Excerpt from Mother Warriors

It had been a week since I was on Oprah, and I still wasn't sure what the reaction of the country was going to be. I walked around looking over my shoulder, waiting for people to either hug me or throw something at me. I was also a little bit scared about pharmaceutical companies. If my life were a movie, the Centers for Disease Control and the pharmaceutical companies would all be having secret meetings plotting to discredit or quiet me.

On my way to New York City to continue my press tour for Louder Than Words, I was really nervous. I knew Oprah was open-minded and understanding of everything I had to say, but I had a strange instinctual feeling that someone along this path was going to challenge me. I knew during the tour that the pain I had gone through with Evan's brave struggle would sometimes be overshadowed by the controversy of autism, but it was important to get the message out on a massive scale. I kept my heart open and knew that whatever happened would be for the best reason possible. But I had already experienced so much pain and I was hoping I wouldn't have to go through any more pain just for speaking the truth. I was about to find out that there were many moms like me who were made to feel stupid for speaking this truth, and I was going to be the one to knock down some walls.