Covid finally caught up with us at the very end of the summer term. I’ve always been nervous of how G would cope with covid, more so her body and heart. That said she wasn’t in the at risk category, so it was only my own anxious mind going ten to the dozen.
The penultimate week of term G vomited and had a temperature. Now this is totally the norm for her-it happens every 8 weeks or so, and is usually associated with tiredness (for the last two years now we’ve been querying cyclical vomiting syndrome or abdominal migraines). She was isolating anyway due to her year group having a Coronavirus outbreak but it was only when another mum texted to say her son had vomited and then tested positive that we decided to book a PCR test. 24 hours later….POSITIVE. I crumbled, my greatest fears of the past 15 months enveloped me. Thank God, G was ok. Forty eight hours and she was back to her fun loving self. Myself and H then went on to test positive, with differing symptoms (sore throat, head cold, and eventually the loss of taste and smell) but we too recovered in relatively short time. Daddy escaped. We’re both double jabbed, so no rhyme or reason.
So the aforementioned meant that our summer holidays started 10 days early. We were grateful for beautiful weather and a garden to enjoy it in, for family and friends sending supplies and that we were lucky enough to be vaccinated and thus no doubt suffered far less.
The summer holidays had soon whizzed by in a blur of play dates, park visits, a trip to Legoland, playing in her Uncle’s converted camper, a first on the dodgems, candy floss, and a beach day. Before we knew it we were preparing for another year at the juniors for G and H starting infant school.
G has settled in well with her new class, has gelled with her teacher, and has been getting the time she requires to do her Occupational Therapy exercise within the school week.
Appointments:
We’ve had none. We love a dry spell of appointments!!
G has her paediatrician and endocrinologist at the beginning of November, as well as her annual heart scans. We were told to expect an MRI this year as they really need a more detailed picture of her heart and her bicuspid aortic valve, so that may require a return trip to Oxford just before Christmas.
We have received the full report from the educational psychologist which we found very enlightening. G is a babe who is verbally gifted-you only need to have a conversation with her to realise that. But I’ve always said her verbal ability and what she gets down on paper just don’t marry up. Well the Ed Psych’s assessments finally proved that-well above average verbal capabilities and less than average processing speed. BOOM. Doesn’t a mother always know? Some recommendations have been sent to school but for now, as she copes, little will be implemented. But it’s in black and white for if and when she doesn’t.
Everything that we have achieved over the past 9 months has been a battle, but one worth fighting. The occupational therapy diagnosis of hyper mobility and visual perception issues, along with the Ed Psych’s diagnosis of high verbal capabilities yet low processing speed would have all be missed. We may not have had the outcome we expected from the ASD team, but we don’t need labels, just an awareness. ‘She copes, we don’t see any issues, she is working at expected levels’. Yes my friends, but do you understand how tricky it can be for her to do this? To not blow her lid all day, to continuously copy from the board to her book when her visual-motor skills are poor, to focus so hard on beautiful handwriting to strive to achieve that pen licence she so desperately desires despite hyper mobility of her fingers? She is an absolute trooper. Our trooper. I’ll always be her advocate 💜
