O JOY! Getting TWO lives back

MY heart is like a singing bird
    Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
    Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit

Today this Carer is blissfully happy.  Why? Today I heard for certain-sure that Ms Fitty has got her education back. More, she is going to be able to continue her education at a specialist residential college for students with epilepsy.

It’s like a dream come true.

Ms F’s future has changed overnight. Potential? This is her chance to achieve it! Independence? Ditto! Future? she’ll have one! Peer group? Check! Social life? Check! Everything she’s ever wistfully watched her friends enjoying is, at last, within her own reach.  No more sitting on the side watching. Ms F, a modern-day Pinocchio, has suddenly got the chance to become a Real Girl.

Its tear-jerkingly happy-making.

This didn’t happen by accident. After the system meltdown mentioned elsewhere, we were lucky enough to get Ms F’s old social  worker back: a wonderful, calm, kindly, smiling, unflappable woman who tweaked invisible strings and quietly restored order from the anarchy we had fallen into.

And so supported,  Ms F and I went to visit the college  – and Ms F liked the college and the college liked Ms F and offered her a place. Dependent on us getting the funding. (This, mark you, in the last week of the summer term, with 8 candidates chasing 5 places)  I persuaded Ms F’s Health, Social Care and Education representatives to meet Ms F and me round our dining room table to try and get them to understand the sheer despair of our Groundhog Days. And they did.  And then I nagged, and blagged, and wheedled, and pestered all summer and today I head that all funding commitments had been made. In writing. Technically college starts on Tuesday!

Talk about going up to the wire.

So now – as I said – Ms Fitty is suddenly  projected into a world with a future, slightly scared, excited, delighted, knuckles whited. And I,  who have  cared around the clock with so very little time off for so very long – I will suddenly become a Real Person too.

The college is  residential and there are 38 weeks of term-time a year. For the next two years I will be the kind of person who can just go out to a film, or decide to attend a class, or write a novel or if someone asks if I fancy a trip to Barcelona or a cycle across the country or even a drink in a pub, can just say yes.  And if I am ill, I can be ill with all my heart and soul and not have to get up and worry about caring for anyone but myself. Reader, I  will be just like you!

Lets face it, I’m slightly scared, excited, delighted, knuckles whited myself.