Want to hear some good news?

December 12, 2010

Want to hear some good news?

Thanks to everyone who wrote in with comments and messages and emails of support during the recent health problems with William. But to prevent this blog becoming too gloomy, i thought i'd balance it out and share some snippets of good news that have happened recently. Again, not BDSM-related, but as several people pointed out my blog should reflect my life, and my life is mostly taken up with family stuff right now so it's inevitable that bits of it will creep onto here. And i guess if you just want to read the BDSM stuff you can always skip past posts like this.

So, onto the good news:

1. Since being discharged from the hospital (and we were lucky to get him discharged so quickly because normally the doctors would have kept him in for a week to wean him onto his new med and monitor the effects, but since i am so experienced with seizures through my work with special children they were confident in letting me take him home sooner), William's seizures have shown some improvement - there have been noticeably less of them and the most severe ones have definitely become a lot less frequent and with less disruption to his breathing when they do occur. Also William has been more alert and more contented when he is awake since starting the combination of 2 meds (phenobarbitol and keppra), so we are hopeful that these improvements will continue.

2. William has learnt a new skill, which to be honest is probably only the 3rd skill he has learnt since being born (breastfeeding successfully and making any sound other than crying being the other 2). He receives daily physiotherapy from me and a more intensive weekly session with a qualified physiotherapist, concentrating on arm and leg stretches and movements and putting him onto his tummy propped over a pillow-roll and encouraging him to move his arms and lift his head. William really hates being on his tummy and protests very loudly, but we have persevered and during the past week we have started to see some results - he can now lift his own head without help and hold it up for approximately 1 second at a time, and he isn't crying when he does so! For William this is a really big step, and the physio says now that he has achieved this it is only a matter of building up the strength in his neck muscles, so that he can eventually support his own head at all times, just as Finn almost can already. i'm so proud of my little soldier (and also proud of Finn of course).

3. Regular readers will remember that we have had some problems with Sir's mum since William's diagnosis; namely that she thought we should have terminated William/sent him for adoption/given him away to a care home, and she has been manifesting these opinions in acts such as only bringing presents for Finn, which resulted in her being banned from our house and use refusing to take the children to visit her until such a time as she changed her attitude. Poppy has really been missing her 'gram', but Sir and i have stood firm knowing that it will be better for all our children in the long-run if we can get His mum to change her mind. And to be honest i would rather all 3 of my children missed out on seeing their grandma than were subjected to overtly prejudiced treatment with one of them being ostricized and ignored. But after our hospital scare with William, Sir's mum asked to come round to talk with Sir and i, and that meeting went well with her admitting that the problem lay with her and she just didn't know how to deal with a disabled grandchild. She is due to come round this afternoon to visit the children and she phoned up yesterday to say that she wanted to bring them each a little gift (even though it's Christmas soon!) and asked for ideas on what to get each of them - including William, AND she told me that she has already got Christmas presents for all 3 children and from what she described she has put a lot of thought into getting William something that will really benefit him! So it seems like we have finally properly turned the corner with Sir's mum and we can continue moving forwards with this now, hopefully with her fully on board with having 3 wonderful and unique grandchildren who all deserve love and attention.

So that's my good news for today - thank you for reading :)