Forward
I started writing this book a few times, I kept getting distracted by ‘life’, to be more specific, Charlotte. She is now 17 years old and getting to be a proper young lady in many ways, and staying a big baby in many other ways too!
Charlotte was diagnosed with Autism at age three, by four the medics added severe speech delay and severe learning delay. When she was 8, just to add grist to our mill Charlotte developed severe Epilepsy, about this time she also developed a prolapsed bowel. It was thought at the time that she pushed the bowel out during a seizure, we shall never know, but the consequences of the prolapse will be touched upon later in the book.
She has become increasingly difficult to manage over the years and nowadays is very aggressive, which has been put down to the Epilepsy (again – it’s got a lot to answer for!!) She will kick, bite, pinch and punch, not to mention the head butting and screaming, you can certainly here her coming when she’s in a mood. Come to think of it, you can hear me coming when she is in a mood…’ouch’, ‘oww, that hurt’, ‘gerroff you little bugger’ and other such expletives.
I have found depths of patience I never knew existed, put up with things for the sake of peace I thought I never would, got beaten about, bruised and loved and squeezed in equal measure. Through it all I have tried to maintain a sense of humour and fun which has helped me through some tough times and I hope, given you something to laugh at, and think about, too.
