So, as I noticed earlier, I’d practically forgotten I had this blog with it being so long since I last updated it. The ‘Ta-da’ day wasn’t really so much of a ‘Ta-da’ day in the end. The Mac decided it wouldn’t play with Facebook or Twitter, and the OAP was still having the odd strop, and then the internet completely stopped working for nearly a month because BT were upgrading the exchange our ISP used. It wasn’t great as I needed the internet to do research for the festival programme I was making as well as getting my regular social media fix.
When the internet finally came back to life, the OAP decided to slow to less than a snails pace. The radio show was postponed indefinitely as every time we ordered a new part, it wouldn’t fit in it, or was the wrong type or some other such disaster. Eventually, at the end of October I succumbed and bought myself a new laptop. No where near as beautiful and beast like as the Sony, but hey ho, it works. And it works well enough for me to do the radio show. As luck would have it, after I got the shiny new laptop, my PC guy told me he had completely re-built the OAP for next to nothing, and it was now a new born with an amazing sound card and fast speeds. I could even do my radio show from that! So, that was the technical woes finally resolved. Hurrah!
Regards the Male Shaped Monster – well. How long have you got?
In September we finally received a diagnosis for him. He is Autistic, as well as having a sever speech and language disorder. He’s changing school in April (after the Easter Holidays) to a lovely school which has a specialised speech and language provision, while still allowing him to participate in main stream activities. He’ll be getting there by a local government funded supervised taxi scheme which has also been paid for by his current school.
We were also awarded DLA (high rate care component) for him. I hated applying for it, and put it off as much as I possibly could. There was so much negativity from people around us always saying ‘you won’t get it,’ ‘you’ll have to appeal loads and loads,’ ‘you’ll have to get a Social Worker,’ and so on. I filled the forms out as best as I could and sent as much information as we had along with them and promptly put it from my mind. When they’d gone, what was the point in worrying about them more? It would do nothing but stress me and therefore the rest of the family even more. Four weeks later, after a particularly bad day the day before, I checked my bank account and nearly fainted. We had a substantial amount of money in there, from where, we couldn’t work out. On went several demented phone calls to Child Tax Credit, the Job Centre, Inland Revenue and finally the bank before we worked out it was DLA for the male shaped monster. I cried when they told me he had been awarded the high rate care component.
I think the reason I cried was because it meant that my beautiful son was disabled. It bought it home to me how much hard work he is. How neither me or my husband have had a full nights sleep since he was born. We have to plan days out with almost military precision.
Weirdly, when we told the Health Visitor that we had been awarded High rate Care for him, she tried employing me on the spot to help fill out other peoples forms. Apparently it’s highly unusual to get awarded anything without an appeal, never mind before a formal diagnosis (we were awarded the DLA about a week before he’d been formally diagnosed as being on the Spectrum – something I was completely transparent about when filling out the forms).
Every day is new and particularly interesting challenge with the male shaped monster. Sometimes he can be the most loving adorable little boy in the world – all be it a very quiet and shy one. Sometimes it’s very clear why his nickname is the monster. I just hope the transition to his new school in April is going to help his speech and help his confidence in expressing himself.
And now, what about me? Well. I got a job in September, and then had to give it up when we got the diagnosis for the male shaped monster. I’m now his full time carer. I’ve not been writing as much as I should have – mainly because I just haven’t had the time for various reasons. I’ve started doing my radio show again, which I adore and missed so much when I was having the technical issues. I’ve gone down from a UK size 18 to a UK size 12 since the end of November. My endometriosis has flared up again and is getting uncontrollable. My asthma has got so bad I’m on a purple inhaler (I never even knew purple inhalers existed), and currently I’ve been on crutches for the last 10 days.
Enough to be getting on with?
Diary Of A Faker 