General Chat

I've often asked myself whether I would have been able to cope with a disabled child, and the answer is no I don't think I would.....either with or wothout a partner. So well done to you Stephen

As a father of a severly disabled child i feel i need to point out to people who are easy to critisise for relationship of the parents to split up When my son was born he was obviously not right and the doctors knew that something was wrong Right from that moment my relationship changed with my wife At 3 months old he under went open heart surgery and did actually stop breathing 3 times only to be broought back by the doctors treating him but we was told If he was to stop breathing again it would cause ireversable brain damage the powers up above decided he should live because he recovered but was still not right has the brain damage had already been cause beleive me our world fell apart there we was awith a son at had a uncertain future and we had to come to terms with that we went through stages of blaming each other and our other 2 children were caught in the middle although we knew this was upsetting the kids there was always a sense of injustice as to why we should be the ones at suffer the rows continued eventually it led to us seperating still not being able to see past our own inabilitys to see what was wrong councelling didnt help and we decided to go our differant ways I gave up work to care 24/7 for my son while my wife took the other two children and moved on with her life although continueing to have contact with both our son and my other children it seam to work fine we alrealdy knew that my son had been brain damaged and would need 24hour care and i thought i would be better to give him that care something that i have now done for 11 years we was told he would never sit up he would be wheelchair bound for the rest of his life nobody who has never had a disabled child will EVER UNDERSTAND what you go through as parents The loss of not being able to do normal things we all take for granted with opur kids Like Kicking a football So before anyone critises a parent of a disabled child for losing it in relationships PUT YOURSELF in our position Could you cope if it was you ....On a happier note My son is now 12 and in the last 9 months throughs 3 years of hard contanst motivation he has began to walk a few steps yes he is still wheel chair bound and fed by machine overnight but when he smiles at you and puts his arms out for a cuddle All the stress of caring for him go`s out the window ...Theres no books on being a good parent Couples with normal children divorce so please remember the person who has to care for 24/7 sorry for the loong winded reply just wanted to get it off my chest ....WE ARE ONLY HUMAN not ROBOTS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------