A quick update for those who care.....just back from (another) meeting re: the house, this time with the new housing officer. Surprisingly it wasn't an utter shit show.   Result.  

This is a tricky one to write as I'm currently running on extremely low battery due to a glut of letter writing, emails and meetings. Yes, we're kinda in a calm/low period at the moment as far as the whole housing debacle is concerned, awaiting replies from various legal sources as well as waiting on an MDT meeting and the like in order to find our next move meaning I currently feel like I'm in limbo.  My Autistic brain - which is constantly moving and working (which detracts from the whole noisy head thing) has been dragged kicking and screaming to a halt before being pulled backwards, constantly replaying how an organisation could be so completely and so utterly incompetent (or uncaring) as to allow this whole situation to happen and, more importantly, coming to terms with how much it's affected myself and my families health. For myself, the physical effects like the huge flare up in my Psoriasis (documented earlier this year) and the spike in my blood pressure is not...

Well that's us celebrating 6 months since the (then) housing officer turned up at our door and the ball began rolling on our "really urgent" house repair job. To be honest it's actually 6 1/2 years since we reported the repairs and 2 1/2 years since they were meant to actually carry them out but I thought I'd be kind.  Anyway,  as a sort of  tribute to the incredible efficiency, general competence and all round professionalism of Wheatley Homes and their obviously top quality and well trained staff (and for those of you new to this whole sorry saga) here is a timeline of the story of us asking for a leak to be fixed.... Enjoy.  Oh and I've cut down on the sarcasm this time around for a change.    This statement may not be accurate. Mid 2020 – Report a small leak to our housing officer, he says he isn’t sure if Wheatley can repair it or if we have to pay to get it repaired and claim expenses. He says he will check and get back to us. Beginning 2021 – Toilet...

 The girls had their first appointment with the NHS Learning Disability Health Team last week - the team were fantastic and went out of their way to make them comfortable by the way so kudos to them - and part of the assessment was to put things in place to make doctors/dentists visits etc. easier for - in our case - Autistic (young) adults.   Which is great because Amelia has broken a tooth and due to a mix of sensory issues around her mouth coupled with an abject fear of dentists hasn't wanted to go get it sorted. The LD Health Check team took this into account and made a referral thru' our doctor's surgery for her to see a specialist dentist with experience of Autistic/LD patients. A brilliant idea you might think. Us too. Obviously the specialist dental team don't think so as I've just found out that her referral was refused, it seems that she can only see the specialist team if she first registers with a regular dentist and has a probably traumatizing  examinat...

  Trying to get straight answers re: housing, disability and the equality act from our housing association (still) be like:  

Not done a house update for a few weeks because everything is going so well. Not really, it's still a bit shit.     I think I may have hit the I really can't be bothered being civil with housing point right now (to be fair it has been going on since February), we've gone from them being very nice since Social Work got involved to in the last week them phoning SW (our allotted worker is on annual leave) because we hadn't rung them back straight away to now adding seemingly random policy rules to our promised move. A house (not ours) for illustrative purposes. We seem to have gone from "we'll find you a suitable property" to "if you don't accept the first property you're offered that's it because you only get one choice" which under the circumstances seems a wee bit churlish seeing as not only had we already accepted a property that we were subsequently told we shouldn't be offered (and are snapped at when we mention it, I just lo...

A quick real life catch up as it's been a wee bit mad here at the moment. First up, apologies to anyone who missed my dulcet tones on the radio Tuesday , turns out they'd overbooked the amount of English males they needed so I unfortunately got dumped from the panel. I did managed to randomly add a few comments near the end but due to timing they skipped the punchline. Story of my life.  As a (self congratulatory) aside the visuals I produced for the inaugural  David Byrne themed Byrne's Night in Dumbarton seemed to go down a treat!       And on another bright note it looks like there may finally be some progress on the whole house situation that wont have to involve legal action and/or government intervention. Or any more Autistic meltdowns.  Which is nice.     I can't say too much right now except that having such a high stress level every day for almost 4 months certainly takes its toll. My head feels like someone has set a huge bag of firework...

Been getting a fair few responses to the whole housing debacle of late so thought I'd post an as in-depth as possible version of the situation in one handy place save people having to read multiple posts (which they still can if they want). So buckle up and here we go: We've been waiting on house repairs for around 6 years now, what started as a small leak just before lock down turned into a huge leak which left us without a flushing toilet for a year (which was finally fixed at least) and a drop in water pressure which meant that we can't use the washing machine or shower. About 4 years after the original repair report - and after being contacted by our local MP housing did in fact attempt a repair (that's when they fitted a new toilet) but the plumber they sent out hadn't realised that the main water supply was behind the washing machine and because no one had told us to move it couldn't actually do anything apart from tear out some kitchen panels, smash a...

 A wee bit of a change from the (by now usual) housing woes and I thought I'd update everyone (anyone?) on the other major thing going down at the moment which was my exciting (to me at least) adventures in photo-therapy up at Gartnavel Hospital in 'sunny' Glasgow. My home from home the last few months.   You see I've just finished my - 3 month - course so I reckoned it was time to review the whole hospital visit/treatment situation from an Autistic viewpoint. I've briefly covered the treatment in a few posts previously (but refrained from posting photos of my oh so lovely Psoriasis scabs) so this is less about the treatment and more about staffing and attitude. Oh and how they did putting up with me for 3 plus months. As regular readers will know it can be a wee bit hit and miss when it comes to medical matters - some folk, like the physiotherapist  I had to see a few years back, have been utterly fantastic - she even incorporated my wrist/hand stims into my treat...

  Not usually so serious but currently experiencing the first, oddly unsettling throes of that fabled condition called Autistic shutdown - my eyes are closing, my arms and legs are heavy and I'm lurching 'tween feeling like crying and vomiting.  This whole housing situation has completely broken me and I really can't see anyway forward, hate having to ask Rho to deal with this shite.    

  Been a wee bit quiet on the whole house moving front at the moment, partly due to having absolutely no idea what's going on but mainly due to the fact that there's probably going to be pretty harsh legal consequences to how it's been dealt with by the housing officer so reckoned it was best to keep quiet and make notes in the meantime. However all that seems to have changed a few weeks back when we received a phone call to tell us that the housing officer had left their job suddenly for a new one (who knew there was a huge job market for sociopaths?) and that we needed to get a meeting regarding the house move as she'd not done the job handover or put anything in place. Obviously we then kinda assumed that we wouldn't be getting the keys on 1st April as promised and wouldn't be able to start moving stuff. But as a plus point we now don't have to deal with what was probably the most vindictive, manipulative and downright rude person I have ever encountered ...

Just a quick update for anyone(?) following my medical adventures to brighten the weekend.   Well I'm a third of the way thru' my photo-therapy treatment (well kind of, I finish up the end of April) and the staff have remarked as to how well it's going, no longer are my legs covered in 1/4 inch dragon scales and I've even got a healthy almost tan to boot. Yes it's itchy as f#ck and I smell of shea butter but at least I can walk with cracking, bleeding everywhere and I'm actually able to sleep!  And the staff at Gartnavel (in sunny Glasgow) have been absolutely fantastic so far and are well on their way to getting there own medical issue Autastic award .   An actual photo of me undergoing light therapy. Relax ladies, I'm not single. In the meantime I'm off to get drunk and (hopefully) finish up the Frightfest art for next week.  

For absolutely no reason whatsoever a short thread re: stims in public just to show how aware people actually are. You may think you know why I'm posting this right now but I couldn't possibly comment. And the secret word of the day is...     Cassidy - our youngest - has very limited speech and usually communicates thru single words and (very) loud shouty noises.   There are happy noises, frustrated noises, funny noises, the whole spectrum of noises for every emotion or situation and we as his parents have learned this because why wouldn't you learn the language of someone you care about and want to communicate with?   Being out with him (especially shopping) is very interesting - folk will clear the aisle when he goes past, tutting and staring as they go.   If Cass gets stressed or upset he has a tendency to grab your arms and shake you - there's no malice (and he doesn't do it to strangers) it's just pure frustration.   It could be something as major as a...