Croeso i Gymru

Life changing decision.

2005 was not a good year as they go. In fact it all started in November 2004, the 5th to be exact when Dadi Skilts (DS) was rushed to hospital. He had been ill for most of the preceding year and thought he had discovered a brilliant new diet where you drank litres of water and lost loads of weight (although you had zero energy and slept most of your life away). I assured him women across the world would have sussed that one, millennia ago. I don’t know why, but I encouraged him to get a diabetes test as the local pharmacy were offering free ones.

After copious nagging and most likely just to shut me up, he went; but unfortunately it appeared their test kit was faulty because it gave a stupidly high reading and it was suggested he should visit his GP for a more reliable test.

More nagging and an eventual Doctors visit on that fateful day once again showed a reading so stupidly high that the Dr thought his machine was also broken until DS commented that was exactly what the Pharmacist had said. Dr immediately called an ambulance and sent DS straight to hospital, do not pass go, do not stop to collect your belongings. I had a call from the surgery instructing me to pack a bag for him and meet him at the ward.

After several days in hospital to stabilise his blood numbers and a place in Diabetic history as having the highest numbers ever seen by the GP (36). My hubby returned home a Type 1, Adult onset, Diabetic and had to over-come his fear of needles PDQ.

Roll on January 2005 when he was un-ceremoniously made redundant from his job and spent the next 5 months unemployed and struggling to cope with ‘Shooting-up’ (as he likes to say in public) 4 times a day. I could see depression creeping up on him like Stephen King’s ‘The Mist’. The redundancy money disappeared quicker than a fart in a fan factory and we ended up having to borrow a LOT to survive. It put a HUGE strain on our marriage as I was obviously not working and........

Ryan was having issues settling into Playgroup, was diagnosed as asthmatic in January 2005 and began taking pumps. I also began to believe that certain E numbers were triggering behavioural issues in him. We also began having problems on the once nice estate that we lived on, drugs and crime were on the increase and we didn’t much enjoy the, although free, races on the streets, burnt out stolen cars and regular fly-overs from the Police Helicopters. Things were getting so bad, the local council dug up the park opposite our house and created large mounds in an attempt to stop the racing and car dumping. It didn’t work, it just became an off road track instead.

We didn't want our children growing up in this environment and decided it was time for change, a fresh start. We chose to move to the beautiful rural Welsh Amman Valley for a piece of the good life and that’s where the fun really began.

The boys started in the local Welsh language primary school. We were offered lots of support and help to settle the boys into an alien environment with a totally unfamiliar foreign language, that Ryan still to this day refers to as gobbledygook. Almost immediately my eldest son simply thrived once again although he did suffer a little bullying for ‘Being English’. Ryan however was classed a ‘Busy child’ (recognise the term?). Can’t sit still, He’s an outdoors child, Brain seems to be very bright and active, but going a a rather faster pace than everyone else; are all terms that have been used to describe Ryan and little did we know the welcome that truly lay ahead as we battled for Ryan's increasing additional needs.

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