I agree entirely. My child had a gastro referral, they said they can’t book over 6 months in advance and were full to that point so try getting referred again later
we’re also forced to go private for dental due to there being no NHS dentists taking on and
needing to be seen.
However she’s quick to pay privately for gynae, PT, dental for herself, osteo inc the baby one, I don’t know if ADA’s hips were private or not.
She has the time and means. I’d have at least had his teeth checked.
Maybe I’m over anxious, maybe she has done and doesn’t discuss it, maybe she relies on “NNB was a nurse” but didn’t she say she had had ADA’s hips checked because she noticed the rolls on her legs were uneven? And she told us before she got the results. If you seek help over something like that but ignore the fact the older child trips and falls constantly, Walks with arms out for balance and on tiptoes, still toddles and can’t climbs stairs, is reluctant to walk at nearly 3 then I really don’t know what to think.
Walks with arms out for balance and on tiptoes,
You all know, because I’ve certainly banged on about it enough, that I’m autistic, and early on got pretty irate when several people stated Alf was autistic (to be honest, it still vexes me that autism is being used as such a catch-all these days, and that a number of behaviours are suddenly ‘neurodiverse’ - it’s really not that simple). But walking on tiptoe as a toddler is a major sign: I did it myself! (My mother thought I looked like a little ballerina and was entranced by it - but then, such signs, certainly in girls, were largely unknown back then.) That, plus the lack of eye contact, hand flapping, lining up objects in neat rows, the verbal delays that happen in some children and mobility issues, the meltdowns and distress over relatively minor events, the sensory issues… I’m calling it: I think he’s autistic. And as an autistic person, I’m absolutely begging Ashley to get help for him NOW.
Growing up autistic without a diagnosis is hell. You do not feel part of the world. I remember, from a very early age, being that child at the edge of the playground, not being able to understand the games they were playing and the language they used, overstimulated and triggered by the noise, busyness and screaming, wanting only to find a quiet place to lose myself in a good book. I was born with a very high IQ of 172 and started reading at just over a year old, was always expected to perform brilliantly academically (which is its own hard, hard road) which automatically set me out as ‘different’ - that, coupled with the autism has made me so unbelievably lonely; I never got what made other people tick. Over the years, I ‘masked’ - observed other people’s reactions and copied them so I would fit in with the norm and not make waves, unnerve or repel others, be picked out and picked on (though I was still bullied very badly - verbally, emotionally, physically, for being ‘different’): it’s exhausting. Absolutely exhausting to pretend to be what you’re not so that you’re not isolated, excluded or made to feel like the ‘other’. I’m still blunt as hell, but years of observing others has allowed me to move relatively unimpeded through society. It hasn’t stopped friends from abruptly dumping me, or being marked out as ‘weird’ and ‘unlikeable’, or put me in some very dangerous situations (I don’t lie, and it’s been a very hard lesson to learn that others do: I nearly got involved in criminal activity once as a result).
What I’m saying, and I know that I’m labouring the point here, is that IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE SO HARD FOR ME. My life could have been so much less stressful, sad, lonely and isolated if medical professionals had known then what they know now, and had educated my parents on the reasonable adjusments they needed to make - from not putting me in wool clothing so I scratched myself so hard I bled copiously and cutting the labels out of my tops, to ensuring a peaceful environment so that I wasn’t always anticipating the sky falling and rock, rock, rocking myself for comfort, to understanding that I have hyperfocus and a specific range of interests, to showing how to integrate myself within society without entirely losing myself in the process (and those four or five criteria are the tip of the iceberg). I could have been placed in an alternative education setting rather than being thrown to the wolves at my private school, for which I really do wish I’d never got a scholarship and experienced years of grief. People could have been a lot kinder and, these days, I’m sure are. If you understand the root of the problem, you’re a lot likely to be accommodating. (People, by and large, are good and don’t want to hurt others.)
Please, Ashley: please don’t let Alf have a life like mine. Please don’t open him up to the scarring taunts from the playground bullies and the isolation, which does cause a lot of anguish, believe me! Please don’t let him struggle through life, be rejected, feel unworthy and unloveable, be mocked and derided, avoided and disrespected. Autistic people are more likely than the norm to have chonic anxiety and depression; the more his condition is mitigated, the less likely he is to be overwhelmed by emotional distress. Please get him the help he needs, and show the world what that help looks like. Help to educate others who still see we autistic people as ‘Rain Man’. I’m begging you, don’t let him suffer the way I did. He’ll end up wishing he’d never been born at all.
Sorry for such a long post, everyone.
but probably not because I MADE THIS CHOICE and you don’t get the time back.
' refrain really distasteful. Early modern witch-hunts were a female genocide, first of all, not a cute quirky identity that we can now co-opt in totally different (modern) circumstances. Ash if you're reading this - you wouldn't have been a witch if you tried. firstly you live a completely patriarchically conventional life, with a life partner and 2 children in a massive house. secondly witches usually had a subversive skill set, usually apothecary or midwifery or some other actually useful occupation and certainly would not have been found stripping half naked for their male audience, making pointless fashion reels and otherwise exploiting the (male) gaze, and their children for their own ends. thirdly, witches were countercultural political radicals often burned (a manifestly HORRIBLE way to die and not a laughing matter) for refusing to recant their ideological beliefs and sticking to their convictions, whereas you chop and change your opinion of the moment according to whichever bandwagon you can get on at any given time. Fourthly you just dont have the requisite intelligence or courage to be mistaken for an early modern witch. Im sure they could at the least spell better . 
he looks like he’s walking for the first time after he’s had crutches off. He looks stiff and almost like he’s in pain. That poor boy, you know guys I don’t know how much more I can watch.
