Five

In honour of May being Prader-Willi Awareness Month (and also Gin & Tonic month, just because I’ve decided, OK?), I’m going to share something.

I could talk about a missing bit of a chromosome. I could give you a list of the main characteristics of the syndrome: how it involves weak muscle tone, immature sexual development, an excessive appetite coupled with a decreased calorific requirement, learning disability, and poor emotional and social development.

But that’s impersonal. And a bit depressing. It’s the kind of summary that floors you when you read about PWS as a new parent - as we did 18 and a half years ago. It’s a blood-draining, gut-punching shock. It’s unthinkable, unimaginable, unfair.

I’ll share something else, instead.

Tonight, I’m sewing a badge onto a blanket. It’s a small thing, but it isn’t a small thing.

My girl, the one with weak muscle tone, the incredibly stubborn one who won’t do anything she has set her mind against, and who has for all of her life clung insistently to floats and woggles in the pool, has earned her 5 metre badge.

Her swimming teacher, an otter-like marvel, has someone channelled my daughter’s stubbornness and determination, and got her to swim free. My girl’s style may have been unorthodox, her feet may have been dangerously close to touching the bottom of the pool, and she won’t be winning any speed records, but she did it.

That’s it, that’s what I want to share. That phrase. Expected and unexpected. Familiar and fresh. A phrase that I’ve used countless times, after countless waits, in different contexts, but always in the same amazed tone.

She did it.

I bloody hate sewing, though.

Song is Agnes Obel - Fivefold