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Not sure if I am on the right site. Just happened to find the link in my wife's Sainsbury's magazine...
But having an older child (with a disability ) is not much different than having a younger child in as much as most of his needs have
to be catered for,and mostly by me as I have now taken redundancy to look after him since he returned from a specialist residential
college. My wife stayed off work on materinty as long as she could,then returned to work . When he was two weeks short of his third
birthday whilst at a childminders, he fell down the stairs and suffered a severe head injury which caused him to be disabled for life.
He spent two weeks on a life support machine but suffered severe sight loss,speech impairment and a right side hemiplegia (look that one up!)
It transpired the childminder had been refused registration ,but kept this from us to us so as a result we we unable to claim
a penny of injury compensation due to her not being insured. My wife had to give up work to care for him.
So here we are, twenty years later looking to re motgage our house to help find him his own independent life (with a care assistant)
so we can enjoy? some of our later years.
Hi Redziggy and welcome to the forum.
You've come to the right place to chat as you're a Dad 🙂
What a devastating story, I can't begin to imagine what you must have gone through at the time and ever since.
On the financial side, do you get a carer's allowance for looking after your son full time?
Hi actd, yes I claim carers allowance and am able to work 16 hours a week (4 evenings) after the wife comes home.!
Hi Redziggy,
Its brilliant to have you on here! If you don't mind me asking, you must have been through a roller coaster of emotions regarding what happened, how do you feel about it all now?
Welcome to the site - your story is a great example of just how easy these things can happen.
I suppose this whole episode has tested every resolve you have and well done for finding the time to share with us.
What happened to the child minder - were there any criminal proceedings? How do you and your wife feel now?
Twenty years of caring takes it's toll. I get through on mild dose anti D's and the wife is on tablets for stress related
heart condition.
The child minder was never prosecuted as it was regarded as an accident. Even if we could have proved negligence(quite possible)
and successfully sued her,it would have done no good as not being insured meant there was no money available to chase.
The only 'asset' she had was her mortgaged three bed semi. We even went to see a barrister in London (which cost mega bucks
fifteen years ago) and advised no one would fight a case if there were no chance of a pay out.
How do we feel now? . Life is a battle For everything. Education ,physio therapy speech and language therapy, further education
placement. Now housing and future care for when we die. Blunt i know. But the only thing certain.!
Well I have to say thank you for sharing your story and well done for putting my life into perspective - I may moan about my kids and life but when I hear stories like yours I should just be grateful.
Please stay on this site and share with us
SM
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