When Lynnette Elser, from Crossville, Tennessee, first arrived in the Italian village of Latronico with her 5-year-old adopted autistic son Kenny, she wasn’t planning on making it her new home. Then, on their first night, Kenny, who has serious respiratory issues, seemed able to breathe without difficulty for what Elser, a retired federal government scientist, says was the first time ever.
Normally, she would check his blood oxygen level with a fingertip pulse monitor during the night when she heard him struggle to breathe, but in Latronico something was different. “Truthfully, I thought his blood oxygen meter was broken and not reading the oxygen level correctly,” Elser says.
