Loghan Update

So it is now Tuesday and I finally have to time to chat about last week and the weekend, I have mentioned before that it was Loghan birthday on Friday and that his party was due to take place on the Saturday….. Unfortunately it didn’t happen.

Late on Wednesday afternoon we or should I say I received an email from the school counselor to say that Loghan had been suspended from school…. No phone call apparently they couldn’t get hold of my ex never mind that he has two phones as well as a land-line and I also have a cell and land-line but in any case I phoned Loghan’s dad and asked him to contact the school he did and we were told that it was a very bad day and that Loghan was to return to school on Monday.

So of course when he called back we were faced with: so what are we going to do, we already told him his party would be cancelled, for any parent I can say that the thought of this was absolutely heart-breaking even though we knew we had to do it. We contacted his psychologist and were told that yes indeed we needed to stick to our word and as well as cancelling the party he was to receive no presents and all his privileges were to be taken away so he can understand the severity of what has happened, I think I cried the whole way home, I have never been one for celebrating birthdays as I know what it is like to have my birthday ruined by some or other person or reason but choosing not to celebrate as an adult is completely different to telling a 7 year old child that they would be spending their birthday in their room.

So it was decided that on Friday I would collect him and his brother after school and would be able to spend some time with him before he went back to his father we had cupcakes sang happy birthday and to be very honest Loghan was extremely mature about it I think the situation upset me/us more than him.

Going back a day to Thursday I spent the majority of the day on the phone after being told by his pead that it was time to go a step further and seek out a psychiatrist not just a psychologist, counsellor, play therapist, specialist pead basically every other avenue we have tried has not helped so this is our last resort- according to both his psychologist and pead we need to establish whether there is something we have missed along the lines of a mood disorder or if when he fell he did indeed suffer some sort of fracture or fluid build-up that was missed on the scan he had that night, I cannot for the life of me remember whether he had a CT scan or an MRI that night is a frenzied blur but I do remember them saying that the one he had was more to look for larger fractures and soft tissue damage unfortunately our medical aid only covers one scan per person per year so as much as we wanted to without a substantiation from the doctor who insisted she did not feel it was needed we could not do another scan.

All I can say is that the 1st doc I called wanted to charge 4500 for one consultation- I think threw up in my mouth, eventually we were able to find someone who was both recommended and didn't want me to sell a kidney in order for my son to see them once.

As a mom I cannot explain what I am feeling right now; the appointment is tomorrow I am scared as hell my baby boy is so perfect to me special in every way I want to help him so badly and we need to know if there is something that we have missed I know that but what if there is something and what if it is something serious, what if he requires more medications or worse I just can’t stand the thought of it!!

At the moment we are out of options, his school is a general public school and even though I know they are doing the best they can with what they can it is quickly becoming apparent that if we do not find a solution soon it may not be enough and we may need to look at a special ed school, home schooling or a tutor to be honest this is our last resort and not because it would make him a labelled special needs child (not that he isn’t one already) but because this would throw off more than we could begin to explain not only would it knock his self-esteem back again and make him feel rejected but there are very few schooling options meaning that Loghan would have to take a bus to school every day on his own and then one back in the afternoon again on his own to join his brother in day care for obvious reasons this is not something we want to do- we are also faced with the problem that it can take months to get a child into these schools and they require references from several specialists saying that he needs to be in the school- now the majority of Loghans therapists and such he has been to don’t think he needs this so that’s a negative as well as his marks are excellent which is also a problem for these schools, I don’t know why because most special needs children are exceptionally gifted.

The 2nd option would be a tutor- at the moment it costs us 4700 just to keep the 3 boys in crèche and school, that is a lot of money for us and is more than half of what I earn monthly… which is just sad but anyway- a good tutor and we would need one who is able to work with a special needs child would cost us that just for Loghan…. What about our other kids what are we supposed to do with them when we can’t afford care for them and that’s what the school and many people don’t seem to think about- yes Loghan is special he may require extra care but we have 2 other children who also deserve and need care and love and support.

Our last option would be home schooling- this would require one of us to quit our job and stay home full time to tutor Loghan this would leave us 1 salary short and would also create the problem of affording care for Gabriel and Jesse as Loghan would need to be schooled on his own without the distraction of his two younger brothers running around.

So from this it is easy in my mind to understand why we so desperately want it to work for Loghan in the school that he is in- last year he did so well this year has just been crazy… we are really hoping that tomorrow we will be able to set a path forward we may not get answers tomorrow but a step forward in the right direction would be a great help.

We (my ex and I) were also due in court today but it has been postponed- my ex and I share custody and alternate weeks with our boys this is what I and a few if not all of Loghan’s therapists feel is part of the problems he is having or adding to the issues so after pleading and asking for the last few years to try one household with my ex point blank refusing I resorted to asking the court to intervene and decide that why if they decide it is a professional opinion based on a social workers report of what is best for the boys and not just mine or his opinion.

In south Africa for those that read my blog in other countries there is no such thing as sole custody except in extreme cases otherwise both parents have equal parental rights and responsibilities, both parents are encouraged to share time with the their children as equal as possible and although alternate weekends and holidays is still the norm for most dads if a dad does ask for equal time they will be allowed this- it is also law in SA that a father cannot be denied access to his child whether he pays child support or not if say for instance my ex refuses to pay his monthly court decided support amount and I then decide to hold back his kids from seeing him I will end up in more trouble than him which as far as I am concerned is so wrong- I have friends who have not seen a cent of child support for years and yet when they have gone to court they are given the run around the men can’t be found etc its just plain wrong but anyway that’s how this country works- just a side note that we also have one of the highest cases of foetal alcohol syndrome in this country due to mothers purposefully drinking in order to gain a grant when their children are born.

Now I am going to go on public record and say this just as I said to the social worker- my ex loves his kids- he may not have been ready to have them when we did but they mean the world to him and I know that as a father he does what he feels is the best that he can with what he has- I do not I repeat do not and will not take his kids away from him or stop them from seeing them EVER but I do believe very strongly that being a father is not about the quantity of time you spend with your kids but rather the quality- he does not see it that way, I hope one day he will understand and no matter what the outcome is of this court proceeding I hope that the court does what is best for our boys- I will say that we have an amazingly thorough social worker who by no fault of his own is completely swamped, I understand that he is doing the best he can as fast as he can no matter how frustrating it is with the constant postponements and such- we are under an incredible amount of pressure from the school though which I hope from our side he can understand.

On a lighter note I mentioned in my last blog that we were going to start cloth diapering well we did on the weekend and its going great my hubby and I are so happy that we decided to do this and Jess is much happier as well!!!

Crossing fingers for a positive outcome tomorrow!