• 33:09
  But his, his session is pretty much somewhere between eight and nine to to 12.
• 33:14
  And then when the horse got added in, then there was me in the
• 33:17
  afternoon, every afternoon after work.
• 33:20
  So it was like twice a day kind of thing.
• 33:22
  But,
• 33:22
  Rupert Isaacson: But what did you notice?
• 33:23
  What, what were the improvements with the movement method?
• 33:25
  Like why did you think, yeah, okay, this is working, I'm gonna stick with this.
• 33:29
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 33:29
  Well, I started number one, being able to actually realize that he
• 33:33
  knows things, like to academically measure what he knows, because there
• 33:38
  was none of that honestly going on in his special education classroom.
• 33:42
  Just 'cause I, again, I think they were, you know, there's hot what, six, seven
• 33:46
  kids with their own in individual IEPs and, just trying to put out fires all day.
• 33:51
  So I, I saw him like being able to, you know, I learned what
• 33:58
  he, what he likes with learning.
• 34:00
  For example, he loves puzzles.
• 34:03
  I knew that beforehand, but he loves Velcro.
• 34:06
  Like if you laminate answers and have Velcro dots and then you pick
• 34:11
  the answer, like you hold up two answers and then you let him pick
• 34:14
  the answer and put it on the thing.
• 34:16
  That's how I started knowing.
• 34:17
  Oh, he knows who that, that's Jacque Csau and not Theodore Roosevelt.
• 34:21
  You know, like for every subject.
• 34:23
  Also magnets.
• 34:24
  He loves magnets.
• 34:25
  So, you know, when it's that age, you know, first grade, they still
• 34:28
  have tons of those kinds of things.
• 34:30
  We used Oriental Trading Company.
• 34:32
  I still use them a lot.
• 34:34
  Not necessarily for schooling anymore, but that is a super cheap
• 34:38
  resource that has all those kinds of things and different ways to learn.
• 34:43
  But I, I started basically individualizing his curriculum.
• 34:47
  I do that every year now.
• 34:49
  Like it's just become that routine of my summer.
• 34:51
  I order everything that I wanna do in June, and then I, I go through it and
• 34:56
  then I have curriculum planning meetings until he starts again in September.
• 35:00
  So I started seeing him basically.
• 35:05
  Tell me that he knew stuff.
• 35:08
  Not, not necessarily verbally, the verbal part didn't come until the horse, but
• 35:13
  as far as like him not getting upset or the meltdowns all the time or all
• 35:18
  of that that started to calm down.
• 35:20
  And then again, academically, I started to be able to know that like
• 35:24
  he did know what I was asking him.
• 35:26
  He just couldn't verbally say it or did, couldn't do
• 35:30
  Rupert Isaacson: feel heard and seen.
• 35:32
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 35:32
  Say that again.
• 35:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you think he started to feel heard and seen?
• 35:35
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 35:35
  Yeah, I think so.
• 35:36
  I think definitely taking him out of that environment, the environment
• 35:39
  that he was not doing well in.
• 35:40
  Yes.
• 35:40
  I, I, I think so.
• 35:42
  And it was also helpful because, I mean, the eating thing was still going on, but
• 35:48
  it was, you know, starting to get better.
• 35:51
  But, you know, it wasn't like he was going all day without eating anymore.
• 35:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 35:55
  Yeah.
• 35:55
  And I remember when I made my first visit up to you it was not as severe as
• 36:00
  it had been in Texas, but it was still
• 36:02
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 36:02
  Yeah.
• 36:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Pretty extreme.
• 36:04
  You know, you have the pool, you have the pool in the backyard, and he was in
• 36:08
  it for hours at a time, maximum energy.
• 36:12
  And I remember looking at him and going, wow, that was the energy he
• 36:15
  was taking to a special ed classroom.
• 36:17
  You know, just Right.
• 36:18
  No way they'd have been able to handle that, like in the, with the
• 36:20
  best will in the world, you know?
• 36:21
  Right.
• 36:22
  But you know, being able to teach through that suddenly.
• 36:26
  That not being something you're fighting, that being something you can go with.
• 36:29
  The other thing I remember was when I was there, him disappearing into a
• 36:34
  neighbor's house across the street naked and just sort of wandering through.
• 36:38
  And you know that even though this is south of the Mason Dixon line, Virginia,
• 36:43
  you know, it's people are gun happy and property proud and all of that stuff.
• 36:51
  And it's so, it's, you know, listeners who are not American.
• 36:53
  It's, it's, it's dangerous.
• 36:54
  It's dangerous to enter other people's property oh
• 36:57
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 36:57
  yeah.
• 36:57
  Even
• 36:57
  Rupert Isaacson: sometimes as a kid.
• 36:59
  And it's equally, can be equally dangerous to go and retrieve them.
• 37:02
  Yeah.
• 37:03
  You know, and I remember you were still going through that, you know, but
• 37:06
  things were clearly better and Right.
• 37:09
  He was, you know, exhibiting, I remember, you know, you were really
• 37:12
  following his Thomas the tank engine obsession and beginning to teach him
• 37:16
  literacy through that and so on and
• 37:18
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 37:18
  Right, right.
• 37:19
  I remember thinking,
• 37:19
  Rupert Isaacson: thinking, wow, you know, she's really on it.
• 37:22
  But then you flummoxed me because then I was like, okay, well this is good.
• 37:26
  This is definitely, you know, 75% better than what we were seeing in Texas.
• 37:35
  But then you, you call me up and say, yeah, but Rupert,
• 37:37
  there's got to be horses.
• 37:39
  And I'm like, well, why?
• 37:41
  Because you know, this oxytocin and BDNF effect that we're talking about,
• 37:46
  you know, for neuroplasticity, you, you know, you can get this without horses.
• 37:49
  And remember, you know, most of the time with RO and I wasn't on the horse, you
• 37:52
  know, I was having to implement what's now called movement method at home.
• 37:57
  You know, so even if Rowan was really into the horse, you know, I still had
• 38:01
  to do all this stuff off the horse and, you know, you're not a horseman.
• 38:04
  So it's kind of irrelevant really, because, you know, we don't, there's
• 38:08
  no, there's no horse boy place in your neighborhood and okay, you could
• 38:13
  try some other therapeutic riding stuff, but chances are, you know, it
• 38:17
  won't necessarily be an environment where they'll allow him to be him.
• 38:23
  But you wouldn't take no for an answer.
• 38:26
  Why?
• 38:28
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 38:28
  Because I saw, I saw how he responded on the horse.
• 38:33
  That's why I saw how he I hadn't seen him like that with pretty much anything
• 38:37
  else except for Thomas the train.
• 38:39
  But that, that's why I just felt like this was my shot at potentially getting
• 38:48
  him to speak and I was gonna do whatever I needed to do to give him that shot.
• 38:57
  Rupert Isaacson: So listeners, I want you to put yourself in my shoes.
• 39:00
  My, me as Rupert right now.
• 39:01
  So, Megan, as you, you can imagine, is a, is a, is a strong
• 39:04
  personality and and, and, and, and somewhat of, of, of an achiever.
• 39:11
  And so I begin to get communication saying, yeah, but look, Rupert,
• 39:17
  I've gotta get a horse and I've gotta, you know, get this together.
• 39:20
  And I'm like, no, Meghan, you don't because
• 39:25
  you, you don't know from horses.
• 39:27
  And this is decades and decades and decades of experience needed, and
• 39:34
  particularly for this kind of work, you know, the stakes are so high and you know,
• 39:40
  no, it's gonna cost you, it's gonna cost you ridiculous money and you still won't
• 39:46
  know if you are because you have to set up your own show, you know, and you dunno
• 39:50
  how to, and you, you, you'll, you won't even know, you know, you won't know how
• 39:54
  to hire the right staff and you won't know if they're even doing the right job.
• 39:57
  And they'll, they'll walk all over you.
• 39:59
  'cause horsey people are like that and it's just not safe, you know?
• 40:04
  So, no, no, I'm sorry.
• 40:06
  We're gonna stick with movement method.
• 40:08
  And I remember several of these communications.
• 40:12
  What?
• 40:13
  And, and I was being pretty reasonable with that.
• 40:19
  I.
• 40:20
  And movement method is, you know, we, we, we've, we've had obviously, you
• 40:24
  know, a lot of success with that, with, with, with people who've never, you
• 40:28
  know, touched a horse, seen a horse.
• 40:30
  So again, the equine assisted side.
• 40:33
  And you know, I have great faith in your decision now with
• 40:35
  everything that's happened.
• 40:37
  But what was going on there was some, it was, it wasn't just what you'd observed.
• 40:40
  I think there must be something in your gut.
• 40:42
  What was going on in your gut that made Oh,
• 40:45
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 40:45
  my gut, my gut was telling me I needed to do this and 'cause I was
• 40:47
  Rupert Isaacson: giving you, because you knew that, what I was telling
• 40:49
  you when I was trying to talk you out of it, you knew that that was truth.
• 40:53
  You knew that that was you trying to look up your best interest.
• 40:56
  Right?
• 40:57
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 40:57
  Yeah.
• 40:57
  Yeah.
• 40:58
  But I mean, my perspective is, well, I, I can handle it.
• 41:01
  I, I can, I can do it.
• 41:03
  I will get the people, it's all the horse
• 41:05
  Rupert Isaacson: people chuckling as they drive listening to this.
• 41:08
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 41:08
  Right, right.
• 41:08
  I mean, I felt, I felt like I, I could do, I mean, I don't know, I've, I've,
• 41:12
  I've accomplished a lot in my life.
• 41:15
  I mean, I'm not gonna speak about myself here, but I, there was no
• 41:19
  reason that I couldn't do this when I've done other things.
• 41:22
  That, that was my bottom line.
• 41:24
  And if this is gonna make it so that my kid can talk or potentially become
• 41:28
  independent or potentially go to college one day, I mean, it, there
• 41:32
  was, it was not even a question.
• 41:34
  There was, there was no, there was no question.
• 41:36
  I wasn't, I never doubted my thought about that.
• 41:39
  I was following my gut instinct and I knew my ability to achieve,
• 41:44
  and that was the end of it.
• 41:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 41:47
  It, it's the only on
• 41:49
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 41:49
  my side of you're asking me like, what, what was I, yeah, yeah.
• 41:52
  Why was I still, that was my side of it, like how I was viewing it,
• 41:56
  Rupert Isaacson: because, you know, I was being absolutely upfront.
• 41:58
  I was like, it is gonna cost you more money than you can possibly imagine
• 42:04
  it's going because you know you are gonna have to learn from scratch.
• 42:09
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 42:09
  Right?
• 42:10
  Rupert Isaacson: And
• 42:12
  what happened was, listeners I was adamant that we weren't gonna do it.
• 42:17
  Because I was like, I, I can't put my name to that.
• 42:20
  You know, it, it, it is, it'll just go horribly wrong, you know?
• 42:23
  No, it's this, you've gotta remember, this is also a thousand
• 42:27
  miles away from where I live.
• 42:28
  It's not like it's just down the road and I can, you know, pop in and
• 42:31
  make sure everything's going okay.
• 42:34
  But what happened was, you talked me into it, Meghan and I still to this day,
• 42:43
  can't believe that I got talked into it.
• 42:45
  And then what?
• 42:46
  So what I said was, you know, all right, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna level with you.
• 42:50
  This is pretty much what it'll cost you if you do this.
• 42:53
  'cause you're gonna have to buy land.
• 42:54
  You're gonna have to, you know, you're gonna have to look at all that.
• 42:57
  Eventually I.
• 42:58
  Because you're gonna have to control the environment.
• 43:00
  You can't just, like, okay, you might start by boarding a horse
• 43:03
  somewhere, but you, you'll not be, you know, you won't find that those
• 43:05
  people are tolerant of your kid.
• 43:07
  And even if they are, they won't know how to create a safe environment for him.
• 43:11
  Right.
• 43:11
  They, they won't not run the tractor when he's around, or the leafblower or
• 43:15
  the chainsaw or the put up the dog or whatever, or, you know, let alone what
• 43:20
  other people are doing with horses.
• 43:22
  And him running into the arena, you know, naked and they're not gonna, they're
• 43:27
  not gonna be sympathetic, you know?
• 43:28
  Yeah.
• 43:29
  And then I thought, well, but if you do do this, the only way, the only way
• 43:33
  it can work is if the horse has been trained by us and it's, and not just
• 43:37
  trained by us, but has been with us for a long time, and we like, really, so
• 43:44
  I thought we actually have to give up one of our best horses for this a horse
• 43:48
  that I know can operate without us.
• 43:53
  And as anyone listening knows, and as you now know, Meghan, those
• 43:56
  horses are like gold, you know?
• 43:58
  Right.
• 43:58
  Don't let them go.
• 43:59
  I don't sell horses.
• 44:02
  You are the only person I've ever sold a horse to.
• 44:05
  I have donated some horses.
• 44:07
  I've, I've loaned some horses to be school master horses in other places, but, you
• 44:14
  know, taken back if I need to or, but I've never, ever sold a horse before and.
• 44:21
  I remember me and Ana going, you know, can we even, could we do without Hanya?
• 44:25
  This is the only horse that was cool enough, quiet enough to know that, you
• 44:30
  know, and well-trained enough in the collection to give the oxytocin effect
• 44:34
  for that brings speech, but okay.
• 44:39
  So we did it and against my better judgment, we did it.
• 44:43
  And can you talk us through what happened from when you first
• 44:49
  got Hanya to where you are now?
• 44:54
  Because the thing I want you guys to know, listeners, is that Megan
• 44:57
  is in no way my client, Megan, is in every way, my colleague.
• 45:03
  And we, we meet as equals on this.
• 45:05
  But as you can imagine, it was a steep learning curve.
• 45:08
  So, so take us through that steep learning curve, Megan.
• 45:12
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 45:12
  Okay, so she arrived April of 2018 and I've, I boarded her locally and hired
• 45:21
  a horse person, hired another like teacher home assistant type person and
• 45:29
  Rupert Isaacson: who we trained in our methods.
• 45:31
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 45:31
  Right, right.
• 45:32
  Sorry.
• 45:32
  And then we started taking him out every day.
• 45:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Not that it did any good.
• 45:37
  Sorry.
• 45:38
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 45:38
  What's that?
• 45:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Not what that it did any good.
• 45:40
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 45:40
  Yeah, right.
• 45:41
  Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
• 45:45
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• 45:50
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• 45:54
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• 45:56
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• 45:59
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• 46:02
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• 46:07
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• 46:10
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• 46:14
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• 46:37
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• 46:38
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• 46:40
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• 46:50
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• 46:53
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• 46:55
  world.
• 46:55
  Join us for the adventure.
• 46:56
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 46:56
  And we, and then we started taking him out every day and teaching him in the
• 47:02
  woods, hanging things up on the trees, like his schooling and everything.
• 47:06
  And I mean, just everything started to change.
• 47:09
  I still actually have all the notebooks for years probably.
• 47:14
  I have probably four years worth of notebooks.
• 47:17
  I would track everything he said at every session.
• 47:21
  And then if it was sessions where I wasn't there, like the morning
• 47:24
  sessions I would have my, the, the people working for me track it as well.
• 47:28
  So, I mean, I literally have the hardcore data of the words he was saying.
• 47:33
  And it went from, you know, 25 words in an hour on the horse
• 47:38
  to 50 to 200 to, you know, 400.
• 47:42
  It was, it was just, it was a clear, this was, this was it.
• 47:48
  This was making him become verbal.
• 47:51
  On top of that, I paid to have a sand arena built at that, placed
• 47:57
  with that we were boarding.
• 47:59
  And I really think that that is why he was able to walk on sand
• 48:04
  for the first time, like shortly.
• 48:07
  I think that was like within a, that was the same.
• 48:11
  Yeah, that was just a few months after he was riding Hanya.
• 48:14
  He could not, he loved the ocean, but you could never go to the beach.
• 48:18
  You could never, it didn't matter if he was standing on
• 48:21
  a towel, if he was on a chair.
• 48:22
  I mean, he would just flip out.
• 48:23
  You, you, your whole time would be ruined.
• 48:25
  There was no point in going, 'cause you'd either have to stay in the ocean
• 48:28
  the entire time, or you, you would just have to leave because you couldn't
• 48:32
  just sit there and relax on the beach.
• 48:34
  And it was one of my husband and i's, you know, favorite things to do.
• 48:38
  That's what we would do on vacations.
• 48:39
  And we, we had to stop going again, very isolating, you know, and very hard.
• 48:45
  But I really think the walking on Hanya, trotting cantering in the arena on the
• 48:51
  sand is what, what changed it because that she started riding her in May.
• 48:56
  And by September it was the twins second birthday, and they still
• 49:00
  had never been to the beach.
• 49:01
  I'm like, screw it.
• 49:02
  We're going to Virginia Beach.
• 49:03
  We're like, you know, 45 minutes from there.
• 49:05
  They're gonna see the ocean for the first time, even if it's a shit show.
• 49:08
  And he flips out, we're gonna be there for like 15 minutes and they're gonna see it.
• 49:13
  And it was that time we were, we were ready for just a complete awful
• 49:18
  whatever, but at least we had done it.
• 49:20
  And all of a sudden he just started running on the sand, sitting and
• 49:24
  letting the sand like go up in his bathing suit, letting the
• 49:27
  water, like it was unbelievable.
• 49:29
  I mean, I, I just couldn't believe it.
• 49:31
  Hurried up and grabbed my phone and I'm doing my mom screaming again.
• 49:34
  And it was just like, did this really just, is this happening right now?
• 49:38
  And then we were there for like three hours.
• 49:39
  It, it was unreal.
• 49:41
  But so verbally, the meltdowns started, started really going away.
• 49:46
  The academics were just improving and improving.
• 49:50
  And then the, the eating so I, I had doing, I did the feeding clinic from
• 49:57
  what, what would've been 25, 2000, I'm trying 2016 to maybe about 2018.
• 50:04
  Mohani came in in.
• 50:08
  I stopped it shortly after Mohani came because he's, he, I mean, it was unreal.
• 50:13
  He, his palate markedly changed.
• 50:17
  I was able to get so many different things in him.
• 50:20
  I also started working with Jonathan Tommy right.
• 50:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Just quickly for listeners, Jonathan Tommy's a, a
• 50:25
  very, very skilled nutritionist and also autism dad who we knew well in
• 50:31
  Austin, who had gotten some really great improvements with many children,
• 50:36
  including his son who'd been nonverbal.
• 50:38
  So if, if, if you are wanting to know more about his work Jonathan,
• 50:42
  Tommy, please do contact us.
• 50:45
  All right.
• 50:45
  So Megan, keep going.
• 50:47
  So,
• 50:49
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 50:49
  okay.
• 50:49
  So he started eating so much more, like the variety of things improved.
• 50:54
  He started to, I, I was able to make these pizzas.
• 50:58
  Like it was a frozen pizza that was gluten free, but then I could
• 51:02
  add like these different meats.
• 51:04
  I mean, I couldn't get meat in him for years.
• 51:06
  I, I was able to add meat to it and veggies to it, and
• 51:09
  I mean, I couldn't do that.
• 51:10
  I mean, he was so malnourished for a long time.
• 51:14
  But just like every, all of that, all like the whole picture.
• 51:19
  Started changing.
• 51:20
  I'm not saying that it was still not difficult.
• 51:23
  Obviously a huge amount of effort on, on my standpoint from, from many levels.
• 51:29
  But, and he, you know, there was still all the things like behaviors and things we
• 51:34
  were doing, but I'm just saying like big time stuff like academics, eating again,
• 51:39
  being able to go to the ocean and not have to stay in the ocean the entire time.
• 51:42
  Like those were, those were big things to us.
• 51:45
  And, and talking, talking,
• 51:48
  Rupert Isaacson: you know, when I was joking early and saying
• 51:50
  much, you know, much good.
• 51:51
  It did.
• 51:52
  What I meant was not the improvements that came with the
• 51:55
  horse, which were remarkable.
• 51:58
  But as you found out horsey people are tricky.
• 52:01
  Yeah,
• 52:02
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 52:02
  yeah.
• 52:02
  And
• 52:03
  Rupert Isaacson: finding the right people is difficult.
• 52:07
  Yeah.
• 52:07
  You know, and that's very, if you're coming not from a place of authority
• 52:12
  on horses and you're have to hire people who know more than you do.
• 52:17
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 52:17
  Right.
• 52:17
  Yeah.
• 52:18
  That was, that was rough.
• 52:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 52:20
  But you weathered it.
• 52:22
  Yeah.
• 52:22
  And you weathered it.
• 52:23
  Amazing.
• 52:23
  And something else, listeners, is those of you who know Horse Boy Method know
• 52:27
  that in order to get horses that are strong enough to ride with a kid in
• 52:32
  order to get horses that can collect.
• 52:35
  To give that oxytocin effect, you've got to put enormous amounts of muscle on them.
• 52:41
  So you need to know lunging, you need to know in hand work.
• 52:44
  And so I diligently, as did others,
• 52:51
  sort of insisted that Meghan, in addition to her full-time doctoring, mothering
• 53:00
  for other two children and all the rest of it, learned to do these things which
• 53:04
  is sort of quite advanced horsemanship.
• 53:07
  And and you did, you, you, yes.
• 53:10
  You, you went and what was so in interesting to me about about your,
• 53:16
  those early years with Hanya is I saw you, I mean, okay, she was a school must
• 53:21
  horse, but I saw you able to take on work that I often have trouble getting
• 53:30
  really seasoned horse people to do.
• 53:33
  And you just went for it and followed it to the letter.
• 53:37
  And so even though I was uneasy and I, I would then come back
• 53:42
  up on other visits and go, damn, this horse looks really good.
• 53:45
  You're really, you're really doing it.
• 53:47
  And I'd watch you lunging her and taking her through the in-hand patterns
• 53:52
  and the long reigning and being, you know, Megan, this is, you know, this is
• 53:56
  like someone who's been around horses.
• 53:59
  Or that it was, it was almost like you were downloading something.
• 54:03
  And then when I started teaching you how to ride, like from the, from
• 54:09
  the first day, I was like, are you sure you haven't done this before?
• 54:12
  You know, like, yeah,
• 54:13
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 54:13
  no,
• 54:15
  Rupert Isaacson: it was, you were, you, you were a natural.
• 54:17
  And I remember thinking, is there something, is there some other
• 54:19
  force moving through Meghan?
• 54:21
  Because it shouldn't, I mean, you remember I was saying, I was kinda like,
• 54:24
  it shouldn't be happening like this.
• 54:25
  It shouldn't be yet.
• 54:27
  It did.
• 54:28
  Okay.
• 54:28
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 54:28
  Right.
• 54:29
  Rupert Isaacson: So you persevered and you persevered then in a, in a live
• 54:35
  yard, but it in a boarding stable.
• 54:38
  What were the challenges of doing this in that situation?
• 54:42
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 54:42
  Well, you know, again, personalities.
• 54:44
  Like you said, for example, when we were first getting call on Hanya, like
• 54:48
  there, you know, you wouldn't wear ride.
• 54:50
  That was a joke to wear riding pants.
• 54:51
  But he actually wouldn't even put the shorts on.
• 54:54
  So we're like, you know what?
• 54:56
  Just let him wear his underwear.
• 54:57
  I mean, he's only, what, what would he have been in 2018?
• 55:00
  27?
• 55:01
  He was seven years old.
• 55:02
  I mean, how's it any different than wearing like a.
• 55:05
  The European bathing suits, whatever those are called.
• 55:07
  Or like a, or even like a, like when you're competing in a swim competition,
• 55:12
  you would wear those, I mean, what's Speedos the heck difference?
• 55:14
  He's seven.
• 55:14
  Yeah.
• 55:15
  Speedos.
• 55:16
  You know, but of course other families that were there, you
• 55:19
  know, had something to say.
• 55:20
  The, the person that I initially hired unfortunately was one, one
• 55:25
  of the one of the people that you would not wanna work with.
• 55:27
  And it became a very, like, manipulative, malignant situation.
• 55:32
  And I let her go.
• 55:35
  And then, you know, I, I've, I found people and I have steadily
• 55:40
  continued to find people.
• 55:41
  But one of the things like I learned prior to ever starting this was, you
• 55:45
  know, to be a good leader, you need to know how all of the, all of the jobs
• 55:50
  that are underneath you, you need to have, know how to be the secretary.
• 55:53
  You need to know how to be the phlebotomy.
• 55:55
  You need to know what they do.
• 55:56
  You need to know how to make it go round in case they're not there.
• 56:00
  And, that was, that was something like I learned early on with this.
• 56:05
  Like, you know, people can leave at any point in time.
• 56:09
  And initially I didn't have contracts for any, any of the employees.
• 56:13
  And then I got burned a few times and I was like, you know, I sent,
• 56:16
  I sent one girl out to Bianca to be, to be trained in Colorado.
• 56:21
  And she like had this like amazing time.
• 56:22
  And then like a month later she decided, oh yeah, I mean
• 56:26
  I paid for airfare training.
• 56:27
  I mean, it was a joke.
• 56:28
  I mean, it was just a joke.
• 56:29
  I was like, are you, are you kidding me right now?
• 56:31
  And that was when I finally changed to having contracts because you
• 56:35
  know, again, people find boyfriends, people move for reasons, parents
• 56:41
  become ill, you know, whatever, everybody has life circumstances.
• 56:43
  But, you know, I still needed to make this world go around every single day for Cole.
• 56:48
  And part of that was making sure the horse was trained every day, you know,
• 56:53
  staying strong being well care, you know, I, I had to learn all of that.
• 56:56
  Now, I might not know the 5 million ways, you know, how to make a horse
• 57:01
  do X, Y, and Z, but I can absolutely implement what you showed me.
• 57:06
  I can, you know, once I see it, I've got it and I know this.
• 57:10
  And when I bring new horse people on, I will say, Lee here knows
• 57:16
  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 57:17
  But I know that you need to be able to make the horse look like this.
• 57:20
  And then I demonstrate for them and I show them and, you know, so.
• 57:25
  Because again, even where I'm at now, at this level, I'm still not like a, an
• 57:30
  equestrian for 40 years or something.
• 57:32
  I, I'm, I'm not, and I fully will own that to any of the employees, you know.
• 57:38
  But again, I say, but I know what this niche is.
• 57:40
  I might not know what those words are.
• 57:42
  When you're talking about the, all the, I don't, I don't know a lot of
• 57:47
  like the other horse breed stuff or I, I don't know that, but I know this
• 57:50
  niche and I know this niche well, and the, at least the basics of what they
• 57:56
  need to do to maintain, to be strong for the child, strong so they don't
• 57:59
  get injured and, and you know, that's.
• 58:03
  That's that I'm, I'm happy to take opinions, I'm happy to, whatever,
• 58:07
  but at the end of the day, I'm gonna take all of your opinions
• 58:09
  and then make an educated decision.
• 58:12
  Because it is hard, you know, the every horse person, they all have, you know,
• 58:17
  the, the horse has some problem and you'll have six different people, including
• 58:21
  the vet, tell you something different.
• 58:23
  And it's like, you know, you just wanna stick a fork in your eye.
• 58:25
  Like, how can, how can you all think that there's six different things going wrong?
• 58:29
  And you're adamant that, you know, you know, I'm just like, alright.
• 58:33
  You know, and then you, you can't get upset if, like, I don't go
• 58:36
  with your opinion, you know, I'm, I'm doing the best that I can.
• 58:39
  And it's just, it is, it's a lot, it's a lot of personalities to deal with
• 58:43
  finding the right people that, you know, aren't gonna like, smack the shit outta
• 58:47
  your kid when they, you know, spit in their face or you know, have a meltdown
• 58:51
  or, you know, or that aren't gossiping.
• 58:55
  You know, I, yeah, it, it is that part that, you know,
• 59:00
  definitely that, that's a lot.
• 59:03
  But I am, I'm also in a, a different space now than before because I, I
• 59:08
  know a lot more and I also know what I'm willing to tolerate and what
• 59:11
  I'm not willing to tolerate before I had to tolerate whatever the hell
• 59:13
  I could get, just to keep it going.
• 59:15
  Because again, we've gotta remember that Cole is autistic and Cole is very much.
• 59:22
  Needs a routine.
• 59:23
  If he doesn't go to the horse that day, like there's a, you know, or he
• 59:27
  doesn't go out to the barn or whatever it, there's a melt, you know, there's a
• 59:30
  meltdown, there's, or there's a potential meltdown or, and then especially early
• 59:35
  on, if there was ever like a day that was potentially missed, I felt very panicky
• 59:38
  because I'm like, that's a day where, you know, he could have started talking
• 59:43
  even more, or that was a day missed in just making this early intervention,
• 59:48
  you know, like in the younger ages.
• 59:49
  So I was always just so, like we, I had, I would do anything to make it keep going.
• 59:55
  I, I would do anything because I saw what was happening and I'm like, like
• 59:58
  I can't, you know, whatever it takes, basically whatever personalities I have
• 1:00:03
  to deal with, despite sometimes feeling like I was going to just like, just, oh my
• 1:00:08
  gosh, how can I keep going on like this?
• 1:00:10
  I can't stand all this personality stuff, but I, I still, you know, you just
• 1:00:14
  gotta regroup and move forward with it.
• 1:00:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, most people are not easy.
• 1:00:20
  I wish it were otherwise.
• 1:00:21
  Luckily I would say that within the horse boy community luckily, luckily, luckily
• 1:00:25
  we have phenomenal people like you.
• 1:00:28
  But yeah, the vast majority of the horse world, it's it's pretty
• 1:00:32
  judgmental and pretty cutthroat.
• 1:00:33
  And so I was very worried, you know, that you were going to enter that
• 1:00:37
  world with such a vulnerable kid.
• 1:00:40
  And I.
• 1:00:41
  Everything at stake.
• 1:00:42
  Yeah, you did.
• 1:00:44
  And okay, so you then weathered those early years at the boarding
• 1:00:50
  barn, and then you decided to do something a little bit radical.
• 1:00:54
  Talk us through that.
• 1:00:57
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:00:57
  Well, I mean, truly those personalities are probably what pushed me to be
• 1:01:02
  like, okay, I clearly know that this is, I need to continue this.
• 1:01:06
  This is working, this is gonna make my son as independent as
• 1:01:10
  possible and verbal as possible.
• 1:01:12
  But I can't, I can't stay in this situation here.
• 1:01:14
  Like I would loathe going out there every day.
• 1:01:16
  I'm like, it's already hard enough to do and to deal with everything
• 1:01:21
  I have to deal with with him.
• 1:01:22
  I don't need to be able to, I don't need to go there and feel like stressed out the
• 1:01:27
  whole time and wondering if something's gonna happen with another person or
• 1:01:30
  they're gonna say something, you know, I, I don't, I just don't need that.
• 1:01:33
  I mean, it, it, this is hard enough and sad enough and everything enough.
• 1:01:39
  So I we started looking for land and you know, we were told,
• 1:01:45
  oh, there's no land near here.
• 1:01:47
  You're gonna have to go to Glosser, which is like 45 minutes away.
• 1:01:50
  It would just not be doable for any standpoint from me being
• 1:01:53
  able to, I just wanna, I just
• 1:01:54
  Rupert Isaacson: wanna interject there again for listeners where the,
• 1:01:56
  the bit of Virginia where Meghan lives close to Virginia Beach.
• 1:02:00
  So not being able to go to the beach, particularly in those humid hot
• 1:02:02
  summers must have been hell, but.
• 1:02:05
  It is tricky to find land there because it's a bunch of small, little peninsulas
• 1:02:10
  that and swamp land that sort of jut out into the Chesapeake Bay area.
• 1:02:14
  It's not the rolling horse country that you think of when you think of Virginia.
• 1:02:20
  So land is actually not that easy to come by.
• 1:02:22
  Okay.
• 1:02:22
  So off you go.
• 1:02:24
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:02:24
  Right, right.
• 1:02:25
  So, you know, we just, as soon as we started looking, everybody was
• 1:02:29
  again, being negative and I, and I just, I kept looking and then all
• 1:02:35
  of a sudden it, it it happened.
• 1:02:37
  Bianca actually came one when she was out one time, we looked at a couple problems.
• 1:02:41
  Beba,
• 1:02:42
  Rupert Isaacson: one of our mm-hmm.
• 1:02:43
  Best trainers and therapists.
• 1:02:44
  Yeah.
• 1:02:45
  Okay.
• 1:02:45
  Go.
• 1:02:45
  Yep.
• 1:02:46
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:02:46
  And that didn't end up being the place that we had found, but yeah,
• 1:02:49
  we've, we found a place that was just like a blank canvas to create.
• 1:02:51
  There was nothing on it, and it was like 17 and a half acres
• 1:02:55
  and lakes on either side of it.
• 1:02:57
  It was like, it's like a big rectangle and then there's lakes
• 1:02:59
  on either side pretty well hidden.
• 1:03:01
  You can't see anything from the main road or anything.
• 1:03:04
  And so we found it and then we, we bought it in August of 19.
• 1:03:11
  And then, then there was the transition of, you know, starting to
• 1:03:15
  build out there, which didn't happen until like end of January of 2020.
• 1:03:19
  And they, they, we paid to have a barn built, a covered
• 1:03:24
  arena and two, two paddocks.
• 1:03:28
  Built.
• 1:03:29
  And that was where we started.
• 1:03:31
  And that was a shit ton of money, of course, but again,
• 1:03:35
  long-term vision in mind.
• 1:03:37
  And then, you know, we went I'd also already been, had, had purchased Nron.
• 1:03:44
  You had gone and found Nron and took him back to Germany.
• 1:03:49
  And so I'd already started paying for Naron.
• 1:03:52
  And then with what you had going on, I guess with new trails and some of the
• 1:03:55
  horses were being dispersed in places.
• 1:03:58
  You had talked to me about Diego.
• 1:04:00
  Yeah.
• 1:04:00
  And you had mentioned about like, maybe, you know what I wanna, anyway,
• 1:04:05
  I decided, I know I still wanted to keep Nron and I would, I would
• 1:04:09
  take Diego as well because we, we couldn't have Hanya there by herself.
• 1:04:12
  Right.
• 1:04:13
  And thank God that, that, honestly, thank God that happened because we
• 1:04:17
  transitioned there April of 20 and.
• 1:04:21
  Naron wasn't, I don't remember when Naron came, but I think it
• 1:04:24
  was like May of 21 or June of 21.
• 1:04:26
  May of 21.
• 1:04:27
  So, I mean, what would we have even done if we didn't have, you know, and
• 1:04:31
  I was not of any interest in boarding any, I was getting away from public.
• 1:04:37
  There will never be a boarding facility at this place.
• 1:04:39
  Never you know, I, I don't, I don't want any parts of that.
• 1:04:43
  So that, that was not an option to me because I didn't wanna have to
• 1:04:45
  deal with any other personalities.
• 1:04:47
  I just wanted to deal with the stress I had for Cole, basically.
• 1:04:51
  So thank God that that happened because then we were able to transition there.
• 1:04:55
  And then Mahan and Diego were our horses there for a while.
• 1:04:59
  And then we started the nonprofit.
• 1:05:01
  So September of 20 we applied for nonprofit 5 0 1 C3, and we got
• 1:05:07
  approved that was during Covid.
• 1:05:10
  So that was interesting.
• 1:05:11
  And then to get the 5 0 1 C3 status, you know, you apply for that, but we didn't
• 1:05:15
  actually find out that for a year after.
• 1:05:18
  So technically, you know, as far as getting grants and support,
• 1:05:21
  I couldn't even really start doing that until September of 21.
• 1:05:25
  It literally took a whole year, I guess, because of Covid and
• 1:05:28
  delays in manpower and stuff that we found out after the fact.
• 1:05:32
  But,
• 1:05:34
  Rupert Isaacson: so then you suddenly find yourself with two good horses,
• 1:05:42
  one on the way, an environment that you can control out there in nature.
• 1:05:46
  Facilities put in and you can breathe to some degree a sigh of relief.
• 1:05:54
  Why do you then create a nonprofit and open this place up to the public?
• 1:06:03
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:06:03
  Well, I think that
• 1:06:08
  being a physician, it was very frustrating for me to go to the doctor again,
• 1:06:16
  no matter what specialist it was.
• 1:06:18
  And they had nothing else to tell me.
• 1:06:19
  You know, like there was no other suggestions when what
• 1:06:23
  I was doing was not working.
• 1:06:25
  And I just felt like this is unacceptable.
• 1:06:29
  Like, there, there, there are so many children diagnosed with
• 1:06:32
  autism now, like there, like you ha you need to know, you need to do
• 1:06:35
  more continual medical education.
• 1:06:36
  There needs to be, you know, you have to have more answers.
• 1:06:39
  And because I like didn't go to the the group kind of stuff, you know,
• 1:06:44
  I was basically relying on my doctor patient relationship to what are the
• 1:06:48
  other answers of what else can I do?
• 1:06:51
  And so there was always, you know, this.
• 1:06:56
  I mean, just being a physician, wanting, wanting to help people.
• 1:06:59
  And I'm just like, my gosh, I can like help all these other families
• 1:07:04
  that are in the same situation.
• 1:07:06
  And I mean, what, why wouldn't I?
• 1:07:09
  And well, for all the reasons you
• 1:07:11
  Rupert Isaacson: described for, for the, for the, for the fact that
• 1:07:15
  you're a private person for the, the fact that people can be Yeah, people
• 1:07:19
  can be, and you were so exhausted.
• 1:07:22
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:07:22
  But I just, I remember the hard I mean, I really was sad.
• 1:07:27
  I I really, it was a really hard time for a number of years.
• 1:07:31
  I mean, it's like mourning, mourning a death, you know, of what, what
• 1:07:35
  you thought your child was going to be and to be able to offer hope.
• 1:07:40
  Like, I mean, as you said, he is, he is a tough cookie.
• 1:07:42
  You weren't sure if you were ever able to really gonna make an impact.
• 1:07:46
  Like, you know, he is one of the more all along the spectrum children.
• 1:07:52
  And to be able to offer that hope to these other families.
• 1:07:56
  I mean, it, I didn't really think twice about it.
• 1:08:00
  I, I, I really didn't.
• 1:08:01
  And another thing that always made me feel sad was holidays.
• 1:08:06
  And I know that's made might be a little bit something different that we do
• 1:08:09
  at chats, but I really like holidays.
• 1:08:13
  Like I, I mean, as far as like, I, I, well, I like celebrating holidays.
• 1:08:17
  I like decorating for holidays.
• 1:08:19
  I mean, I, I, I love it.
• 1:08:20
  My attic is full of.
• 1:08:22
  The only thing in it is like everything for holidays and holidays were so sad.
• 1:08:27
  I mean, Christmas would come, you know, he is 2, 3, 4, 5, even now.
• 1:08:31
  He doesn't even like to open presents.
• 1:08:33
  Like if you have a bunch of presents in front of him, he might
• 1:08:35
  do one and then he is overwhelmed.
• 1:08:37
  But back when, you know, when you're like, oh, trying to make these great memories
• 1:08:41
  and so excited to offer them this great Christmas, I mean, it was just awful.
• 1:08:45
  He would just put his head down.
• 1:08:47
  He was so overwhelmed.
• 1:08:47
  He might even have a tantrum meltdown.
• 1:08:50
  It was just like, this is so sad.
• 1:08:51
  I mean, and going to see Santa and standing in a line for 45 minutes in
• 1:08:56
  a mall where everything's loud and, but you wanna get that Santa picture
• 1:09:00
  Rupert Isaacson: early, autism parents.
• 1:09:01
  It's like,
• 1:09:02
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:09:02
  you know.
• 1:09:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:09:05
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:09:05
  Yeah.
• 1:09:05
  I mean, it was just, it was just all those normal things I, I didn't
• 1:09:09
  really get to do with him and when I tried them was just heartbreaking.
• 1:09:13
  And it was very stressful and sad.
• 1:09:16
  And so, one of the things that we do most months of the year is our sensory
• 1:09:20
  holiday themed sensory Saturdays.
• 1:09:22
  So it's all out in nature.
• 1:09:24
  And we have the horses involved on most of them, and we have
• 1:09:28
  stations set up throughout the land.
• 1:09:31
  And if they're not interested in the station, they don't have to.
• 1:09:34
  But the stations are usually highly sensory things that are
• 1:09:38
  desired by autistic children.
• 1:09:40
  And crafts.
• 1:09:41
  You know, we have higher level autistic kids or teenagers that, or even
• 1:09:45
  young adults that come out and they, they like to do some of the crafts.
• 1:09:49
  I mean, some Nicole doesn't like to do crafts really at all, but some, some do.
• 1:09:54
  And we, we, we really, you know, obviously for like Santa Claus, Easter
• 1:09:59
  Bunny, we have them out there Halloween.
• 1:10:01
  They get to if they want to dress up, they, they can dress up.
• 1:10:04
  But it's, it's, you know, it's the right environment for them to be
• 1:10:07
  able to celebrate a holiday and the family gets to celebrate the holiday
• 1:10:11
  in the way that the child can.
• 1:10:13
  And for me, that, that is like, that was one of my saddest, saddest times.
• 1:10:18
  Every time there was a big holiday, like, you know, him just, it,
• 1:10:21
  it wasn't ever a, a nice memory.
• 1:10:24
  So I really liked that.
• 1:10:25
  I, I love that I offer that.
• 1:10:27
  Unfortunately today we had our Valentine's Day sensory Saturday, and
• 1:10:31
  they said the weather was gonna be pouring all day, so we canceled it.
• 1:10:34
  And then what happened?
• 1:10:35
  You know, it didn't, it's not even started pouring yet, but you
• 1:10:38
  know, I, I, I really enjoy that.
• 1:10:40
  I offer that.
• 1:10:41
  And then, yeah, just being able to offer the hope of your
• 1:10:45
  child being able to speak.
• 1:10:47
  I mean, what, what, I mean, I would do, I would've done anything.
• 1:10:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:10:56
  So yeah, you, you jumped ahead a little bit in the story
• 1:11:00
  because you used a, a name.
• 1:11:03
  A few moments ago you said, out here at chats we do this.
• 1:11:08
  At what point did you name your nonprofit, your center,
• 1:11:13
  and why did you call it chats?
• 1:11:17
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:11:17
  Well, actually, Cassie's mother Tracy, she's real creative and we were trying
• 1:11:22
  to come up with a name for the nonprofit when we put all the paperwork in.
• 1:11:26
  And chats stands for Kohl's Horse Autism therapy station.
• 1:11:32
  And, you know, trains are still super important to him.
• 1:11:34
  We have Thomas stuff like out all over the land, and I wanted to incorporate
• 1:11:39
  trains in it, you know, and then chats, because he first started chatting on the
• 1:11:43
  horse and, and then obviously putting in horse in the name, not autism in the
• 1:11:49
  name, so that people would potentially understand, you know, what we do there.
• 1:11:54
  So it is actually Tracy came up with that.
• 1:11:57
  We had like, lots of people trying to brainstorm, but yeah, that was a
• 1:12:01
  great, I, I was like, yep, that's it.
• 1:12:03
  That sounds perfect.
• 1:12:07
  Rupert Isaacson: So now here we are in 2025.
• 1:12:10
  You've mentioned one of the things that you do is you offer these
• 1:12:13
  wonderful holiday events and celebrations which in America there
• 1:12:18
  are many of them, so it's every.
• 1:12:19
  It's at least once a quarter, if not once every six weeks you're doing.
• 1:12:23
  But talk us through your, the, the program now at chats.
• 1:12:26
  What do you do?
• 1:12:27
  How do you do it?
• 1:12:28
  How do you organize it?
• 1:12:29
  How does it differ from the local therapeutic riding things around you?
• 1:12:35
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:12:35
  We offer play dates throughout the week, Monday through Friday, and we have a
• 1:12:40
  lot of regulars that come, like, you know, they come every Friday from 12
• 1:12:44
  to one or, you know, that kind of deal.
• 1:12:47
  But we're pretty steady Monday through Friday.
• 1:12:50
  And then on Tuesday and Thursdays we offer after school hours because of
• 1:12:53
  those are the two afternoons where I'm not there with Cole at the barn.
• 1:12:58
  But, and then Cole has his play dates with me in the afternoons and then in the
• 1:13:03
  mornings, oh, I, I didn't mention that.
• 1:13:06
  In the barn, we actually build a classroom, so he has his classroom
• 1:13:10
  there and we, you know, we still try to do stuff in the classroom
• 1:13:14
  and, and out, and there's a window.
• 1:13:16
  And of course, the horses are all, you know, in the stalls, you know,
• 1:13:21
  in the mornings getting trained, you know, getting ready to be trained or
• 1:13:24
  getting the Beamer blanket or whatever.
• 1:13:27
  So, yeah, so we offer private and group play dates.
• 1:13:31
  We also do summer camps, which that was like, like I think the two biggest things
• 1:13:36
  that like, I, I get super pumped about.
• 1:13:39
  Our camp and the holiday stuff, just 'cause that's just what I like.
• 1:13:44
  But I, my fondest memories of childhood were summer camp,
• 1:13:48
  church, camp, church, summer camp.
• 1:13:50
  But I did tons of cool things like climbing, rock climbing
• 1:13:54
  Seneca Rocks in West Virginia.
• 1:13:55
  I did that a couple times or you know, whatever.
• 1:13:57
  But, you know, you have great memories from going to camp.
• 1:14:00
  And when, again, another thing that I couldn't do with
• 1:14:04
  coal, there were no camps.
• 1:14:06
  You know, when I would go to look at summer camps, there
• 1:14:08
  were no camps around here.
• 1:14:09
  So for me to be able to offer, you know, horse boy camp here, I mean,
• 1:14:14
  I was just, I was all about it.
• 1:14:16
  And we're now going into our fifth summer I think of, of offering camp.
• 1:14:21
  So it's a week long camp in June, and then another one in July.
• 1:14:24
  And just this past summer, we were able to extend our hours.
• 1:14:28
  So we're now nine to 12, which was a big deal because it used
• 1:14:31
  to just be from, like, it used to just be like an hour long camp.
• 1:14:35
  But now we offer three hours and we have a lot of community support for that.
• 1:14:40
  But that's pretty much what we do in a nutshell.
• 1:14:43
  Sensory Saturday, we also offer trainings.
• 1:14:45
  Right.
• 1:14:46
  You know, to schools, to families, to, to caregivers.
• 1:14:49
  Any of that stuff will offer trainings to the community and movement method
• 1:14:53
  and horse boy method Lee does that.
• 1:14:57
  But I think that's, that's pretty much everything we do there.
• 1:15:01
  Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're
• 1:15:04
  considering a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
• 1:15:08
  taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
• 1:15:12
  Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
• 1:15:19
  Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
• 1:15:25
  developed in conjunction with Dr.
• 1:15:28
  Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
• 1:15:31
  We work in the saddle with younger children.
• 1:15:35
  Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
• 1:15:40
  It works incredibly well.
• 1:15:42
  It's now in about 40 countries.
• 1:15:44
  Check it out.
• 1:15:45
  If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
• 1:15:50
  method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
• 1:15:53
  applied in schools, in homes.
• 1:15:55
  If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
• 1:16:00
  at home that will create neuroplasticity.
• 1:16:03
  when they're not with you.
• 1:16:05
  Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
• 1:16:08
  If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
• 1:16:11
  really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
• 1:16:15
  in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
• 1:16:20
  So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
• 1:16:23
  also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
• 1:16:28
  And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
• 1:16:32
  am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
• 1:16:35
  need, as well as Serving my clients.
• 1:16:39
  Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
• 1:16:43
  absolutely gives you this.
• 1:16:45
  Well, I love the fact that you call them play dates rather than therapy.
• 1:16:49
  I've never yet met a kid that wanted therapy.
• 1:16:51
  I don't think there's a kid born that comes out of the mother's
• 1:16:54
  womb saying, oh, you know, I'd like to go for some therapy today.
• 1:16:56
  No kid wants that.
• 1:16:57
  Kids want to play.
• 1:16:58
  If, if we can make the play therapeutic without them noticing, well, great.
• 1:17:03
  But yeah, we shouldn't burden them with that.
• 1:17:05
  So I I I love that you, you do that.
• 1:17:07
  Talk to us.
• 1:17:08
  Okay.
• 1:17:09
  Talk to us about what happens at a horse boy camp.
• 1:17:13
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:17:13
  We have different themes.
• 1:17:16
  Like each day we'll have a theme.
• 1:17:18
  Like I plan it out ahead of time and we'll, we'll typically,
• 1:17:21
  like, have play, water play we'll have like a water play area.
• 1:17:26
  We'll have a sensory play area.
• 1:17:29
  We might have a themed.
• 1:17:30
  Like we do insects that day, or we'll, or Scooby-Doo stuff, but it's
• 1:17:36
  all like fun, fun kind of stuff.
• 1:17:38
  And then we have like the the riding part.
• 1:17:41
  So we, we typically will have I have six kids per camp, so again, it's not
• 1:17:46
  like I have 30 kids, but I need three kids, three people per kid basically.
• 1:17:53
  So that's a lot of volunteers to come up with.
• 1:17:55
  And they all get to go to
• 1:17:56
  Rupert Isaacson: camp too.
• 1:17:57
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:17:57
  They, right, right.
• 1:17:59
  And, and it's great.
• 1:18:00
  Oh my gosh.
• 1:18:01
  We have, like last year we did youth Volunteer Corps, which is a national
• 1:18:05
  group, and then they have local chapters.
• 1:18:07
  Our local chapter actually won the national award for the best youth
• 1:18:11
  volunteer group, core group or whatever.
• 1:18:13
  And they partnered with us in the June camp.
• 1:18:16
  So, I mean, it was phenomenal.
• 1:18:18
  We had a steady set of three like teenagers per child the whole week.
• 1:18:24
  There was no changing, you know, 'cause normally, like, you know,
• 1:18:26
  I have volunteers that can come Monday and Tuesday, but they
• 1:18:28
  can't come Wednesday and Thursday.
• 1:18:29
  And then you change the volunteer and then the kid, you know, re resets potentially.
• 1:18:34
  So, it was, it was a great experience for them.
• 1:18:36
  I mean, some of them were crying at the end of it.
• 1:18:38
  Some of 'em were, you know, just eyes opened because.
• 1:18:42
  And I think just less judgmental or less likely to bully or any of that, you know,
• 1:18:49
  it's just a great experience, but we'll sort of like divide the morning depending
• 1:18:53
  on if there's all six kids or not.
• 1:18:54
  But like the first part, half the kids are on the horses also depends on many
• 1:18:59
  horses we have that are functioning.
• 1:19:01
  You know, if one of them's lame or something, but say like the first hour,
• 1:19:05
  you know, three of the kids are on horses and they're in the back of the
• 1:19:08
  land where we have the outdoor sensory classroom and the sensory pond and the,
• 1:19:12
  all of this, you know, all that stuff.
• 1:19:13
  And the other three kids are up playing in the sand in the arena or the water play.
• 1:19:18
  We have tons of different water play things that we set up that are like
• 1:19:22
  rainbow sprinkler things or the slip and slides or, you know, any of that.
• 1:19:26
  And then we have themed activities when we're back there.
• 1:19:30
  So we might have.
• 1:19:32
  I'm just Scooby dos on my mind right now for some reason.
• 1:19:35
  But I might have Scooby do stuff in the trees and you know, whatever, and
• 1:19:39
  then they go and find it, or we have a mailbox on site, you know, and on
• 1:19:43
  the last day they always get a letter from the horse saying how much that
• 1:19:47
  Hanya loved to be with them this week.
• 1:19:50
  And do you wanna go play red light, green light?
• 1:19:53
  And then, you know, we'll pull out the red light, green light
• 1:19:54
  and have them race on the horse.
• 1:19:56
  But, you know, just activities like that.
• 1:19:58
  And then, and then when it's been about an hour, then they come back
• 1:20:02
  up and then the kids switch and, you know, we try to prevent any
• 1:20:06
  type of meltdown with the change.
• 1:20:08
  So we sort of maybe might entice them with something else that
• 1:20:11
  we know that they really like.
• 1:20:13
  So in case they're like, not too much wanting to get off
• 1:20:15
  the horse so that we prevent.
• 1:20:17
  But I mean, the, the, the kids have an amazing time and I can't tell you how
• 1:20:22
  many like emails or text messages I've gotten from the moms in particular.
• 1:20:27
  Like, thank you so much for giving my child this opportunity to go
• 1:20:32
  to camp and to see him happy.
• 1:20:34
  And, you know, just all the, the same things that I've, I felt when I
• 1:20:38
  was given the opportunities and saw my kid, you know, be happy or say
• 1:20:44
  something or, you know, whatever.
• 1:20:46
  So, I know it's a good thing and I know it's a needed thing for sure.
• 1:20:50
  Here in the area.
• 1:20:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Talk to us about what's on your land.
• 1:20:54
  So you've mentioned you know, sensory players and outdoor classroom.
• 1:20:57
  You've got, you've done over the years, all sorts of cool
• 1:21:00
  things out in those woods.
• 1:21:01
  Talk us through the track.
• 1:21:03
  You know, so, so you, you have to imagine listeners that when you arrive
• 1:21:07
  at chats, you're not just sort of going into an in indoor arena and that's it.
• 1:21:12
  There, there is a cover but I would say that occupies the least part of your land.
• 1:21:17
  And the least part of what the kids, what's on offer for the, for the,
• 1:21:22
  for the people Take us on a tour,
• 1:21:27
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:21:27
  right?
• 1:21:27
  So, yeah, the arena, we don't, I mean, we're mostly out on the land.
• 1:21:32
  The kids like the arena most because of the sand, you know, and to
• 1:21:35
  play in the sand for the ones that like sand most don't in the arena.
• 1:21:40
  So we have swings all over.
• 1:21:43
  The property, all different kinds of swings.
• 1:21:46
  We have a tree house that we built.
• 1:21:49
  We have an obstacle course that has like a shake, shake bridge, and then
• 1:21:52
  it leads up into a tree that happened to fallen over, but it still lives.
• 1:21:57
  And it's like this way.
• 1:21:59
  So the kid, the shake, shake, bridge, then connects and you climb up the
• 1:22:02
  tree, and then we put a slide that goes down from the tree and all
• 1:22:05
  these different types of swings.
• 1:22:06
  There's two different zip lines.
• 1:22:07
  Brian who worked for me for over three years and was instrumental in Kohl's
• 1:22:13
  progress he loved to do this kind of stuff, so he, he built most of this.
• 1:22:18
  He built like a tree house platform kind of thing in the back of the
• 1:22:22
  woods near the sensory classroom.
• 1:22:25
  It's so cool.
• 1:22:26
  And there's a huge zip line that comes off of that.
• 1:22:28
  And then you can also just sit up there and just lay back and you're
• 1:22:31
  just looking up in the trees.
• 1:22:33
  We have a a beautiful swing that's up on a, like the only high part on the land.
• 1:22:38
  And it's also just there's trees around when you look up, it's just,
• 1:22:43
  you just, just seeing beautiful branches and the, the big lake is right
• 1:22:48
  over there, so it's super peaceful.
• 1:22:51
  We have a circular compass clock that Brian made.
• 1:22:56
  So they're basically just old trees that fell down and then
• 1:22:59
  he made posts going in a circle, and then he put like the numbers.
• 1:23:04
  To make a clock.
• 1:23:06
  And then he put north, southeast, west signs on there.
• 1:23:09
  And then like, so we can go in that circle with the horse and you know,
• 1:23:13
  teach them clockwise, counterclockwise, oh, we're going west on the land.
• 1:23:18
  You know, Mathway Drive is going back south on the land.
• 1:23:22
  All the trails we have named, we have trail signs up.
• 1:23:25
  A lot of them are Thomas Island of Soor, Thomas, the train,
• 1:23:28
  different types of names.
• 1:23:30
  Some of them are nature kind of names.
• 1:23:32
  We have bird houses all over.
• 1:23:35
  We have Leprechaun Way because I'm Irish and I freaking like leprechauns.
• 1:23:39
  So we have leprechaun houses which leads me to St.
• 1:23:41
  Patrick's Day.
• 1:23:42
  Better not freaking rain because that's a big one.
• 1:23:45
  We, that's usually our most attended one.
• 1:23:46
  And I literally let them do leprechaun hunts.
• 1:23:49
  Like I hide a leprechaun and a pot of gold in a tree that has like a
• 1:23:53
  little opening and I buy from Amazon.
• 1:23:56
  They're real.
• 1:23:57
  Pretend that they're real.
• 1:23:58
  I buy footprints of leprechauns and then the kids, we take 'em on a, the
• 1:24:02
  tractor, we pull them and then they go off running and then they find the pot of
• 1:24:07
  gold and then they get a, like a goodie bag with all kind of sensory stuff in it.
• 1:24:10
  But that's one of the funnest things.
• 1:24:12
  But I have those leprechaun houses there all the way.
• 1:24:14
  And those kids freaking love, like getting off the horse and opening
• 1:24:17
  up the little doors and wondering if something's gonna come out.
• 1:24:20
  We have a ob, we have like obstacle courses for the horses
• 1:24:24
  as well, back through the woods.
• 1:24:26
  We have a bridge that a Boy Scout group built for us a couple years ago.
• 1:24:32
  They camped out and it was like a project for them and they
• 1:24:34
  camped out over the weekend.
• 1:24:35
  And the bridge is really awesome.
• 1:24:37
  We have sensory walkways that the Youth Frontier Corps built for us.
• 1:24:41
  We also have these sensory they're made from like old roofing pallets and we have
• 1:24:47
  a whole trail of those where you can walk the horse through the trail and they're
• 1:24:50
  on either side so the kid can like, touch them while they're up on the horse
• 1:24:54
  and, you know, all different textures or sounds you can bang or things like that.
• 1:25:01
  Told you about the mailbox, they like to ride up that's also on
• 1:25:04
  a little hill and they can ride up and get stuff out of there.
• 1:25:07
  That's, that's it's really, it's really nature, natural, you know,
• 1:25:12
  I don't, over the years, like, you know, I got a, a new shed kind of
• 1:25:17
  thing to put the tractor in and then I got another shed to put the a TV in.
• 1:25:22
  And so there's a couple like grayish colored sheds that are
• 1:25:25
  up near the front, but otherwise there's like, it's all just natural.
• 1:25:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's one of the things I love most about it.
• 1:25:32
  When you go to your place, you, you, you see the fields where the horses are out.
• 1:25:36
  And also for listeners I.
• 1:25:38
  Although there's a barn with stables and stalls the horses live out and just
• 1:25:42
  sort of come in to be fed and to be made ready for the arrival of the kids.
• 1:25:47
  But otherwise, they're having a lovely time out in nice pastures.
• 1:25:53
  But what one sees of course is that, you know, grass then rolling out
• 1:25:57
  to those woods and then you get in those woods and it's like a magic
• 1:26:00
  kingdom that you've, you've built.
• 1:26:02
  And I, I do wish that one saw more of that, you know, rather than
• 1:26:07
  like, this is the sensory trail.
• 1:26:08
  It's like no, no, the entire forest is the sensory sensory trail.
• 1:26:12
  Yeah.
• 1:26:12
  Right.
• 1:26:12
  And you could, you could go in there a hundred times and not exhaust it.
• 1:26:17
  You, you mentioned somebody called Brian who built a lot of that stuff and
• 1:26:22
  I was lucky enough to, to meet Brian and do and train him in some of the
• 1:26:26
  things, but where Brian, Brian was, you know, rather an exceptional find.
• 1:26:31
  And I think it's worth talking about him because when people are looking
• 1:26:35
  for help for their kids there are specific qualities one's looking
• 1:26:39
  for and one doesn't always find them, but then occasionally you do.
• 1:26:42
  So we talked about Cassie, for example, who is still with Cole and
• 1:26:45
  who's incredible implements movement method with him, but is also just,
• 1:26:49
  you know, such an emotional support and you know, educator as well.
• 1:26:54
  So Brian, just talk to us a bit about Brian.
• 1:26:58
  Who he, who he wa I know he's, he's moved to North Carolina now, but who
• 1:27:02
  he was, what his skills were and how that helped Cole, because I think
• 1:27:09
  there's insights there for parents and, and people running programs.
• 1:27:12
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:27:12
  So there's a lot of insight to be had with this because Brian came to me
• 1:27:16
  right when Covid happened and none of the kids were going back to school.
• 1:27:20
  And I had two or three, I had two people working for me.
• 1:27:26
  One of them had been with Cole for I think about three years.
• 1:27:29
  And the other one had only been with Cole for about a year.
• 1:27:33
  And, you know, you always think that, oh, well, you know, this person has
• 1:27:37
  a master's in special education, or they have all this experience
• 1:27:41
  and all the, you know, all this.
• 1:27:42
  And I tell you, that was one of the worst fits I ever had like fit
• 1:27:46
  between like an educator and coal that I had the whole time I did it.
• 1:27:51
  And yet, you know, on paper you think that's what you should do and
• 1:27:55
  you paid way more for that person.
• 1:27:56
  And I mean, it was totally not the right fit.
• 1:28:00
  And then as, as it would go, as the phases happen where, you know, you're
• 1:28:05
  steady and then all of a sudden somebody leaves, you know, hi, here
• 1:28:08
  I am going into that school year and these, these people stopped working one
• 1:28:14
  because they had to oversee their kid.
• 1:28:16
  You know, they're just so, I just have to, okay, I fill in again
• 1:28:19
  and I, I do everything that I can till I can find somebody.
• 1:28:23
  And then I put the, the job out on Indeed.
• 1:28:26
  And I don't know if Indeed is in Europe or I think it might be
• 1:28:31
  though, but it's a very good job.
• 1:28:33
  Very good way to find people.
• 1:28:35
  I only found that a couple years ago, but I struggled up until then to find
• 1:28:39
  good candidates, but I consistently find good candidates from there.
• 1:28:43
  But Brian applied to Indeed, and when I first spoke with Brian
• 1:28:47
  on the phone I could tell it was just a little bit different.
• 1:28:49
  Like when I would talk, there'd be a longer pause to wait to hear from
• 1:28:53
  what, like, what his answer was.
• 1:28:55
  Or sometimes the words would be drawn out a little longer or, you know, it just
• 1:28:59
  wasn't like your normal, like, you know, you and I going back and forth right now.
• 1:29:03
  And part of that could have been just nerves on the phone and
• 1:29:05
  with him being autistic as well.
• 1:29:07
  I, you know, I don't really know, but I definitely could tell something was
• 1:29:10
  different when we first interviewed.
• 1:29:12
  And then he came out and I was I remember cry, you know, all these
• 1:29:16
  tears that I've shed over the years.
• 1:29:18
  I could make an ocean, but he he came out like, and then I always have them come
• 1:29:23
  out and meet me with Cole out at the barn.
• 1:29:25
  And I.
• 1:29:26
  Cole was not having a good morning, and Cole had a meltdown right in front of
• 1:29:29
  him, and he's, you know, doing his crying and coming in and I'm like, oh my gosh.
• 1:29:35
  Oh my gosh.
• 1:29:35
  He's not, he's not gonna come back.
• 1:29:37
  He's not.
• 1:29:38
  This is, oh my gosh, I was so upset.
• 1:29:40
  And Lee was there, Lee happened to be there, and I just looked
• 1:29:43
  at her and my eyes were rolling.
• 1:29:44
  I'm like, oh my God, this isn't going good.
• 1:29:46
  He's gonna leave.
• 1:29:47
  And I mean, he was so unfazed by it.
• 1:29:51
  He was like, it was like, it, like it didn't even affect him.
• 1:29:57
  Like it didn't, like, he was like, whatever.
• 1:30:00
  I, meanwhile, like all, all of our neurotypical cells are like,
• 1:30:02
  oh my God, I can't do this.
• 1:30:05
  And I mean, it didn't phase him at all.
• 1:30:06
  And he was like, oh, it's fine.
• 1:30:08
  Next time he'll be fine.
• 1:30:09
  And I was just like, oh, okay.
• 1:30:11
  And then, you know, he totally still wanted the job.
• 1:30:14
  And then, you know, turns out he is on the spectrum, very high functioning.
• 1:30:18
  He's a swim coach.
• 1:30:20
  He an equestrian, he like, was like all the, all the bot he loves to teach.
• 1:30:26
  He like all the, all the boxes you're looking for.
• 1:30:29
  It was, it was just unbelievable.
• 1:30:31
  And he became like Cole's just person, I, I mean outside of Cassie.
• 1:30:36
  He, it, Brian was able to like academically help him so much
• 1:30:42
  and just was never phased by.
• 1:30:45
  His behavior, you know?
• 1:30:47
  And I had just this different understanding of his mind because, you
• 1:30:51
  know, he's on the spectrum too, you know, stuff that we wouldn't, we, we couldn't
• 1:30:57
  understand or that I didn't understand or, you know, it just, he was always it
• 1:31:04
  was all just this kind of calm with him.
• 1:31:06
  And when he and I would teach together, I mean, it was easy.
• 1:31:09
  It was just so easy.
• 1:31:10
  We'd just go back and forth.
• 1:31:11
  And he got called to learn how to ride independently.
• 1:31:14
  Hanya he, I mean, I, I could just go on and on.
• 1:31:18
  He's the one that finally got Cole to be able to ride his bike independently.
• 1:31:24
  I, I don't know.
• 1:31:25
  I mean, last summer.
• 1:31:27
  Summer, yeah.
• 1:31:28
  I remember being before he left,
• 1:31:29
  Rupert Isaacson: blown away with you sending me pictures
• 1:31:33
  of Cole jumping, Diego jumping.
• 1:31:37
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:31:37
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:31:38
  You know,
• 1:31:39
  Rupert Isaacson: I remember you sending me those and me just going, shit.
• 1:31:43
  That's right.
• 1:31:44
  Mind blowing academically.
• 1:31:48
  Where did he get Cole and how did he get him there?
• 1:31:52
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:31:52
  Oh, I mean, he, well, just doing the same, you know, things that I was telling you.
• 1:31:59
  Cassie very much has been like, you know, I'll, I'll review everything,
• 1:32:03
  come up with ideas, and then she very much helps in with them.
• 1:32:06
  But she's the one laminating all these.
• 1:32:10
  Okay.
• 1:32:11
  So, she would make all the laminated things with the Velcro
• 1:32:16
  and all kinds of other things too.
• 1:32:18
  But Brian would Brian was able to really get him far.
• 1:32:22
  I don't, I don't even know like how to say specific examples, but
• 1:32:26
  what I do know is he would send me videos pretty much on a daily basis
• 1:32:29
  of what he was doing with Cole.
• 1:32:31
  He also got him very independent, got him to be able to his feed himself, his
• 1:32:35
  peanut butter pretzels, which is like his mid-morning snack, and then close
• 1:32:38
  up his stuff and put it back in his bag.
• 1:32:40
  And, you know, I, I was just always so used to feeding him because he wouldn't
• 1:32:44
  eat or, you know, carrying all this stuff because he wouldn't carry it.
• 1:32:47
  And Brian sort of was like, you can carry this dude.
• 1:32:49
  You're like 12, you know, 10, 11, 12, 13.
• 1:32:52
  Like, you know, it's good to have a outside person to look in and, and hey,
• 1:32:59
  well maybe we can pull back on that now, because, you know, you get so used
• 1:33:03
  to being the caregiver mode that you don't realize that sometimes you're
• 1:33:08
  making it worse instead of trying to get it more independent by still doing
• 1:33:12
  something that you had to do before, but maybe you don't have to now.
• 1:33:15
  So it was good to have like that outside perspective of that
• 1:33:18
  was some of the stuff for Cole.
• 1:33:21
  But just on so many levels.
• 1:33:23
  Oh, Cole started to, I mean, this has, this isn't necessarily.
• 1:33:27
  Movement method.
• 1:33:29
  But Cole started to love roller coasters.
• 1:33:32
  He wouldn't for a long time, like you'd take him to the amusement park and
• 1:33:37
  the thing that pulls down over you.
• 1:33:39
  He wouldn't, it would just be too, like, that would make him panicky,
• 1:33:42
  anxious that he couldn't get out.
• 1:33:44
  So he didn't do it.
• 1:33:45
  And then maybe like two years ago now Brian happens to live rollercoaster.
• 1:33:49
  So now like coal rides, anything, like any, anything that flips,
• 1:33:53
  turns goes upside down, like all the crazy stuff, he's all about it.
• 1:33:58
  But it was, it was just nice to have a person who, who enjoyed that stuff
• 1:34:03
  too, and like, loved to go too.
• 1:34:05
  And then I didn't have to vomit after going off the ride, you know what I mean?
• 1:34:09
  Like, yeah.
• 1:34:10
  It was, it was just really nice to, and he loved the ocean.
• 1:34:13
  So like literally this past summer, every Tuesday we took co to the ocean
• 1:34:17
  so he could swim in the ocean and, and Brian would go out with him.
• 1:34:20
  And, you know, we started taking coal to the pool during the year,
• 1:34:25
  during the winter months because our pool closes and then coal goes
• 1:34:28
  nuts without going in the water.
• 1:34:29
  So Brian, Brian took him to the local Aex and.
• 1:34:35
  Got him independent and like dressing himself, drying himself
• 1:34:39
  off, knocking on the door before he went in to, to the changing room.
• 1:34:43
  I mean, I've never had Cole knock on a door.
• 1:34:45
  You know, I'm just, I lead him on my, every time I'm with Cole out
• 1:34:48
  in a public setting, I'm like, how quickly can I get through this?
• 1:34:51
  Because what's he gonna do?
• 1:34:52
  You know?
• 1:34:52
  'cause he, you know, where Brian, you know, in that setting, Brian has the time.
• 1:34:56
  He's got nothing but the, the three and a half, four hours.
• 1:35:00
  Hey, we, we got, we got all the time.
• 1:35:02
  You know, I'm feeling like doing, you know what I mean?
• 1:35:04
  Like, it's not like call I, I have to hurry up and put clothes on call
• 1:35:09
  because we need to get somewhere.
• 1:35:11
  You know?
• 1:35:11
  We can, Brian can sit there.
• 1:35:13
  No, no.
• 1:35:13
  Put it, put it, put it there.
• 1:35:15
  You know.
• 1:35:17
  Anyway, it just just really helped a lot.
• 1:35:19
  Rupert Isaacson: I think.
• 1:35:20
  I think, I think that in so many, one of the things which doesn't often occur is if
• 1:35:24
  one's running something around autism or indeed around any neurodivergent thing is
• 1:35:32
  to look for staff that have the condition.
• 1:35:34
  You know, one might think, oh, well, would they be resilient enough or would they
• 1:35:37
  be able to, and as you found with, with Brian, the answer was a resounding yes.
• 1:35:42
  I, I would say that.
• 1:35:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:35:44
  You know, every time I would come out, I would see a new academic milestone.
• 1:35:47
  I'd see a new life skill, you know?
• 1:35:50
  Right.
• 1:35:50
  And as you said, Brian was sort of un unflappable.
• 1:35:55
  Also, you know, he's a big guy.
• 1:35:57
  Yeah.
• 1:35:57
  But he's also building you all this stuff, like these tree houses and things.
• 1:36:00
  Right.
• 1:36:00
  So, you know, I think I would, I think one of the morals of that story is, is
• 1:36:05
  to encourage people to maybe actively look for people on the spectrum.
• 1:36:10
  Now obviously that can be a minefield.
• 1:36:11
  Yeah.
• 1:36:11
  You know, but certainly have that as an asset in a team member because
• 1:36:22
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:36:22
  Right.
• 1:36:22
  Rupert Isaacson: You know, ironically, people are often saying, oh, they,
• 1:36:24
  you know, would they have the empathy?
• 1:36:26
  It seems that the answer would be yes.
• 1:36:28
  You know, from what we saw.
• 1:36:30
  You've also got someone else really good on your team on the equestrian side.
• 1:36:33
  You've got Lee.
• 1:36:34
  Just talk to us a little bit about Lee and then I'd like after that for
• 1:36:37
  you to tell us where Cole is at now.
• 1:36:40
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:36:40
  Okay.
• 1:36:41
  Well, Lee has been sort of my right hand woman.
• 1:36:43
  She has been nothing but supportive.
• 1:36:46
  She's a UVA grad.
• 1:36:48
  She was a career woman and then decided to I.
• 1:36:53
  She really wanted to stay home with her kids and, you know, just
• 1:36:56
  do some part, part-time work.
• 1:36:58
  And she reached out to me whenever I was looking for an equestrian.
• 1:37:02
  And I mean, she's just been really amazing.
• 1:37:06
  She's gone through all the certifications with you.
• 1:37:09
  She's allowed us to be able to like, you know, certify people here at chats.
• 1:37:15
  She helps train any new, you know, equestrians that come on board and
• 1:37:20
  does the training in the communities.
• 1:37:24
  And I mean, she's just a down to earth woman who, who really has a
• 1:37:29
  kind heart and loves to ride horses,
• 1:37:33
  Rupert Isaacson: right?
• 1:37:33
  And she's a really, really skilled horse woman.
• 1:37:35
  And, and I think that, again, this is something which is often so lacking.
• 1:37:38
  Not always, but it's not always prioritized with Bitcoin assisted
• 1:37:42
  stuff, which is that, you know, people who've really had a career in horses,
• 1:37:50
  you know, she's a hunter jumper, she still works at a hunter jumper barn.
• 1:37:52
  She, it's not that you necessarily have to be that, but it doesn't hurt, you know,
• 1:37:59
  to have people that really do understand what it takes to keep horses sound to.
• 1:38:08
  Prepare horses to put muscle on horses, to top plan horses, to make sure
• 1:38:12
  horses get the trail rides that they need to make sure horses, if they like
• 1:38:15
  to jump, get those jumping sessions to make sure that the, the, the,
• 1:38:19
  the horses at the best they can be.
• 1:38:23
  When that
• 1:38:24
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:38:24
  right
• 1:38:24
  Rupert Isaacson: walks into the, into the property, so much work goes into that.
• 1:38:29
  Rather than just saying, well, we'll this horse is sort of quiet, we'll
• 1:38:32
  just pull 'em in from the field.
• 1:38:33
  And there we go.
• 1:38:34
  You know, every time I come out to you, the horses look so good.
• 1:38:37
  The top lines are lovely and curvy.
• 1:38:40
  They've got big butts, big necks.
• 1:38:43
  They coats are glossy, they're fit, you know, and they, they show up ready for
• 1:38:47
  action with enthusiasm and generosity.
• 1:38:50
  And I just wanna take my hat off to Lee and again, I think, I think for people
• 1:38:54
  who are listening, the moral of the story is do look for people who have a
• 1:38:59
  really solid, solid horse background.
• 1:39:01
  That said, obviously they can be terribly bossy and opinionated
• 1:39:07
  and not always a good fit.
• 1:39:08
  But Lee seems to be able to, you know, tread that line between
• 1:39:11
  just being a, you know, sound human being and have those skills.
• 1:39:14
  So, you know, you, it was so interesting to me that you sort of went from
• 1:39:18
  having to take any dysfunctional person you could find who just knew
• 1:39:22
  something about horses, and then you end up with this kind of dream team.
• 1:39:26
  Yeah, there's a lot for us to learn in that, in that learning curve.
• 1:39:30
  Tell us, I think this is what we all want to know now.
• 1:39:32
  Where's Colin at now?
• 1:39:35
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:39:35
  Cole is gonna be 14 in May, and he continues to progress with his academics.
• 1:39:43
  He can add, subtract, multiply which was something I tried years to, to see.
• 1:39:51
  I tried so many different ways and then, you know, it's like try a hundred times,
• 1:39:55
  but it's that a hundred first time that, that that's how you wanted to learn it.
• 1:40:00
  And, and the a hundred other time, other ways were not the right way.
• 1:40:03
  But then, you know, it's just a, definitely a testament to keep
• 1:40:08
  reinventing how you might teach something.
• 1:40:11
  Obviously keeping the environment right with being outside and movement,
• 1:40:17
  but you know, there it just might be that a hundred first time that that
• 1:40:22
  makes it so they know how to do it.
• 1:40:24
  But we've been working on division now for most of this school year and
• 1:40:30
  he's definitely it's definitely, you know, I can see it clicking in his
• 1:40:34
  head when we do all the problems.
• 1:40:36
  You know, he also likes dry erasers.
• 1:40:39
  So like we, we have like a dry erase division board, like where he can
• 1:40:43
  do the problem and, you know, it's all about finding out what they
• 1:40:47
  like to use or what makes them stay attentive and then individualizing
• 1:40:53
  that particular lesson to it.
• 1:40:54
  It's a lot of extra work, but I mean, it made the difference.
• 1:40:59
  So, we're still working on reading and we have some evidence that he can read.
• 1:41:07
  And then there's then other ways though, when we're teaching it,
• 1:41:10
  it's like it doesn't connect.
• 1:41:11
  And I think that's just because we don't really understand how it's connecting
• 1:41:15
  in his brain or how he's processing it.
• 1:41:18
  I did have a dyslexia evaluation for the first time.
• 1:41:21
  I could have never even done that in years past because he wouldn't
• 1:41:25
  have been verbal to, you know, verbal enough to do it or anything.
• 1:41:30
  I literally just had that like, less than two weeks ago, they
• 1:41:32
  came to the house and did it.
• 1:41:34
  And while they couldn't fully score it because he couldn't answer all
• 1:41:36
  of it I was really proud of him for, you know, the parts that he, that
• 1:41:40
  he could do and respond back to.
• 1:41:43
  From a food standpoint, the, the boy is like almost five 10 now.
• 1:41:48
  Size 13 shoe, 215 pounds, I'd say.
• 1:41:53
  He's a beast.
• 1:41:53
  He's, he's solid muscle.
• 1:41:56
  I mean, he is on the horse like five days a week, most of them twice a day.
• 1:42:01
  I mean, he's pretty solid from a muscle standpoint, and he loves
• 1:42:04
  to jump on the trampoline always and swims throughout the year.
• 1:42:08
  So physically, he's pretty, pretty big boy.
• 1:42:12
  Behaviorally we've had some new things just because he is going through puberty.
• 1:42:16
  So that's, that's just fun.
• 1:42:18
  We can leave that at that.
• 1:42:20
  And you know, there's still always challenges with him.
• 1:42:22
  I mean, I, I can't say too, anything's different about, like,
• 1:42:25
  the fact that I can't take Cole over to my friend's house for a party.
• 1:42:28
  I don't, I don't know that that's ever going to change.
• 1:42:30
  You know, he doesn't, if I try to go into Target real quick
• 1:42:33
  for something, God help me.
• 1:42:35
  Like he, he'll just start.
• 1:42:37
  He doesn't get, he, he does stuff to make you upset so that you will get
• 1:42:41
  out of there as quickly as possible.
• 1:42:42
  He knows exactly what he's doing, but you know, he, he'll, he'll start, he'll
• 1:42:47
  start laughing so loud, and then he'll scream at the end of the laugh, and
• 1:42:51
  then he'll start jumping up and down.
• 1:42:52
  Or he'll, he'll drop down to the ground and he'll laugh, giggle, giggle.
• 1:42:56
  I mean, everybody, like the whole store thinks that there's like someone coming
• 1:42:59
  out with a gun and is gonna kill them or something because Cole's so loud, you
• 1:43:03
  know, and everybody's looking at you.
• 1:43:05
  I mean.
• 1:43:06
  You know, so it's not like the crying meltdowns anymore, like of years past.
• 1:43:11
  It's the, that sounds more, I'm gonna embarra
• 1:43:13
  Rupert Isaacson: That sounds more
• 1:43:14
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:43:14
  Yeah.
• 1:43:14
  I'm gonna embarrass the shit outta until you get me outta here.
• 1:43:18
  Rupert Isaacson: That's like, I don't Oh,
• 1:43:19
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:43:19
  totally.
• 1:43:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, totally,
• 1:43:21
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:43:21
  totally.
• 1:43:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Intelligent and thought out.
• 1:43:23
  Right.
• 1:43:23
  Well, executed well.
• 1:43:24
  Like well played.
• 1:43:26
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:43:26
  Very well played.
• 1:43:27
  Yep.
• 1:43:27
  So he does that a lot.
• 1:43:29
  He's, he's very he's a funny boy.
• 1:43:30
  He, we've really seen his funny personality come out.
• 1:43:34
  He is a real jokester.
• 1:43:35
  He really is.
• 1:43:36
  He's, he's funny.
• 1:43:37
  And as far as like talking, oh my gosh, he, he talks so much now.
• 1:43:43
  It's still not like if I demand a conversation like, Cole, how was your day?
• 1:43:47
  That doesn't happen.
• 1:43:49
  But he will speak in full sentences about how he feels or something that
• 1:43:53
  he's thinking about or what he saw.
• 1:43:55
  I mean, that was like, that was a, that was a, a dream I
• 1:43:58
  was chasing for, for years.
• 1:44:00
  And I have every like, belief that this will just continue.
• 1:44:05
  I mean, every year he's shown more and more progress.
• 1:44:07
  There's no reason why that wouldn't continue to happen.
• 1:44:10
  I, I just, you know, I still, I still have the hopes of many things for him
• 1:44:15
  and I am just gonna keep doing what I'm doing and, and try to see if there's
• 1:44:19
  anything else, you know, that comes out that I need to add or whatever.
• 1:44:24
  But I mean, I would say we are like in a night and day picture
• 1:44:27
  from when you first met him and I.
• 1:44:33
  I, again, it's still
• 1:44:34
  Rupert Isaacson: when you say, I'm not trying, talk about what he thinks
• 1:44:37
  and he tells you about what he thinks gi give us some examples of, of that.
• 1:44:40
  What are some things that he said?
• 1:44:42
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:44:42
  You know, when you're, when you're driving and say you hit a pothole or, or
• 1:44:47
  something and be like, oh my, or he'll say, you bumped, or I was putting on.
• 1:44:54
  This was like unbelievable.
• 1:44:56
  I, and this is why I still need to get one of those cameras that's put on your
• 1:44:59
  head or something that watches everything.
• 1:45:01
  This was like around Halloween the year before.
• 1:45:04
  And I love like Charlie Brown's peanut stuff.
• 1:45:06
  So we all dressed up as Peanuts characters and he was Charlie Brown and I had
• 1:45:11
  these cool Charlie Brown, it was like the actual face of Charlie Brown socks
• 1:45:14
  that he wore as part of the outfit.
• 1:45:16
  And then afterwards I would put them on him at bedtime.
• 1:45:18
  'cause you know, it was getting cold out.
• 1:45:20
  And one night we were going to bed, we were not speaking, we
• 1:45:23
  were just, we were both tired.
• 1:45:24
  He was getting in bed and I normally put the socks on 'cause they were too tight,
• 1:45:28
  but he acted like he wanted put 'em on.
• 1:45:30
  So I was like, oh, okay here.
• 1:45:31
  And he started to put 'em on and he couldn't get 'em on
• 1:45:34
  'cause they were so tight.
• 1:45:34
  And then I was like, here, okay, you want me to help you?
• 1:45:36
  And I started putting 'em on and he goes, good grief.
• 1:45:39
  Like, like, I mean Charlie Grief.
• 1:45:44
  I was like, you gotta be fucking kidding.
• 1:45:45
  Did you just think, did you, you know, and then I get my mom screeching
• 1:45:49
  voice again and and now I have, I record him regularly saying Charlie
• 1:45:53
  Brown kind of stuff or whatever.
• 1:45:55
  But I mean, he'll, he'll say he'll tell the boys to quiet down you know, his
• 1:46:01
  twin brothers or he, I mean, he'll, he'll, he'll just point out things.
• 1:46:05
  Oh, he, Ashton was practicing a speech that he has for this
• 1:46:08
  black History Month project.
• 1:46:10
  And he came over to Ashton afterwards and he said, good job.
• 1:46:15
  Like what, what?
• 1:46:18
  Isn't that?
• 1:46:19
  I don't know.
• 1:46:20
  He'll say, I love you to me, you know, at bedtime, he'll tell me sweet dreams.
• 1:46:24
  I mean, it's just shit like, that would just never happen.
• 1:46:26
  There would just be no talk.
• 1:46:28
  He tells you like that he wants to go in the woods if he doesn't
• 1:46:31
  wanna keep, you know, lunging.
• 1:46:33
  I mean, these are just small examples, but there's, there's bigger examples that
• 1:46:36
  are just not coming to my head right now.
• 1:46:37
  But he absolutely, he'll tell you, he'll answer me now when
• 1:46:41
  I say, do you want yogurt?
• 1:46:43
  You know, before it was just, he would never answer no matter what or, and, and
• 1:46:48
  he'll say yes or no now, or he'll tell you what he wants ahead of time or, I
• 1:46:53
  mean, it was just, that was never before.
• 1:46:54
  You always just had to, had to figure it out, wing it,
• 1:46:58
  WW figure out what was wrong.
• 1:47:00
  But you know, I mean, sometimes I still have to figure out what is wrong
• 1:47:03
  if he, but, but most of the time he tells me now, like, I mean like if
• 1:47:07
  he got hurt or if his stomach hurts, you know, and he can take a shower.
• 1:47:14
  He can do a shower all on his own now.
• 1:47:16
  I mean, I took a shower with him for, for years, actually all the way up
• 1:47:19
  till probably like six months ago.
• 1:47:21
  I mean, he, he, you know, he's not paying attention to what I look like.
• 1:47:24
  He isn't, you know, I was just in there assisting him and now he can he'll
• 1:47:28
  shampoo conditioner, he washes his face.
• 1:47:30
  'cause you know, now he is of the age of getting acne.
• 1:47:33
  He does his whole body with a soap.
• 1:47:35
  He, you know, he, he has the whole routine.
• 1:47:37
  He.
• 1:47:38
  He's styling, he's learning how to style his hair now with the Goop stuff.
• 1:47:42
  Like really, you know, he's, he is learning a lot of independent life skills.
• 1:47:49
  Yeah.
• 1:47:49
  He's, he feeds himself the yogurt now, like even all the way up till
• 1:47:53
  like four months ago, I would still have to feed him yogurt every time.
• 1:47:56
  But he would let Brian, Brian, he would, he feed himself yogurt with
• 1:48:00
  Brian, but with me, he, it was just still this like you fat guy game.
• 1:48:04
  Yeah.
• 1:48:05
  And finally, you know, what got him to count was, or to eat, it
• 1:48:08
  was we started counting, you know, he likes to count and so he took,
• 1:48:13
  I was like, oh, count how many.
• 1:48:14
  1, 2, 3.
• 1:48:15
  And then, and then now we, we do it like that and he takes 'em and he starts
• 1:48:20
  counting and then I know he has a yogurt.
• 1:48:21
  I'm like, oh.
• 1:48:21
  And then I keep counting and sometimes I'll go really fast so I can see him, see,
• 1:48:25
  hear him say the higher numbers, because you know, he knows all that stuff, but.
• 1:48:31
  After you've asked him so many times, he doesn't want to tell you anymore.
• 1:48:34
  And then when I have new people that can get involved, then they think he doesn't
• 1:48:38
  know stuff because he won't answer them.
• 1:48:40
  But it's because he answered it 5,000 times before and it's just, he's done.
• 1:48:44
  Yeah.
• 1:48:45
  And so that's a, that's a frustrating part still, especially when I have
• 1:48:47
  staff turnover because, you know, if he doesn't answer it a certain way, then
• 1:48:52
  you, then you think he doesn't know it.
• 1:48:53
  And that's just, that's just not the case at all, you know.
• 1:48:56
  So I'll like go higher numbers.
• 1:48:58
  I'll, I'll go real fast and I'll go to like 25 and then, then I get to hear him
• 1:49:01
  say 26, which I otherwise would probably never get to hear him say, you know?
• 1:49:06
  Rupert Isaacson: So how is he with his brothers?
• 1:49:09
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:49:09
  He is, he's very good with his brothers.
• 1:49:11
  You know, he'll, he'll really rough house with, with me or, or we, like,
• 1:49:16
  he'll come up and especially now that, you know, teenage puberty kind of stuff,
• 1:49:19
  he'll come over and he'll just like shove me in the back and, and, or he'll
• 1:49:23
  come over and pinch and, you know, when he wants to, to make you play with him.
• 1:49:29
  And he, I mean, he really likes to rough house, you know, like push
• 1:49:31
  back and forth and, you know, pretend like you're, you know, whatever.
• 1:49:35
  And but with his brothers he doesn't, he doesn't do that with them at all.
• 1:49:39
  They, I mean, he knows like, they're just, they're smaller, but they, he
• 1:49:42
  doesn, you know, they do really well together in the pool so they can really
• 1:49:45
  relate as like brothers in the pool.
• 1:49:48
  And then just on the trampoline.
• 1:49:50
  And I would say those are the two areas where like, I feel like they
• 1:49:53
  act brotherly, but then like, when I need a break now, at least the twins
• 1:49:58
  are old enough where I can be like, you go roughhouse with Cole now.
• 1:50:03
  Like, you give mommy a break.
• 1:50:05
  And then they, they have a blast.
• 1:50:07
  I mean, Cole's laughing and giggling.
• 1:50:09
  They're Cole's running away from 'em.
• 1:50:10
  Then Cole's chasing them then, you know, they're running after 'em.
• 1:50:13
  I mean, that, you know, I couldn't do that a couple years ago just
• 1:50:17
  'cause they were still so little.
• 1:50:18
  But now, you know, they're, they're pretty strong and they're old, you know, I'm not
• 1:50:23
  saying like he won't pinch them sometimes, but as far as like the real roughhousing,
• 1:50:27
  he does not like hurt them or, you know, he'll come and just sit on me.
• 1:50:31
  You know what I mean?
• 1:50:31
  Like, he'll, he'll just, he, you know, but the twins, he doesn't, he
• 1:50:34
  doesn't do that kind of stuff to them.
• 1:50:36
  So he's, you know, overall very kind to them.
• 1:50:43
  Rupert Isaacson: You've brought this kind of full circle in that you
• 1:50:45
  started as a doctor, despite being a doctor, there were no answers.
• 1:50:53
  You had to go out and formulate answers.
• 1:50:56
  And then being a doctor, as you said, even when you were trying to find a
• 1:51:02
  support group, then being a physician, you know, sort of blew your cover
• 1:51:09
  in a way and isolated you further.
• 1:51:15
  And yet now you've broken ground, you've.
• 1:51:20
  Managed to get the medical establishment to begin to accept
• 1:51:27
  things like movement method.
• 1:51:30
  Talk to us about what's going on with Virginia Medical School and all of
• 1:51:35
  that, because I think this is where it's going for a lot of our work.
• 1:51:41
  And where it needs to go as we sort of come from the hippie fringes
• 1:51:47
  where we've been for so long now, edging into the mainstream.
• 1:51:52
  Talk to us about what's happened there.
• 1:51:56
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:51:56
  Well, one of my physician friends and colleagues who's in the pediatric world
• 1:52:02
  had connected me with the director of.
• 1:52:06
  The annual Autism Updates conference that they have at Eastern
• 1:52:10
  Virginia Medical School each year, which is in February each year.
• 1:52:13
  And Eastern Virginia Medical School is the closest like
• 1:52:17
  academic medical center near us.
• 1:52:20
  Then the next closest would be like VCU in Richmond.
• 1:52:23
  But I reached out to that physician and said that I would like to be
• 1:52:29
  able to present at your conference.
• 1:52:31
  And he brought it to their planning committee and they said yes.
• 1:52:36
  And then that's when I brought you over in February of what would've that been?
• 1:52:42
  We just did this in 24, 23,
• 1:52:44
  Rupert Isaacson: I think
• 1:52:44
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:52:44
  23 2
• 1:52:45
  Rupert Isaacson: or
• 1:52:45
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:52:45
  2323, I think February of 23.
• 1:52:49
  And so we presented at the, at the medical school there for the autism
• 1:52:53
  conference and it went very well.
• 1:52:56
  You know, there was like a line of people waiting to talk to me when I went out to
• 1:53:00
  the bathroom after the talk and to you.
• 1:53:02
  And and then I was contacted after asking if I was interested in
• 1:53:07
  creating my own neuroscience based conference on movement method.
• 1:53:12
  And I was like, hell yes.
• 1:53:13
  And so then I relayed the new to you, news to you, and then we got our
• 1:53:18
  planning committee together and you came up with a lot of the people who
• 1:53:23
  have helped you formulate this over the years and or who implement it.
• 1:53:27
  And I did the more.
• 1:53:30
  Academic medical side, putting together a meeting side, all the continuing
• 1:53:34
  medical education side of stuff, which is a ton of online forms and regulations
• 1:53:40
  and things that you have to meet.
• 1:53:41
  And then we pulled it off in September of 24, and I think it was phenomenal.
• 1:53:48
  It was very well received.
• 1:53:49
  All the feedback from the medical community that attended.
• 1:53:52
  It was really positive.
• 1:53:54
  And actually after that conference, mark Lobel, who introduced himself to you,
• 1:54:01
  who's the head of the Virginia Autism Foundation, he's a big supporter of chats.
• 1:54:05
  There were some teachers in the audience that had reached out
• 1:54:10
  to him and wanted to implement Movement method into the classrooms.
• 1:54:15
  And he funded like all the stuff that they needed for, like, he as in
• 1:54:19
  Virginia Autism Foundation voted to fund those teachers for their classrooms.
• 1:54:24
  So we already did make a, an impact somewhat locally in the school system.
• 1:54:30
  Rupert Isaacson: But What school was that in Virginia that's doing that?
• 1:54:34
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:54:34
  Well, it was just some individual teachers that attended the conference.
• 1:54:37
  It wasn't like a whole school.
• 1:54:38
  Right.
• 1:54:38
  One of which,
• 1:54:39
  Rupert Isaacson: which schools are they at out of interest?
• 1:54:41
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:54:41
  I, I think it's Newport News.
• 1:54:42
  Julie?
• 1:54:43
  I think Julie is in Newport News.
• 1:54:44
  I have to, I have to ask, do
• 1:54:46
  Rupert Isaacson: you know, are these elementary schools or high school
• 1:54:50
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:54:50
  elementaries?
• 1:54:50
  Elementary, special ed.
• 1:54:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Elementary, special Ed, Newport, news Elementary.
• 1:54:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:54:56
  Special ed.
• 1:54:57
  Are they all from the same school or are they, were they from
• 1:55:00
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:55:00
  No, there were, there were two.
• 1:55:02
  There were three, I think one was in Virginia Beach.
• 1:55:07
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:55:08
  Uhhuh.
• 1:55:08
  And she actually came and did a training in movement method at the barn with Lee.
• 1:55:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:55:13
  And the other lady, I don't, I don't, I can't remember off the top of my head.
• 1:55:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:55:18
  But also through that there's a place called Maverick Learning,
• 1:55:22
  which is an autism school that was created in Chesapeake, which
• 1:55:25
  is about 45 minutes from here.
• 1:55:26
  It's still part of Hampton Roads.
• 1:55:28
  And we we're, we are doing a training in their school, so this is the first time
• 1:55:31
  we're going into a school and training.
• 1:55:34
  Lee's doing it in March.
• 1:55:36
  It's like a one day thing on the teacher.
• 1:55:38
  Like they're, they're like I can't come up with a word.
• 1:55:41
  But anyway, we're doing a training there, but the conference you know,
• 1:55:44
  it was very well received and we plan to, to do one again in 2026.
• 1:55:50
  I still Kelly's still getting a date.
• 1:55:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Perfect.
• 1:55:55
  So listeners listen out for that, because this was groundbreaking what happened
• 1:56:00
  in 24, the first neuroscience conference for movement method for the work we are
• 1:56:05
  all doing in a, in a medical school.
• 1:56:12
  The more of these we do.
• 1:56:14
  The more kids and families like us are gonna get helped.
• 1:56:19
  So we will be announcing that well in advance so that those of you
• 1:56:24
  that want to come over for it in Virginia Beach it's gonna be in
• 1:56:28
  Norfolk, Virginia can can attend.
• 1:56:30
  And if you can't attend in person, obviously you can attend online.
• 1:56:33
  But it's, it's really a, oh, I see Cole in the background there.
• 1:56:36
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:56:36
  He's, Hey Cole.
• 1:56:39
  Hey Cole.
• 1:56:40
  You say hi.
• 1:56:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Hey, Cole.
• 1:56:43
  Don't, it's
• 1:56:47
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:56:47
  hooray.
• 1:56:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Great to see you.
• 1:56:52
  Teenagers do not make me say hi.
• 1:56:55
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:56:55
  Right.
• 1:56:57
  Rupert Isaacson: So big.
• 1:56:58
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:56:58
  He is, he's huge.
• 1:57:00
  I keep lifting weights so that I can mess him up if he tries to mess me up.
• 1:57:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:57:07
  Attack is the best form of defense.
• 1:57:09
  Yeah.
• 1:57:11
  So Megan, you've, you've, you've achieved so much.
• 1:57:13
  Where, so where do you wanna take it?
• 1:57:15
  What's next?
• 1:57:18
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:57:18
  I, I really I wanna keep, I wanna keep expanding it in a medical platform.
• 1:57:24
  I really want to get it in other meetings across the country.
• 1:57:30
  I want it to become, I.
• 1:57:33
  Standard of care.
• 1:57:34
  So when you go to see your family practice doctor, your pediatrician,
• 1:57:37
  the developmentalist, the neurologist, that not only do they say speech
• 1:57:43
  therapy, occupational therapy, A, B, A, but they also say movement method.
• 1:57:46
  It just needs to be part of daily practice recommendations and that,
• 1:57:51
  that is one of my biggest goals.
• 1:57:54
  Secondary would be, you know, getting as many children that I can out to chats and
• 1:58:01
  getting it fully sponsored, the lighting as a struggle and you know, continuing.
• 1:58:07
  And then thirdly, to continue my son's journey to potentially, I
• 1:58:14
  don't know, healing with some quirks.
• 1:58:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:58:20
  Well the quirks are the magic.
• 1:58:22
  He's
• 1:58:22
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:58:22
  following me.
• 1:58:25
  He's telling me enough is enough.
• 1:58:26
  Okay.
• 1:58:27
  Hold on.
• 1:58:28
  Rupert Isaacson: One last question before we let you go.
• 1:58:30
  And Cole is quite right because we've been at this for a while.
• 1:58:33
  How can people find you how can people find chats online?
• 1:58:38
  How can people find out information about trainings that you're doing at chats?
• 1:58:43
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:58:43
  The website.
• 1:58:44
  Take a bath.
• 1:58:45
  Hold on.
• 1:58:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Take a.
• 1:58:47
  He does, he
• 1:58:47
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:58:47
  wants to take a bath.
• 1:58:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
• 1:58:50
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:58:50
  me too.
• 1:58:50
  Yeah.
• 1:58:51
  The website is www.chatssevenfiveseven.com.
• 1:58:57
  The Facebook is the at sign and then Kohls horse therapy, all one word.
• 1:59:05
  We're also on Instagram, but I don't remember I don't remember the Yeah.
• 1:59:09
  Info for that, but you could find it on the website for sure.
• 1:59:12
  But that's pretty much where our main stuff is.
• 1:59:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Chat seven five seven.com,
• 1:59:18
  7 5 7 being the area code and on Facebook at Coles Horse Therapy.
• 1:59:25
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:59:25
  Right?
• 1:59:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
• 1:59:26
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 1:59:26
  the fa the Facebook page is, is pretty active.
• 1:59:29
  Like, I mean, I, I try to post on that, you know, most days of the week with
• 1:59:34
  what's going on or something that's happened or, you know, whatever.
• 1:59:39
  Rupert Isaacson: So, listen, listeners, if, if you're a, if you're a parent,
• 1:59:41
  if you're a practitioner, if you are a horse person if you're a teacher
• 1:59:45
  anywhere on the east coast of the USA, you want to be looking to this work
• 1:59:49
  that's going on at chats and now at Eastern Virginia Medical School as well.
• 1:59:54
  Hit Megan up.
• 1:59:55
  She will get back to you.
• 1:59:56
  She's a powerhouse, as you can see.
• 1:59:59
  And she'll help you.
• 2:00:00
  Megan, it's been an absolute delight.
• 2:00:03
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 2:00:03
  Thank you.
• 2:00:04
  And I guess I would sort of like to end it with I guess two things.
• 2:00:08
  Thank you so much for helping me change his life.
• 2:00:12
  I, I really am forever indebted for that.
• 2:00:15
  And then secondly, I'd like to remember Hanya.
• 2:00:18
  Yeah, you just passed away, you know, so she died last, not less like about
• 2:00:23
  eight days ago, so rest in peace.
• 2:00:27
  But she served a really, she served a lot of children and changed so many lives.
• 2:00:34
  Rupert Isaacson: She did.
• 2:00:35
  And she, herself was a rescue horse.
• 2:00:37
  She had come out of a not so great situation in Mexico, and
• 2:00:42
  as you say turned into the most
• 2:00:48
  giving generous horse, but a lot was given back to she, she gave so much love.
• 2:00:52
  So people gave love back to her.
• 2:00:54
  And I would say that was a horse that really had a life well
• 2:00:57
  lived and a death, well died.
• 2:00:58
  I mean, a, a a self-actualized equine life, you know?
• 2:01:02
  And you're certainly exemplary in your care for her.
• 2:01:06
  So I'm grateful to you for that.
• 2:01:09
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 2:01:09
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:01:13
  Okay.
• 2:01:14
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 2:01:14
  Well, till the next time, so we will, we, it's, it's gonna be the next thing pushing
• 2:01:19
  forward for this next conference in 2006.
• 2:01:23
  I guess we get our britches on.
• 2:01:28
  We'll be talking then.
• 2:01:31
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 2:01:31
  Okay.
• 2:01:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Alright.
• 2:01:34
  Till next time.
• 2:01:35
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 2:01:35
  Okay, take care.
• 2:01:36
  Thank you,
• 2:01:37
  Rupert Isaacson: you too.
• 2:01:37
  Bye-bye.
• 2:01:38
  Dr. Megan McGavern:
• 2:01:38
  Bye.
• 2:01:39
  Rupert Isaacson: If you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast,
• 2:01:43
  I'm guessing you are, then you've probably also always wondered a little
• 2:01:48
  bit about the old master system.
• 2:01:51
  of dressage training.
• 2:01:52
  If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
• 2:02:01
  exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
• 2:02:07
  of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
• 2:02:13
  well being of the horse and the rider.
• 2:02:16
  Intrigued?
• 2:02:17
  Like to know more?
• 2:02:19
  Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
• 2:02:23
  Check out the free introduction course.
• 2:02:26
  Take it from there.