Mulling

We sat in A & E for an hour or three.

My daughter had returned from her residential trip with bruised knees where she'd stumbled over on some steps. It was the last day, and she’d got to her feet, reassured staff she was fine, and not mentioned any pain or problems.

It wasn’t until she got in the shower that night, and I saw the angry black and purple circles on her kneecaps, that I realised she might be hurting.

“They’re a bit sore,” she told me, that high pain threshhold thing explaining the seemingly impossibly understatement.

I gave her some painkillers, and she seemed OK, but a few days later, she started walking very stiffly. 

“My back hurts,” she told me. The back that she had an operation on in May to remove metalwork from an earlier spinal fusion. 

I starting mulling it over. When her stiffness seemed to increase, I mulled some more, and tried to reassure myself that she was probably just sore from walking gingerly, overcompensating for her bruised knees. And then on Sunday, when she was struggling to get out of bed, and after I’d mulled enough to turn my blood into a spicy festive wine, I took her along to A & E.

The doctor was satisfied that everything was OK. He gave us a prescription for stronger painkillers, and we returned home. I sneaked in the sneaky bag I’d sneakily stashed in the boot of my car earlier. I nipped upstairs and sneakily unpacked the spare clothes, nightthings, and toothbrushes I’d taken in case something had been really wrong and we’d had to stay in. By the way, I’m crap at being sneaky - my daughter clocked my attempts at subterfuge and I had to explain my workings. Several times.

So half term is turning out to be a restful one for my girl, who’s kind of enjoying her invalid status a little too much. She’s spent most of it sitting on the sofa in a nest of pillows, leafing through TV Choice magazine and catching up with Corrie and Eastenders. 

But I’ve left a phone message for her consultant from the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore though, to see if we can bring her check-up appointment forward. Because, well, you know...mulling.

Oh, and the song is not going to be Mull of Kintyre, you know. I just won’t do it.

Song is Low - To Our Knees

Missives

My daughter is on her residential course. 

I got a missive earlier. Oof. Heart lurch.

And now I’ve just had another one. Phew. Heart soar.

I reckon she liked what she had for tea.

Song is World Party - Put The Message In The Box


I'm doing a swimathon on October 26. Please consider sponsoring me to help raise money for the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association UK. Just Giving details here.

Beyond

The rain was pelting down. But she had a sturdy pair of walking boots on and a tough waterproof mac. And a bag with loads of changes of clothes in.

The coach was taking her and 18 other special school students on an NCS (National Citizen Service) residential trip to Staffordshire. It's a David Cameron Big Society thingy (remember that?) which sounds a bit like the Hitler Youth, but I think is more kind of Duke Of Edinburgh-lite. (Dear God, David Cameron, Hitler and Prince Philip in the same sentence, there's an Unholy Trinity if ever I've heard one).

I went for a swim after dropping her off (in readiness for my upcoming Swimathon for the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association UK) and by the time I got out I had four answerphone messages and two texts from her. The lockers must have been echoing to the sound of my ringtone, One Step Beyond. Had I packed her retainers? The answer she needed to hear was, thankfully, yes.

I later got a call from the school's Acting Head. It had transpired that some kind of double booking issue meant that they weren't going to the venue they had planned, and in fact had ended up going to somewhere in Kent instead. Quite how the school staff managed to get 19 kids with special needs and anxiety issues to take that in their stride, I don’t know. But, apparently, they did. 

So she’s there, and by now she’ll be tucked up in bed, fast asleep and knackered, and she’ll be doing all sorts of team bonding, independence skill-improving things over the next two days before returning home on Tuesday. Probably with a bag full of someone else’s clothes, hair matted with shampoo she’s not managed to wash out properly, and ready to sleep for a week.

Good luck, my girl.

Video is Madness - One Step Beyond
Please consider sponsoring me to help raise money for the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association UK. Just Giving details here.

Swimathon

My daughter has Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS), a rare and complicated chromosome disorder. So on Wednesday October 26, I will be front-crawling my way up and down my local swimming pool as part of the Rule The Pool half term swimathon - raising money for the PWSA UK Association. I'm going to see how many lengths I can manage before my legs go too wobbly. Oh, and for anyone expressing the most obvious concern - yes, I will be allowed to get out of the pool for wee breaks. 

Why? Well, I imagine I'll need a wee. Oh, I see, why am I doing the swimathon? Well, apart from looking mighty fine in goggles (see picture), I want to give back something to the PWSA UK. Through every stage of my girl's life, the association has been there to help us with support, advice, and information.

If you've read this blog before, then you'll be pretty familiar with the weird and not always wonderful world of PWS. It affects the part of the brain which controls appetite, growth, and sexual development. Although too weak to feed as a baby, children with PWS grow to have an insatiable appetite, and never physically feel full up. But because their bodies can't convert fat to muscle efficiently, they have to be on a strict diet, for life. If their food intake isn't controlled, they will suffer from life-threatening obesity. People with PWS are of small stature, have some form of learning disability, are unable to have children, and are unlikely ever to be able to live an independent life. Oh, and by the way, there's no cure.

That's the bad news. The good news is that nowadays, thanks to a better understanding of the condition - and to the work of dedicated organisations like PWSA UK -  life in a PWS family isn't just about what the person can't do, it's about what they CAN do. People with Prader-Willi can achieve amazing things, and lead happy and fulfilling lives. Did I mention they can be really funny, too?

Check out the PWSA UK website to learn more about the great work the association does. You can also read previous entries on this blog for a warts and all, off-the-wall account of what it's like to live in a PWS family.

That's the who, what, where, and why. 

Now I'm asking you to do something. Fire up Paypal or get your credit card out and donate. Whatever you can spare - no amount is too small! Do The Gift Aid thing, too, if you can. JustGiving will send your money directly to the PWSA UK. 

Now, I'm off to sniff some chlorine and reinforce my cozzie gussett.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Song is Sly & The Family Stone - I Just Learned To Swim

Potholes

I’m popping into school tomorrow to have a chat with my daughter’s teacher.

After a few week’s of ‘Good day!’ comments in her home/school diary, I got a missive on Friday saying my girl had been ‘difficult and challenging’.

‘Rude to staff, lots of refusing to do things, couldn’t get to the bottom of the difficulties,’ the message read.

That last bit says it all. Because with my girl, you never quite know what’s going on beneath the surface, and finding out the cause of anxiety and difficult behaviour isn’t always easy. Granted, if you burn the dinner, or forget to buy that low-fat ice cream you promised her, it’s pretty obvious. But a lot of time it’s something worrying her that gets suppressed, and when it manifests it’s not always clear where it’s coming from.

Was last weekend’s trip away with her friend a little daunting for her? Is it the upcoming school residential trip causing her to fret? Is it her ongoing anxiety over whether to choose size 3 or size 4 wellies when working on the school farm? Is it her mood disorder stepping up a gear again? Or is she just knackered?

A bit of detective work is in order.

It’s hard to picture, the ‘difficult and challenging’ side, isn’t it? I tend to post positively here, because there’s a heck of a lot of positive things to post. (Look, I’ll even bung you in a picture of her and Prader-Willi Syndrome Best Friend Forever sharing a cheeky champagne and lemonade spritzer at their traditional birthday sleepover on Saturday).

But the PWS road we’re on does have bastarding bumps and potholes along the way. Lets hope me and Mrs D can smooth the path a little tomorrow. And let’s hope it doesn’t take a steamroller and a lorryload of tar.

Song is Mercury Rev - Holes

Eighteen

Today, we took our 18-year-old daughter to the pub for a shandy. 

In my handbag was her passport, in case she got challenged about her age. (She didn’t, probably because she looked such an unlikely 18 that the only possible explanation was that she was actually 18).

“You shouldn’t drink too many beers like Phil because it’s bad for your liver,” she said, loudly, as we walked past a table of blokes, one of whom may have been called Phil, by the look on his face. (She was talking about Phil Mitchell, in Eastenders, by the way).

We stayed for tea, and she nursed her half pint of shandy (or ladybeer as she had christened it), for approximately one hour and thirty five minutes, announcing - with every tiny sip - that she liked it.

Her new charm bracelet jangled on her hand. Her Nan and Grandad came along and gave her a set of books and a book-shaped charm. A friend popped in, having followed the ‘Gone to the Yorkshire Grey’ note left on our door, and gave her a set of silver star earrings. When we returned home we had three phone calls, a Facetime, and two more visitors bearing gifts, which included money, a downy soft dressing gown, and a bottle of fancy champagne (Yes! One glass for her and five for me!). 

I called for my daughter to come to the bathroom for her shower for the fifth time, and joked: “Are you even listening to me? Is it all that shandy you had?”

She appeared in the doorway with a haughty look on her face. “I had ONE. I am NOT drunk.”

Eighteen years ago she was born and we were swept up in the hurricane of a disability diagnosis.

Eighteen years ago, the future was terrifying and bleak.

Today, that’s hard to remember.

Today, we celebrated.

Today, we took our 18-year-old daughter to the pub for a shandy.

Song is Pink - 18 Wheeler

Ladybeer

Today I collected my daughter from her Prader-Willi Syndrome Best Friend Forever’s house. She’d been away since Friday - PWSBFF’s dad had kindly offered to take her along with them to the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association family weekend in the New Forest. (I had been otherwise engaged doing Best Man/Woman duties at my brother’s wedding).

My girl and her friend were giggly and excited and sounded like they’d had a whale of a time (telling me, as usual, in particular, what and how much they’d eaten, and in my daughter’s case ‘what a silly question it was’ when the waitress wondered if she could cope with the hot chillies in her pasta arrabiata).

Their filling me in on events also required some filling in on my part. I worked out from a few little clues that she may have had a couple of ‘choosing issues’ on a little shopping expedition to a bookshop, for example. (She mentioned ‘absolutely having’ to go back again). 

It was at this point that the pair of them set back the progress of feminism a few years. PWSBFF said she wasn’t bothered about being late for Saturday’s visit to the country park, because ‘that was for boys, really. Going on a train ride at the park is for boys.’ This was swiftly followed by my girl announcing that she’d changed her mind about what alcoholic drink she’d like on her 18th birthday, and that it’s not now a spicy Bloody Mary, nor a glass of bubbly, but rather a ‘ladybeer’.

“What’s a ladybeer?” I ask, perplexed. “Beer is just beer - you don’t get different kinds for men and women.”

“You do, you know. A special beer for ladies, with lemonade in it.”

“Oh, do you mean a shandy?”

“Yes. A ladybeer.”

An image of suffragette Emily Davison - and the horse she stepped in front of - doing a Harry Hill look to camera and shaking their heads in disappointment popped into my mind. 

On the car journey home, in between singing along to a Taylor Swift CD, I explained to my daughter that girls and boys can do anything they want to. “I was Best Man/Woman at Uncle Ian’s wedding, wasn’t I?” I said. 

“Oh. Yes, you were.” She mulled this over for a minute. “I bet you drank lots of ladybeers.”

Song is David Bowie - Suffragette City