All I can think about...

It's crazy how things can change in a matter of weeks. I am no longer a working mother trying to juggle a job and a house and aiming for some sort of balance to go alongside sleepless nights and frantically driving the kids from one house to another!
After a huge amount of consideration and tears (on my part) the other half and myself decided it was about time I finish up work to become a Domestic engineer aka domicile administrator aka desperate housewife, however you would like to put it!!
We had applied for domiciliary care allowance and carers benefit and we were due an answer on this the week we were on holidays. So we decided I finish work the same week as Diddles started in his new school.
That very night before he started we received the refusal letters for Dom care and carers benefit. I had heard from other people who had applied that there was a 75% decline rate on first applications. I had an idea that this would happen however I had a tiny thought in the back of my mind that we could get it first time around! Never will I be so naive again!
This in turn means no carers benefit and I had already finished work so it was a bit like taking a bullet! The reason for refusing him was that the medical assessor did not see how he needed extra care above and beyond that of a typical child of the same age. That was the single most frustrating thing I have ever been told! I genuinely think the medical assessors do not read the applications. They go from a pile of new first applications and straight into a pile of refused applications.

Anywho got an appeal together within 2 days after receiving the letters and I sent a total of 30 pages+

of documents back to them to prove he needs care and attention constantly. I got a letter from our GP, the principal of his ASD specific preschool, a letter from the public health nurse , all our correspondence with the hospitals and early intervention team. I also wrote a day to day account of what extra care he requires from our perspective.

All in all it's just as well I gave up work as none of this running around would have been possible if I was still doing 8 hours a day in an office!

All this work for € 300 a month

!! What a joke !

Anyway Diddles absolutely lit up when I first put his uniform on him! He absolutely loves going into school! There are 5 other children in his class and two SNAs and his teacher. He gets the attention he needs which is all we have wanted for him. He still however is not receiving any services or therapies he is on waiting lists for all. I'll keep fighting until we get it for him!
I am starting a course in a few weeks to learn about speech therapy I got free tuition as the girl running the course needs the numbers and it'll be me helping her out ! What a nice break! I'll probably qualify quicker as a speech therapist than when Diddles is at the top of the waiting list! So hopefully things are on the up for us. Can not wait for the waiting lists and welfare to not be All I can think about!