Getting there....at last!!

Wednesday's blog, and it's Wednesday....I bet that you're impressed!!

It has been quite an eventful day. Firstly, my father-in-law, John, had neurosurgery today at Kings College in London and I'm pleased to say that it went well and he is now recovering. The operation took just under 7 hours and there were no complications. He is currently in the HDU (High Dependency Unit), this is standard practice following such surgery and is just to monitor him for a while, mainly to make sure that there is not too much swelling and no post-op bleeding.

In 4-5 days time he will have a second operation, which is less complex and is not on the brain...but in the meantime he has been chatting and eating, so this is good!

Ethan, my son, had an appointment today at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford to have a multi-disciplinary assessment carried out to establish whether or not he has ASD (autism). It was a long process today, which just adds on to the fact that it has been a very long journey trying to get to this assessment stage.

To cut a long story short the verdict at the end of today's appointment was that Ethan does have ASD, however, it is at the more mild end of the spectrum. Their overall opinion is that this will not have too much of a major impact on his future life. The main issues are social, both interaction and understanding, and things such as motor skills development, etc. He also has speech and language problems, which is part of it. His speech and language problems have previously been diagnosed as severe language delay. It would seem that it many developmental areas he is between 1 and 2 years behind the average for his age. However, in terms of brains, in skills such as reasoning he is well above average. This is often the case for those with ASD.

He will now receive more occupational and speech therapy and we will receive additional support in helping to manage his condition. Now that Ethan has this 'label' it will be easier (not easy though) to access some of the resources that, until now, have been unavailable to us.

I have been praying for an answer to Ethan's problems for a long time...and I finally feel that my prayers have been answered. It feels as if a huge weight has been lifted off of both mine and Debbie's (my wife) shoulders.

We are now on the path and the gate is finally unlocked so that we can begin walking, although only time will tell how long exactly that walk will be.

Back to church on Sunday, so until then...I'll start walking!!!