2son was discharged on the 13th September, over a month ago. Today he has gone to CATE (mini-school) for the first time.
I’m tempted to just leave it there, such is my pleasure that he is out of the house. But I won’t.
He hasn’t left the house since his return until he agreed, via a telephone conversation to meet the EP writing the assessment for the SEN panel who we first met at the discharge meeting. So we met up with the EP and CATE on Friday and had a really good chat about what the options might be, what 2son’s needs were, how they might be met, what was stopping him and what could be done to help him. This EP was really brilliant at just talking to 2son and making it easy to talk back and 2son agreed to try coming in to CATE this week at lunchtime for a couple of hours. He doesn’t have to do any work if he doesn’t want to and he said he didn’t want to meet up with the other children but HE HAS LEFT THE HOUSE.
He may not go back tomorrow, who knows. But he has gone today and that is spectacular.
He spent the first two weeks up all night and asleep all day. I did point out to him that he either goes back to CATE or residential place will be sought. I don’t know if it was that or other things going on in his mind but he reversed himself two thirds so was getting up at 5 in the morning and going to bed around tea time. He had a week of that and then I started opening the curtains in the front room as otherwise he would stay without daylight all day long. He didn’t resist too much so I kept that up.
The reality is that if the SEN panel agree to draft a statement, the procedure is such that if he were offered any sort of residential place then it wouldn’t happen until January. I have spent the last few weeks getting increasingly worried that 2son was just going to stay in bed until then and no-one would offer any help of any use. The daily visits to assist his travel and getting up have ceased today. It was worth a try but achieved absolutely nothing.
I was beginning to feel doomed, that we were going to repeat the last year and would have to wait for the downhill spiral to continue such that he would go back to hospital before anybody did anything. I’m glad I phoned up the EP to discuss all this as he persuaded 2son to come for a little chat.
I have no expectations for tomorrow but am proud of what 2son’s achieved today.