Molly

Ben is 7!

/ jess / 4 Comments

Ben is seven! We celebrated with, amongst other things, an egg-free chocolate cake that I whizzed up in our blender and gave to Ben through his feeding tube.

With every passing year I sound a bit more like my mum: “I can’t believe you’re seven years old! I remember when you were just a baby!” But it’s true – I am genuinely surprised that we have been parents for seven years and that Ben is so big and tall.

As with all recent birthdays, James made a Ben-themed video of the past year and we watched it with our family, projected on to the wall. I would recommend this as a way not so much of celebrating the child’s birthday, though Ben and Max enjoy seeing themselves, but more as a way of congratulating oneself on another year of parenting. It is heartening to see how much children have changed and grown over the year, how much you have done with them, and ultimately how justified you are in feeling so tired.

The other thing that we realise when we (James) make these videos is that there is always way too much material. We have done too much fun stuff and taken too many photos and videos to fit into one short film. It makes obvious that Ben is living a full life, with variety and fun, surrounded by loving family.

Just after Ben’s birthday he had an appointment at our local rehabilitation centre where wheelchair services, assistive technology and other helpful services are based. There are always all sorts of disabled people coming in and out for appointments. I was sitting in reception with Ben and Molly, waiting to be called. Molly was a bit grumpy because she hadn’t yet had her morning bottle of milk, Ben was happy watching a screen showing footage from four security cameras. A lady in a wheelchair was pushed close to us (and I have written that in the passive deliberately, because the person pushing didn’t ask her where she wanted to wait). She was an older lady, I would guess in her seventies, immaculately dressed and made up. She smiled at us and after a few moments said (as is common):

“You’ve got your hands full!”

I smiled and we had a brief chat about how old the kids were, how cute Molly was, how much she liked milk. Then the lady asked, as she looked at Ben:

“Is he able to go to school?”

“Of course,” I said. “He goes to a brilliant school which he loves, don’t you Ben. We’re just here for an appointment.”

I could see the pity-look appearing so I was even more positive than normal about both Ben and his school. But as she was leaving she said:

“It’s so hard for these handicapped children. So hard for their families. I feel so sorry for them.”

It was one of those times when I felt like I didn’t have the words to be able to explain to her what our world is like, what Ben’s life is like, how we (try to) treat him. I have no idea how or why she uses a wheelchair, or how old she was when she first used it, but clearly she has lived a different experience.

It’s impossible in passing conversations like this to say all I want to, but later I felt so sad that she assumed Ben didn’t go to school, that his life is somehow unbearably hard, that it’s okay to talk about him like that right in front of him. Clearly being disabled in some way doesn’t automatically educate you in how to treat disabled kids in 2016 (or 2017).

I don’t want to minimise Ben’s challenges – loads of things are tough for him, almost nothing comes easily, and much is really unfair. And as a family we sometimes struggle when Ben’s disability makes things more complicated for all of us. But right now, as a seven year old boy, Ben is having a good life most of the time (and really, which child is having a good life all of the time? I mean every kid has to tidy up or eat Brussels sprouts or go home some of the time). He has loads of fun. He laughs most days. He is loved. He is learning. He is thriving.

By way of illustration, between his sixth and seventh birthdays Ben:

  • Had a baby sister: tolerated Molly’s wailing, put up with a third of our attention rather than half, learnt to deal with her grabbing onto his legs and pulling his hair. And then got a new baby cousin, Ralph, who also sometimes likes a bit of a wail.
  • Learnt to cycle his trike on his own: whizzed round in circles, racing Max and being unbelievably pleased with himself. He is still working on learning how to steer.
  • Made really noticeable progress with communication: starting to eyepoint using his communication book to tell us things, more reliably telling us yes and no.
  • Made huge progress on using his eyegaze computer: using it almost every day, knowing exactly what he wants to do, reliably choosing stories and then navigating through them like a pro, using communication software to create messages that were totally appropriate to the moment.
  • Went on holiday to Cornwall and France: first flight for three years, loads of swimming and beach time, hanging out with family and friends, getting tanned (and on one unfortunate occasion burned), getting a new passport.

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  • So many jokes with Max. So many lovely moments between these two boys.
  • Started staying at a children’s hospice for the occasional night, didn’t seem to be traumatised.
  • Moved house, again. Visited the building site to review progress and try out his new lift. Before he is eight he should have managed yet another move, his sixth since he was born.

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  • Began to be hoisted (rather than manually lifted) for most transfers between chairs and beds: coped much better with this than his mum.
  • Listened to lots and lots of audiobooks: his bluetooth speaker and ipod have become essentials wherever Ben goes, and there’s therefore been less screen time, developed a love for the books of David Walliams (except the highly emotional ending of Gangsta Granny) and late in the year Harry Potter.
  • Finished his first year at a new school: totally smashed it, participated in a whole school play in his walker, another year of loving learning, fascinated by the Great Fire of London.

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  • Was increasingly contented: Ben has spent the last year less fractious and generally happier. We spend less time flicking though films to find the one he is happy to watch, less energy trying to entertain him in public places so we can finish our lunch. This is probably connected to us having more (paid) help, and Ben getting older and more mature, helped – we think – by his surgery in 2015. As long as we explain what’s what is going on or is about to happen, Ben is noticeably more able to deal with unfamiliar or demanding environments. Long may it continue.

As we celebrate another year of Ben being our son, I am so very proud of this boy (and still so very sad that seven years ago he was still in hospital). He is such a joy to us all, so filled with patience and humour and determination. Happy New Year everyone – let’s all hope we come across more Bens, less pity and more positivity in 2017.

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Having a break – the guilt of ‘respite’

/ jess / Leave a comment

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For any parent of a disabled child, the subject of respite is a bit fraught. Often because accessing any is difficult, and will have involved tricky conversations/numerous phone calls with various professionals. Partly because the logistics of organising it and physically getting the child there with everything they require are onerous.

But mainly because it’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand we would really like a break. On the other hand we feel guilty for wanting a break. We are on the knife-edge of knowing that the respite place we have carefully considered is able to take care of our child, but also thinking that no-one is going to be able to take care of them properly.

Almost two years after we were first referred for respite provision, Ben has just had his first overnight stay without us. The somewhat casual timescale allowed us time to get used to the idea, due mainly to the first hospice refusing to feed Ben pureed food so us (and yes, I mean us, social services having still not managed to assess Ben) having to find a different place. We agreed to the new referral, then went for a visit, then spent a couple of hours going through aspects of Ben’s care plan, and then stayed there with him for a weekend, then the time came for him to stay there himself.

It’s a nice place. It’s run by nurses, so feels quite medical, but that means they are totally on top of medication and not at all intimidated by disability. It’s purpose-built building with lots of space, bedrooms opening on to gardens, a huge room for craft, fun and reading. Loads of books and friendly people floating around doing interesting things. There are other kids and their siblings, volunteers making bugs and Gruffalos.

To give some context, I am generally quite relaxed about being separated from my children. We are lucky enough to have lots of family in London who are willing to look after our kids. For the first three years or so of Ben’s life he spent one night a week with my mum, he’s spent loads of weekend with his other grandparents. Max has had ‘sleepovers’ of up to five days with grandparents and my sister and her partner. Molly is somewhat testing the model by being more dedicated to breastfeeding than I would ideally like, but at some point we’ll manage to offload her too. But of course, these people are all in our family. And as Ben has got longer and heavier, and the kit he needs has got larger, it’s got trickier for him to stay anywhere that isn’t our home.

We have therefore shifted the model so James and I (perhaps with a child or two) can go away, leaving Ben in our house with various permutations of carers and family. We realise how fortunate we are to be able to do this.

What the respite hospice offers is an opportunity for us to stay at home and for Ben to stay elsewhere, allowing us to be one child down (which with three of them is a welcome release of intensity), spend more time with the other two, and perhaps get some of the stuff done that we have been planning to do for months but never have time to (e.g. unpack boxes from our house move 2.5 months ago, or actually tidy up our tip of a house). I am keen on this idea.

Except that it also involves Ben staying somewhere else without us or any other family, which makes me feel guilty and nervous.

On the morning of Ben’s solo stay we packed up everything he needed (a full car of stuff) and James and a carer set off. I used Molly as a convenient excuse to not be the one to do the drop off. I called the hospice to say they were on the way, and it transpired that there had been some administrative confusion that meant they weren’t expecting Ben until that afternoon. The idea that Ben was about to arrive for his first stay without us, and they weren’t expecting him, that they weren’t all standing around anticipating the arrival of Ben, made me feel so sad and unsure. Should I call James and get them to turn back? The journey can take up to an hour so that would mean spending most of the day faffing around which would be the exact opposite of respite. As I burst into tears, the nurse said no, they would make it work.

When James got there it was actually okay, and Ben seemed alright, and by the time James and our carer left he was happily entertained and content. We spent the weekend with Max and Molly, and realised that looking after two kids is much easier that looking after three but still pretty relentless which was quite a helpful distraction. Max burst into tears on three separate occasions because Ben wasn’t there.

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Then we went out for supper to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary, and appreciated that organising babysitting for two non-disabled kids is really straightforward. We ate delicious food, drank too many drinks, faded far too early, and came home to Molly screaming in the babysitters’ face. We had called the hospice and they said Ben was okay.

The following day we woke up to a house that only had our kids in it and us. Ben sleeps badly, and we’re lucky to have nightcarers who get up with him during the night and help us in the morning. We also have day carers almost every day which makes our family life possible. But the flipside of having a lot of help is that there is almost always someone in our house. It is a luxury to wake up and potter around in a dressing gown with only Weetabix for kids to think about.

We went for lunch, where we were just about able to have actual conversations with other adults, at tables with benches that wouldn’t accommodate wheelchairs easily. I had fun. But we were with family, and I felt bad that Ben wasn’t there. Even though we probably wouldn’t have gone for the lunch at all if Ben had been, partly because of the wheelchair, partly because trying to go for lunch with all three of our kids and actually expecting to talk to anyone is an absolutely ridiculous idea. We called again and Ben was apparently happy.

When James went to collect Ben that afternoon everything was okay. He seemed relaxed. There hadn’t been any disasters. When Ben got back home and saw me, Max and Molly he was totally thrilled. Max was so happy to have Ben back, equilibrium had been restored. Max was even content to not be able to watch his TV programmes because Ben doesn’t like them.

It was, by all measures, a success. Ben did fun stuff that he wouldn’t have done at home. Max and Molly got more of our attention, James and I had a bit of a break (it’s all relative).

So why do I feel so guilty about it? It reminds me a bit of Ben’s first week at nursery, when he was almost one. I dropped him off and called James on the way out in tears, saying I would never be able to go back to work because we couldn’t possibly leave Ben at nursery… Am I just further along the continuum of internal conflict that starts at angsting about whether kids should go to nursery or have a nanny (or any childcare at all), and ends at going away for a week with no kids? Or am I just trying to justify something that’s not fair on Ben?

I don’t think there’s a right answer, but for now I’m shattered and have a to-do list that stretches over two A4 pages and Ben was happy during this last stay, so we’ll crack on (as Max would say) and hope we’re doing the right thing.

Or at least not doing the wrong thing.

Playing for laughs (via eyegaze)

/ jess / 1 Comment

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I’ve got three kids! I don’t have much time to write blogs! And we have moved house, again, so things are as relaxed as usual round here.

In amongst the chaos and many, many boxes, Ben has been continuing to use his eyegaze computer. It travels to school with him every day and then he uses it at home for a mixture of entertainment and communication. Ben is building skills in using his eyes and navigating around software on a computer, and much of this is by playing games or other activities that he finds motivating. Like everything to do with kids learning something, anything, it’s best done through play as far as I can see.

We have various activities that he enjoys on his computer; his favourites are, unsurprisingly, stories. Some of which are ‘multiple choice’ where he has to pick the right word to continue the pre-programmed story. Others are computer equivalents of audiobooks where the entire text of a novel is on the computer and Ben can choose the story he wants, select the chapter, and then it is read out to him (in stilted computer voice, but he doesn’t seem to mind). Crucially, he has to keep selecting ‘Speak Paragraph’ in order for the story to continue, meaning that he has to engage consistently.

Ben’s current favourite book to read like this is Mr Stink by David Walliams. We have the actual book and read it to him frequently (actually I don’t, generally because I’m often preoccupied with a smaller child, but others do including my dad who assures me it is great and totes emosh). Other times Ben sits at the table reading it to himself via computer. It’s brilliant.

We hadn’t foreseen quite how fantastic the computer is for Ben and Max to use together. The laptop is touchscreen and so they can play games like, for example, Splat the Clown where Ben can splat using his eyes and Max using his finger. There aren’t many activities that they can do together like that, with total parity.

The current hit, however, is the most simple of all. By navigating through various screens within the PODD communication software Ben can get to a page which just has Yes, No and Don’t Know buttons.

Through trying to gauge Ben’s reliability of answering yes or no to questions (Ben doesn’t have a totally reliable yes or no, which is a work in progress for him and something about which I could – and may at some point – write an essay…), James invented a game of asking him sets of related yes/no questions, some of which are totally ridiculous. It is a good way of him practising giving us a clear yes or no when we know he knows the answer. He is definitely making progress on this. The thing we didn’t expect, and which is in danger of slightly undermining our carefully constructed strategy, is that Ben is now giving us the ‘wrong’ answer because it’s funny.

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Oh the laughs! The advent of this game has also coincided with Max hitting the zenith of his life so far where he can successfully make every member of our family laugh. Let me assure you that watching one of your kids make the other laugh is one of life’s pure joys. Watching Eli make BOTH of the other kids laugh is very, very lovely and makes my heart sing. All the feelings.

So it isn’t just James and me asking the yes/no questions, but Max too, and Ben bloody loves it.

Sometimes when Max is asking the questions Ben doesn’t answer. Then while we are waiting, he navigates out of that page which is autonomy in action, and is the physically disabled equivalent of a child wandering off because they have lost interest. He actually then went to a different yes/no page, through a different pathway in the software (which I didn’t know you could do), and then we continued. His ability to do this, without us mediating, is as pleasing to me as all the chuckling.

Sister Molly

/ jess / 5 Comments

Ben and Max’s sister, Molly, is four weeks old. We have survived a month with three children, something which feels like no mean feat.

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That seemed unlikely after our first family outing one week in, when we made it just 100m from our front door before Max broke the rules about how far ahead he was allowed to go on his bike, we shouted, he started crying, Ben started crying because Max was crying, and we all went home. Since then we have managed a family swimming trip and some less eventful local walks. So we might actually be capable of leaving the house as a family of five.

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Both boys have been unbelievably sweet with Molly, and very tolerant of the disruption and imposition involved in having a new-born sister. Through a combination of James having a month off work, numerous carers and family members helping us out, and a baby that sleeps a lot, we have been able to keep things as routine as we can. Ben has shown once again that he can cope with a lot of change and take it in his stride, while Max has been demonstrating his capacity to be both a kind big and little brother. We have all had a lot on, but we’re doing okay

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We do not approach birth lightly. Ben’s disability is because of problems during his birth and we therefore know too much about the risks of things going wrong and having lifelong implications. Max was ill immediately following his birth and had to be admitted to NICU. We sort of assumed that our third baby would end up in NICU, even though a neonatal consultant took the time to explain to us how (very) likely it was that we would have a totally healthy baby.

One of the people who really understood our concerns about the birth of this baby was the obstetrician who we saw throughout this pregnancy and who had previously delivered Max. She is someone we have huge respect for, whose judgement we trust, and who had successfully guided us through my second pregnancy when we were at our most anxious about having another child.

This time we knew in advance that she would not be able to deliver the baby because the elective caesarean was booked during the Christmas period when she would be on holiday. Another obstetrician would do it, it would be fine, we told ourselves. As we prepared on the morning of the birth, getting in to gowns and talking photos of my puffy face, we were calm but nervous. And then she popped her head round the curtain to say hi. Dressed in jeans and tshirt, she was officially on holiday but had come in specifically to do my caesarean section.

That, there, is an emotional moment: the joy of knowing we were in her hands (literally in my case), that our baby had the best possible chance of therefore being fine, that someone so thoroughly understood how difficult this all was for us and had come into work especially.

And then Molly was born, screaming before she was out of my womb, to be immediately declared, with a thumbs up, totally and utterly healthy by the neonatologist we had demanded be on hand to check. No resuscitation, no breathing difficulties, no-one at all worried about anything. She breastfed immediately and, following the facilitation of the obstetrician who knows we spend too much time in hospitals, we were able to go home the following day. You would not believe how uninterested everyone is in a healthy newborn baby – barely any observations, no-one came to check her overnight. If you hadn’t had experiences like ours you would have no idea of the anxiety and stress lurking just across the corridor in the neonatal unit.

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We have now had four weeks of admiring and nurturing little Molly and she is a delight. Third time lucky, we had a baby who didn’t need a canula in their head, or a tube in their nose. She immediately breastfed and sleeps like a champion (just not always at night-time). We take none of this for granted – it is luck of the draw whether you have a baby that does the basics easily or not.

We have not lost and will not lose sight of what a privilege it is to have her here with us, healthy and thriving. Nor what a delight it is to share this baby girl with these boys of mine. We are all lucky.

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