No pain… no gain?

Meg has had a rubbish month. Fact.

The dizziness and nausea has almost kept her confined to bed.  It is a crappy time.  It seems such a long time ago when she could walk, never mind run (albeit, usually into things) and enjoy the 'normal' things in life.  Ofcourse, this type of lifestyle is typical when you have a child (or indeed an adult) with special needs.

Turner girls/ladies have a high pain threshold, which can be very dangerous, as illnesses and accidental damage to their bodies may not surface until they reach crisis point.  For us, this was proven on many occasions:

E.g 1.  In Junior School, She ran into the corner of a playground boat at playtime in the morning, the bruising didn't come out until home-time when I went to collect her and was greeted by the Headmistress - who took me aside into her office to apologise profusely that they weren't aware that she had had an accident, as she didn't make a sound about it until the eye had completely closed and the swelling was 'annoying her'. A trip to A & E was interesting and the Paediatrician couldn't make it any clearer that she was very close to losing her eye.

E.g. 2. Following a very unsettled night (no different to any other night) at the age of about 4, it wasn't until the morning when she went to hold my face that I focused on her hand, which was twice the size it should have been and a deep shade of purple..... She had managed to find a hair bobble and tie it around her wrist..... A&E again were very stern and luckily the blood managed to make its way back from her hand by about 6 hours.

E.g. 3. Exploding finger tip. Turner girls have hyper convex nails, so that, along with a poor lymphatic system and no pain receptors = numerous trips to A & E with exploding ends of digits, when 'whitlows' have refused to get better on their own (how many times did I have to tell the GP....) and ending up with her fingers looking like exploding cigars from a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

E.g. 4. She managed to pull a whole metal filing cabinet drawer onto her toe, which, at the time was only covered in a sock (her foot…. not the filing cabinet…) PUT YOUR SLIPPERS ON! You can imagine the mess, and this was only discovered when I went to put her in the bath and saw her tiny toe completely split in two.

I could go on and on with this, and those of you that have known Meg since she was a baby, will remember how accident prone she was, actually -  she still is…..

This learning exercise has taught me, not to play down the importance of telling schools and groups that your daughter is involved in the importance of keeping your eyes peeled 360 degrees constantly, and when they say they have a sore 'whatever' or they feel poorly. They do. It is all too easy for a healthcare professional or teacher or group leader not to 'get' the implications that can lead on from a simple accident to these girls. You are truly the only person who knows your child.  Not the teacher, who has a whole class to see to, not your G.P. Who we all know, we as parents have had to educate, and not even your Endocrinologist or other Consultants who you see for probably a maximum of 20 minutes.  Our children are not straight out of medical text books.

They are unique and beautifully so.

Then of course, on the other side of the coin I have darling Daisy, who calls for Air Ambulance every time she gets a paper cut...….  *sighs and gets a plaster out*.